Novo
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Great bank until you need support
I have been a customer of Novo since 2020 and have overall been pleased with them as I find a lot of the features they offer to be very great for a business. However, they are only great for a business if you never have any issue where there is a banking error that you need them to act on. The Novo customer service department/front line representative seems like nothing more than a receptionist that redirects you to the app to submit your issues or provides you with a human touch to repeat their policies over and over to you again. Fine. It's an online bank, it what we signed up for, and understand that's how things work. The point where Novo starts to feel like not a great bank is when the issue you have, such as an issue of being overcharged by a merchant and you need to dispute the charge, that’s when you start to feel how little Novo communicates with you. In my case (which began in May), when I disputed a charge with the bank after the merchant failed to refund a charge that they admitted was done in error. When disputing the charge with Novo, I provided copies of the email exchange between myself and the offending merchant with dialogue that showed where the merchant acknowledged the error on their part, stated they would refund the over charged transaction, and never did, which is what resulted in the dispute process being started with Novo on May 14th. On May 21st, I got an email that said they have “Investigated and validated the dispute and initiated the chargeback process with the merchant.” When I followed up with Novo on June 9th for the status of my issue, I asked to speak with someone in the dispute department for an update on my claim. The customer service told me that there was no way that I could speak to anyone in their dispute department about my claim. I voiced my concern and asked for clarity because I had not gotten any updates on my claim and was unclear why the funds had not been returned to my account if everything had been validated. Accepting that I would not be able to speak to someone in their back-office department, I asked for some type of confirmation of my call that included what we discussed and would allow me to follow up if the funds were not returned. What I received was communication that spoke about their process and a blurb that said "Our disputes team will communicate any necessary information or updates with you." On July 2nd, I reached out to Novo because I had not received any updates from the dispute department and trying to act in good faith by not bogging down the customer service rep with my desire to find out what’s going on, I started by asking to speak with a supervisor. This is where in my 5 years of banking with them, I started to feel concerned. I was told "there are no supervisors for customers to speak with over the phone" and at most they could have someone "email me." Through a bit of back and forth to determine if I was being told there are supervisor or no supervisors to escalate a call to, I acknowledged their "policy" and asked while customers are not able to speak with a supervisor over the phone, are they as customer service reps able to speak with their direct supervisor over the phone. Begrudgingly, they customer service rep said they could. I then asked for the customer service rep to be the proxy between me and their supervisor to ask about my case and why I had not heard anything about my case from something that seemed like a simple solution based on the information I was provided in my initial filing. Returning to the phone, the representative started repeating things that I already knew and then went into their policy length and let me know they “the merchant should be refunding the charge” and “that I needed to be patient. PROBLEM, if the merchant had returned the funds, I would not have initiated a dispute with Novo. I asked for clarity as this merchant had now not returned these funds after 45 days of the overcharged, I’ve not gotten any status updates from Novo since May 21st, and now that it’s clear that unlike traditional banks Novo does not put the funds back in your account until the merchant returns the funds, I asked what do I if the merchant does not return the funds. The summary from the customer service rep was: (1) you just have to wait 120 days for the investigation to finish, (2) we can not give you a projection on when the dispute would be resolved, but it can take up to 120 days, (3) the dispute may resolve faster, but the latest your dispute could be resolved is September 11th. Imagine being out a large amount due to an error that was not something you did and hearing that it would take you 4 months to get that large amount back into your account?!?! Luckily my amount is small, but going through this process with them makes me rethink my loyalty to them. Novo IS great, UNTIL you have a problem.