I have been an ardent customer of GTB for the past 8yrs and enjoyed their mode of services until recently. I use to read comments (even here on Nairaland) about how they are over-rated and refused to agree to it until recently esp in the area of their online banking services.

I received some money from a relative who resides in the United States via Western Union and i set off to the bank with the personal details he gave me for identification and collection. At first i wanted to collect the money thru the Western Union via First Bank but on second thought changed my mind to make use of my bank GTB so could easily transfer the funds directly into my account.

I whistled my way into the banking hall and walked straight to the part of the counter that had a sign dangling from the top with the inscription "Receive Western Union Payments Here" and told the lady saw there my mission but to my dismay, she said that they don't pay western union anymore physically across the counter. she inquired whether i was a customer of GTB of which i gave an affirmative and then she suggested i do the whole thing right from the internet banking.

I just nodded and was quite disappointed because i needed the money in my account right away in order to take care of some urgent issues but i had no choice since it was already some minutes to 4pm and judging that it was late to get to another bank.

So i decided to make use of the ibanking facility and quickly browsed my way to their app on Google Playstore on my Handheld. After downloading and installing the app, i was face to face with the interface where i was to log in but suddenly remembered that i had forgotten my ID and Password. I remembered i was furnished with those details on the day i was issued a token for internet banking and it comprised of some long digits as the user id which i could not remember because the token was issued sometime last year and i had never run into a circumstance where i needed to make use of it while doing my online purchases in the internet.
I walked over to the customer care rep and told her i wanted to retrieve my info and there was no place on the app that gives an option to recover it. She tossed a form to me asking me to fill it which i complied to and i handed the form back to her. She casually told me that i should retry login in after 3 hrs and i would receive the link on where to recover my password (INSTEAD OF JUST INSTRUCTING ME TO SIMPLY MAKE USE OF THAT THEIR TABLE PHONE IN THE BANKING HALL TO CALL THE MAIN CUSTOMER CARE REPs TO ASSIST ME)

Fast forward to about 8 hours later at home (I decided to give them more time) i tried to login into the internet banking facility and the "Enter your USER ID" and "Password" interface kept staring at me in the face while the so-called retrieve password link was conspicuously absent.

It was then that i realized that the lady who gave me that instruction to wait for 3 hrs was a dummy and i was somewhat a bigger dummy not to have thought of the impossibility for the IT Guys behind the IBanking to magically discern that there was someone like me who will try to login from my device at so-so time so as to make sure i get a link. CHAI!

I had no other option than to call the customer care number i saw on their website and gave it a go. The number connected and i was given instructions by an automated machine to follow some prompts which i did and after about 5 mins later, i was talking to one of their customer rep. I told him my problem and he asked me some personal questions which are connected to my account which i provided the correct answers to he gave me the user ID which was a combination of my former account number before the new one was issued by the CBN. he also said he was going to forward me to an automated machine so that i can type the ID he provided in order to reset my password. I waited and about a minute later, i heard the voice of the machine instructing me to type the 14 Digit number followed by the Hash (#) key. The annoying thing about the machine was that the time frame it gave for typing the long digits was too short...Just a mere 3 or 4 seconds then it would say, "You have either typed the wrong key or did not respond to the instruction and then it would hang up only for me to call again and another customer care rep would pick and start the process of Question and Answer to verify my identity and then connect me to the evil automated machine..a process that would take about 4-6mins of call time: REMEMBER THAT IT IS NOT MY NETWORK PROVIDER CC I AM TALKING ABOUT IN WHICH THE CALL WOULD HAVE BEEN FREE BUT GTB CUSTOMER CARE OF WHICH MY NETWORK PROVIDER WAS CHARGING ME FOR THE CALLS.

After trying the whole thing about 4 to 5 times without any luck and with my drained up airtime, i just sat there thinking of my life! Until i just remembered that when it came to passwords that were numeric, i usually used a combination of numbers from my dad's former car plate number. So with my fingers crossed, i typed the ID that i managed to retrieve from them and typed in the numbers on the password field...GBAM! I had successfully logged in! Hurray Now i could get my Western Union Funds into my account or so i thought...

I took time to get familiarized with the control panel or rather the account dashboard so after a long try, i saw the option that said "Receive Western Union"...i happily clicked on it and it asked for my token code which i immediately generated and i came face to face with the form where i had to type in the details like the MTCN Number, the name of the payee and all that. Then with a big grin, i clicked on submit and was rubbing my palms in anticipation to see $$$$ but to my disappointment, i saw a page telling me error..could not connect to https://ibanking.gtbank.com/blah-blah-blah/confirm.aspx
"This must be a network ish",I thought to myself so i tried it again and again and again but still got the same result! Conclusion: The page was dead!!
Just almost immediately, my younger sister came visiting saying she needed some money to get something we discussed about the previous day. The problem was that i did not have the amount required of her in the house and the nearest ATM was very far and she needed to get the item first thing in the morning by 7am.

And like a proud peacock, i told her that she should not worry, i would simply transfer the money into her Diamond Bank account from my own account instantly right here in my living room. If una see the way i keep face as i dey talk...i made it look like having a GTB Account was the coolest thing on earth!

I scrolled down to the ibank page and located the "Transfer Funds Locally" and selected the "Transfer to another Bank Account" option. I filled the form with every information needed and her own account details which she provided and clicked the Submit button and to my dismay, the error page exactly the one that displayed during the Western Union greeted my computer screen. I wanted to save face by running to my Tab for succor...maybe the GTB App would help since all my attempts on the computer failed but i still got the error message in form of a pop-up. Embarassing!

Since the item she wanted to pick up was of immense importance to both of us, we resorted on calling the guy to keep it for her so that while she goes to collect it, i would rush to an ATM and make the withdrawal. But remember, GTB Customer Care line had already drained my airtime.

So i remembered that i saw a part on the online banking dashboard where one can recharge his/her line and so i leaped again. Logged in cos it had already logged me out and clicked on the "Recharge Airtime" link...a decision which i regret taking! After i typed in my phone number and scrolled to my network provider option, i typed in the amount...since it was almost 11pm, i thought of calling my cousin who sent the cash from the US to notify him of my inability to get it via my bank so i decided to recharge heavily. I typed in N3,000 and the money was instantly debited from my account but up till this very moment while you are reading this, i am yet to get the airtime on my phone. I waited till 12 midnight, 1 am, 2am...dozed off...woke up with a flash by 5am to see if my phone was recharged but didn't see any message from GTB or Etisalat...checked my account balance just to be sure but my airtime was N0.70k!

I had to go to their facebook page to complain since i did not want to burn airtime again but on opening their facebook page, i saw numerous complaints and complaints. That was when i knew that something was wrong. Is the once admired GTB performance decline as a result of the death of their former MD or is it a case of irresponsibility and mismanagement? If they had merged with any bank during the recapitalization era, I would have said that it could be the reason for this change in their mode of operation. Right now, i am thinking of moving to another bank but don't even know whether i may jump from frying pan to fire. It's so unfortunate that there are no laws or punitive measures from the govt to checkmate this kind of discrepancy from financial and private institutions like our inefficient network providers and banks like these.

Below are screenshots i got from facebook from other customers who were lamenting! One of them even had her money swiped off from her account after she had given one of the Customer Care Reps her details in an Online Chat on their Website and the Facebook Administrator's replies are just consistent and annoying

GTB...Guarantee Trust Trouble Bank

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Na wa ooo