This page is a forum for users of the Caisse Populaire Desjardins,to give them a place to report on the dark side of an institution which claims to support small businesses and Quebecois individuals.  It is not intended to, and will not tolerate, unwarrented slander or ficticious reports.  It is instead about giving people a chance to speak their minds.  "Sharing good and bad experiences has proven to be THE BEST WAY to improve" any organization's  effectiveness.  So, to effect a change for the better, a change in the service and attitude projected by a Caisse that is supposed to be responsive to the needs of its customers and shareholders, add your voice to the ever growing list below.    Click here to view how this works.

Here is one man's story about trying to open a business account.

For the last 8 years I have lived in Quebec.  I have placed my pay in Desjardins accounts and I have diligently paid back our family's Desjardins Visa account.  I had such a good record that I was easily granted a loan last year with a branch of the Caisse in Oka, where I was living at the time.

But both my wife and I work as teachers.  If you know anything about teachers' salaries in Quebec you know that we are the lowest paid teachers in Canada, and could increase our salaries by as much as 17, 000 dollars a year by just crossing the border to work in Ontario.   But my wife and I, who love life in Quebec,  chose another alternative.

Instead, we decided to try to better support my family by starting a business.  I decided to create a web page design business, and actually find a way to pay those loans quicker, to put more money into my Desjardins account, or so I thought.  You see, the Caisse Populaire Desjardins decided not to allow me to open a commercial bank account.  And so, this is my story.

Apparently, over the last year, on one or two occasions over a period of 8 years, there was, accidentally,
"insufficient funds" to cover a cheque or payment!    (Has that ever happened to you?)  Well, these were my thoughts, "What?  Are you serious?  Apparently, apart from making about 300 payments and deposits of various sorts to Desjardins Visa, to my two Desjardin joint accounts, and to Desjardins itself for my loan, over the last 8 years, I have at one time or another in the last difficult year possessed insufficient funds to make a payment!  And so, that is why you are denying me an account for my new business?"

Let me try to figure this out.   Now the Caisse Populaire du Quebec, or perhaps it's just the Branch in Notre Dame de Grace,  won't permit me to open another account with them, won't permit me to lend them more money in effect, for isn't that what opening an account really is?   To give them a chance, absolutely risk free, to hold onto my company's money, even to have the right to hold a cheque until it passes if they like, before allowing me to draw from the account!  This is what I was prepared to do  for them wasn't it?  But they weren't prepared to let me even have a place to cash a cheque written to my company!  So that I could start up my company !  So that I could make money to pay back the loan I owed them ?!

I am a bit confused.  Was I asking for another loan?  No.  Was I asking for immediate access to a payment made by a client?  No.   Do I have such a bad credit rating, for having had insufficient funds a few times over a much longer period of 8 years of prompt payments, that the cheques of my clients, even after they have passed, are somehow not good enough to be put in their bank?

In effect, my solution to my own financial problems and to trying to survive as a teacher (at the school where I work almost half the staff have part-time jobs or other investments to top off their income and make their mortgage payments) was to open a business, to make money for myself and my family, and my bank!    But the manager at the Caisse Populaire de Notre Dame de Grace on Decarie Avenue in Montreal decided that he wouldn't let me lend his bank my money!

You know, at times like these, most people would say,

"Deposit elsewhere.  Open your bank account somewhere where people believe in a person's potential to create new wealth in a province he loves."

Well, I guess that is just what I am going to do. .

Here is another story

A few months ago I was stranded in Ormstown, Quebec, in the cold, with my three year old  in the back of my car.  I had no gas, but I had 100 dollars in my bank account. However, when I tried to take it out to pay for gas, my account was frozen.  My caisse Populaire account had been frozen because they wanted to get my attention !  Yes, this is how they operate.

The account in question was a second account, which I rarely used but which I often access by internet to transfer funds into it and out of it in order to pay my Desjardins loan and to keep small amounts of funds in case of emergencies.  And since the account was not used often I had neglected to change my address after I had moved.

Well, in order to get me to come in and send my new address, Desjardins just froze my account, even though I had been using it regularly and did not owe anything out of this account.  (Wait, isn't that my money they just froze?) Oh, it got my attention.  My money was denied to me, and my son and I spent the afternoon begging for money from people I hardly knew, just to get back into Montreal. 

When I got home I found that Desjardins had also closed my internet access to that account as well, meaning that I could not move the funds to my main account for which the card still worked.   And, did I tell you this happened over the weekend, when I couldn't possibly contact them to see what was going on?  Oh, and did I also tell you that when I did call them they claimed it was my fault, and  that I must have badly keyed in my code at a machine/   And finally, did I mention that it took a week before anyone at my Caisse actually figured out why the account was closed ?!
 

It is interesting to see that others have had problems of such a personal nature with the Caisse. I am an artist, a working artist who makes a good living selling pottery from a shop in my house. I have paid my debts carefully and on time, I have saved enough to buy a house, and now own a car which I paid off solely through my work as a seller of pottery. This month I tried to get a small 2000 dollar loan from my local Caisse to expand my shop With only a good history of making car and house payments over the last ten years I thought I would easily qualify for a loan, but I was wrong. I was refused. I guess art is not a secure investment for a Quebecois institution like the Caisse. No wonder our culture is in decline. 
 
 

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