My mistake was not check the ratings…
My mistake was not check the ratings first.
I could have saved me a lot of time by first checking the reviews. I used to have an account in Erlangen, and moved to Nuremberg a year and some months ago. Most of the operations at the bank can only be done on the branch you open the account, so that's already a big minus, but I thought, ok, that cannot be hard to transfer the account, especially because there is an office near to my new place. I was already not happy with Sparkasse, but I assumed it's easier to transfer the account than to open a new account at a new bank, and having to inform my employer and others about the changes. I went there and they confirmed that it is an easy process but didn't explain it to me. When she started doing it I realised that what they are doing in fact is closing my Erlangen account and opening a new account here. So no transfer. I could have easily done the some process with another bank, and save myself the trouble for the future, to depend on a specific location for more important transactions.
But as I already started it, and they already closed the Erlangen account I went with it.
But now fast forward to today. They changed something to the S-PushTAN app, and now I cannot use the online banking, I cannot transfer money, basically I'm locked out of my account. When I went to them they were nice, but unable to help. The advice I got is to wait for a new update. Also to contact support for the phone and software, as it might be that the phone doesn’t get along with the required security standards for their applications. But the app worked very good before their changes. Also my phone is a S21 Ultra, with the latest update in January 2024 (just a month ago).
And another experiece with them. I needed urgently to take some money out from my account for my wedding. Going to the branch in Nurnberg (at that time my account was in Erlangen) they told me they can only give me 1000 euros in cash. I've tried the ATM, the same problem. Drove quickly to Erlangen to the branch I had the account to, just to find out they close at 16:30, just minutes before I arrived. Tried to get money from that ATM, couldn't anymore because I already reached the 1000 euro limit. So what I did I transfered online money from my sparkasse account to another bank, and use that card, on a sparkasse ATM to get my own money back (with additional fees of course). I guess that should have been the warning I needed to go looking for a better bank.
Anyway, after this experience, and seeing that they don't even bother with other people's experiences I'm happy to find myself another bank.