United Overseas Bank / UOB Bank
Reviews and Complaints

Hi, my name is liew kian hoe. This is the 2nd time I am writing to uob about your credit services. I receive a phone call to change my platinum
Visa card to prvi miles card. And I distinctively requested 2 times to uob card center, not to immediately de-activate my platinum visa card and give me 1 month grace period to ensure the new card can transact properly.
My platinum card was de-activated before I receive my new card.
Now that I received my new card, I was told that the last month credit was transfer to the new card, (Which is very stupid) and due to some processing problem that uob has in the new card, I need to clear my last month credit as I reach my credit limit now.
Which would not have happen if I was given a 1 month grace period for my platinum visa card.
Hope someone in the management in the correct level can resolve this stupidity.
Have a nice day.

First incident: not sure of the date called to check the status of my online uob account and credit card application. The customer rep suggested me to contact cpf board so they can submit my financial details (income tax assessment) to uob> this was shocking and when I asked him if he's sure what is he talking he said he gave me wrong piece of info.

Second: opened my account with uob finally after walking to the raffles city branch on sunday 3 weeks ago. Managed to open my account and submission for credit card put in, next week I called the bank official to check the status and was told he will get back to me. Today I called the hotline and credit card dept rep shocked me again by saying my account is under review. I asked is he talking about credit card or account. He said it is my whole account under review. When I cross checked with him asking few question he transferred my call to account dept who refuted the information saying my account is very much operational. And to check the status of my cc application the lady transferred my call back to cc dept where a lady name ammeta informed me my cc application is cancelled by previous rep at 4.41pm 6th dec 2016.

At this point of time I am so upset and so wanted to end all my ties with uob. Please assure this won't happen to any other client of uob.

I sold my flat and got some lump cash. I placed an fd of $20k for 6 months and went to usa the next day. I had over spent my money in savings account as I had withdrew it from atm in us.

Planning for a better future I plan to use my fd as 2nd chance. More than a month before maturity I called uob to instruct that they put my fd into savings account.
Unfortunately, uob claim that I had "borrowed" the money. So I cannot have my money which I placed in the bank.

After miserable investigation I realized what happened. I had given to my sister an atm card and pin to run arrands, pay bills etc while I was not in singapore. She also to open my letters. Three months before maturity of fd, my sister and I talked, I agreed to give her a huge loan for renovation cost of her new flat. I said "later when I have back my fd". I also said I will have uob send cheque or cashier order. Great surprise for her that uob decided to send an approved loan chque of $15, 300. This is without my knowledge, request, approval. My sister see it as "this is it" the loan for her so she bank into my atm and withdraw for renovation. She did not know that I had a difficult situation, had used up my other money, etc.

So I could not have excess to my money, which I had wanted to use some first and then instruct uob to issue cheque so my sister can have it as loan from me. But situation change unexpectedly that I got confused, miserable, shocked, and although my sister paid bank and myself gradually, I failed. My ambition to study, learn driving, get a used car, etc had broken to pieces. Again my money, the 2nd chance I hope, fell into drain of miscalculation and unnecessary spending, etc. I acknowledge my mistakes include use uob, and gave an atm card of another bank and pin to my sister.

Bottomline is the unacceptable fact that uob mailed a loan cheque without my knowledge when I am about to have my own money. Uob cause my ambition to fail and great embarrassment for me as I had to talk to my family about my personal problems.

Uob never feel sorry or admit wrong for sending me a huge cheque when I never request it, or even immagine it. They blame me and my sister for the misunderstanding.

Sadly, uob acted arrogantly, and mas never care, as they approved the practice. Alternative way to sell loan, overcoming dnc law. This happen few years ago. I blame my failure to uob, but uob refuse to pay me any compensation. The arrogant rich people in singapore also never understand the pain that I went through.

Senior singaporean

The irs is requiring that I provide bank statements from my uob singapore bank account from july 2005 to present. I contacted uob bank and they want to charge me $3860.00 plus postage for these past statements. This a crazy fee for this request especially when all of this information is in their data base and all they have to do is pull it up. Once the statements have been provided, I am closing my uob account and my companies uob account and moving to another bank.

I lost my credit card at shopping centre. Before I call the bank for block the credit card, there was one transaction went through. I only notice when I saw monthly statement. Now I call the bank for verify with merchant for who use my credit card. Are there find who use my credit card and give punishment? How far the investigation going on?

To global uob team,

Appreciate if you can assist to look into this case and revert to me.

I have received my statement last week which asking me to make the payment to my credit cards statement. After looking at the detail of the statement, I found that uob charged the uob master card which was supposed to be cancelled by uob few years back. I have never used this card before and wondering why there is charges occurs. I have call the hotline clarify on the account, then the officer started to threaten me.

Below is the detail of the conversation:

21-august-2010
- call to uob hotline and spoke to a lady named rebecca kong (Employee id: 43330). (Rebecca’s tone was very rude)
- I have informed her that I have never used this card and this is supposed to cancel long time ago as I have requested it few years back.
- rebecca responded to me that cancelling the master card has to go to the branch. (Could not explain why can’t I cancel via phone)
- I have told her that it is not possible as I do not want to take a day off to just handle this issue. (She insisted me to go to the branch)
- I have also informed her that why it is not so much hassle when I applied the card, but it is so trouble when I want to cancelled.
- she claimed that this is process and policy.
- she also threaten me that I will be charged for $270 as annual fees if I do not keep my master card. (Start threaten me by charging me more fees)
- she also insisted me to either go to the branch to cancel the card and nothing much she can do.
- I asked her whether there is any supervisor / manager on duty. She told me that there is no supervisor working during the weekend. (Curious: such a big call centre, and no manager/supervisor is available)
- she claimed that nothing much she can do
- I requested her to get the supervisor to call me on monday

22-august-2010
- a lady from uob called me claimed that she can only do the cancellation on my master but not visa. (I doubt that she is the supervisor, and she spoke fast like machine gun)
- I asked her why? She said that this is policy and cannot do anything about it.
- I have then requested her to drop me an email with the detail. She promised me that will send it to me by 23-aug-2010. (I do not receive her email at all)

All I request is to cancel my uob credit cards as I am very upset about the services provided. Why would uob bank doing so much hanky-panky things to retain the customer? Is this the way uob retains the customer by providing hassle cancellation process to customer? My family business has been using uob premier banking services for more than 20 years, I guess it is time to consider in switching to other bank as such worst customer experiences and services may impact our confidence to uob bank.

Few concern I have on my mind which I doubt that uob did really fulfill the banking policy:
1. Why my master card did not get cancelled in few years back?
2. Why uob wants to charge customer additional $270 when customer wants to cancel the card?
3. Why uob is using threaten tactic in retaining customer?
4. Why there is no supervisor on duty during the weekend?
5. Why uob did not send me email as promised?
6. Why the officer was so rude to the customer?
7. Why uob simply charge me the government tax on the card which I have already cancelled long time ago?

I will recount my recent experience (as well as my friend's) dealing with this bank in general and not write in detail, that's to say some dates may not be exact, other details are deliberately left out for privacy reasons etc.

On 27 Dec 2009 while reviewing my UOB credit card statements via internet banking I realised, to my horror (as to why I will come to that later), that the statement date of my credit card had been changed from the 18th to the 24th, WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR CONSENT. After calling the customer service hotline in vain (it's almost midnight so I did not persist) I wrote an email to the bank demanding an explanation. The bank did not reply, I thought probably it's the festive year end so I decided to wait.

One week later, on 3 Jan 2010, I called customer service and related the whole incident, explaining that by changing the statement date from 18 to 24, I would be forced to make 2 repayments for my flexi-credit loan linked to the credit card account for the month, since the old cut-off date is 18 and the repayment debit date is 20th so the change of statement date would cause 2 repayments to be due for this month and in effect, the bank will collect the full repayment 1 month earlier than if the bank stuck with the old statement date. For example, if the first repayment was on 18 June 2009 (due 08 July) and final repayment would be on 18 May 2011 (due 08 June), the change of statement date from 18th to 24th Dec 2009 will cause me to make 2 repayments for the month which are due on 13 Jan 2010, and the bank will collect the final repayment by 13th May 2011, as opposed to 8 June 2011 under the old statement date of 18th. The bank has done me an injustice yet when I called the bank to seek advice/help all I was told is 'there's nothing that can be done by the bank'!

So after hanging up the phone, I immediately wrote a lengthy email to the bank demanding a full-on investigation and a satisfactory answer. The next day in the evening, I received a 66300 SMS "UOB: In order to better communicate to all VOX cardmembers, we have consolidated your statement date from 18th to 24th. TQ!" Seriously, I haven't got the faintest idea what that SMS was supposed to mean and how it had anything to do with better communication by means of a change of statement dates. The change only inconvenienced me as a client since I had to fork up more money to make one additional repayment. And it certainly looked like UOB was sending the SMS to me as a way to cover their ### (pardon the language) since I repeatedly asked why the bank did not formally inform me of the change beforehand.

And 2 days later on 6 Jan 2010 I finally received the scripted response from the bank acknowledging the receipt of my email dated 27 Dec 2009 and 3 Jan 2010, with the usual PR and politically correct stuff written in seeking my understanding, patience and whatnot. The Customer Communications Management officer even had the guts to promise to revert as soon as the investigation is completed.

To this date, after almost ONE FULL MONTH, at the time of writing i.e. 2 Feb 2010, the bank has not responded still, despite the fact that I wrote another email on 29 Jan 2010 checking on the status of the investigation.

What the hell is wrong with this bank? I only wanted a justification from the bank, perhaps a formal letter of apology will suffice. It's not about money and I did not even ask the bank to have the statement state reverted to 18th. It's about respect for customers' rights, about what's fair and right, that's it.