A free independent mediator offers customers another route when a bank complaint fails to resolve a dispute.
When a bank rejects a complaint over a disputed charge, unexplained fee or other problem, customers in Ecuador have another place to go before deciding the matter is hopeless.
Every financial institution supervised by Ecuador’s Superintendency of Banks must have a Defensor del Cliente, or Customer Defender. The defender acts as an independent mediator or conciliator between the customer and the financial institution, and the service is free.
The office is not simply another customer-service department inside the bank. The Superintendency says each financial institution has a Customer Defender who is independent of the institution, and it maintains information allowing users to identify the defender assigned to their bank.
For foreign residents, the system can be especially useful because a disagreement over a credit card, transfer or bank fee can quickly become difficult when the customer is also navigating unfamiliar procedures and financial terminology in Spanish.
The bank gets the first chance
The first step, however, is normally to complain directly to the financial institution. Customers should keep copies of the complaint, the bank’s response, account statements, receipts, emails, screenshots and any other evidence related to the problem.
If the bank does not resolve the issue satisfactorily, the customer can take the case to the institution’s Customer Defender or, depending on the circumstances, to the Superintendency itself.
The Superintendency describes the defender as a facilitator who seeks to resolve conflicts between users and financial institutions. Complaints are submitted in writing, and the customer should identify the disputed transaction or conduct clearly and provide the supporting documents.
A recent case illustrates why the process can matter. A woman whose credit card was stolen said almost $2,000 was charged at a gambling establishment. After disputing the transactions with the bank and conducting her own effort to gather evidence, she eventually went to the Customer Defender. The defender obtained and reviewed additional material, including recordings connected with the case, and the disputed amount was ultimately removed.
That does not mean the defender will automatically side with a customer. The process is designed to examine the dispute and attempt a resolution, not to guarantee that every disputed charge will be reversed.
But it creates a formal escalation route that many customers do not know exists.
Documentation matters
The Superintendency’s guidance also makes clear that customers can take unresolved complaints to the Customer Defender or to the regulator after the financial institution has had an opportunity to respond. The regulator provides complaint forms and information on its website.
That makes recordkeeping important. A telephone call to a bank may be useful at the beginning, but written documentation becomes far more valuable if the disagreement continues. Customers should note dates, names, case numbers and what the bank said it would do.
The public directory is practical rather than theoretical. It lists the name, telephone number, address and official email for the defender assigned to each institution. Banco del Austro, for example, currently has a defender based in Cuenca, making the system directly accessible to customers in the city.
For routine banking problems, most customers will never need the defender. But when a disputed transaction involves hundreds or thousands of dollars, knowing that the bank’s first answer is not necessarily the last can make a substantial difference.
The system gives customers something that is often missing in frustrating financial disputes: a free, formal next step.
My experience is that there is a GENERAL lack of accountability and that nobody is in charge of anything. This comes after me being a reasonably well-known global consultant on customer service quality for 15 or 20 years.
Nobody is accountable and the systems and processes for handling transactions generally stink badly. No one can give good service when the systems don’t work and my guess is that most of us gringos have had “wonderful” experiences with getting our Visas and with banking or airlines or what have you.
CLARO has a great offer on high speed internet but a check with AI finds that their actual service quality gets a LOT of complaints across the social media. I have them for my phone but decided a month ago to go with another vendor (at a higher price!).
Service Sells. When is ONE company in the crowded marketplaces going to step up and retain their customers and their employees and become more profitable? Having a place to complain is NOT going to actually change much, IMHO.