Faithful to their bank since years with credit accounts: as a gift of end of the year, they were thanked. It is the case of Jean-Michel, house painter since 2005 and customer of the Agricultural credit since 1987. “I have just received a letter informing me that my account will be enclosed in 60 days, he tells. However, he is super-creditor, with 10,000 or 15,000 euros permanently, and I never had the slightest incident of payment.”

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In its mail, the bank does not give any justification. “She wants that I open an office account, which would cost me money and which I do not need, because I have a microphone-company, not subjected to the VAT”, he learned near the counter from his agency. “As I refused, I was transferred…”, concludes from it.

Pierre Peltre, pensioner, customer of the transatlantic Bank for thirty years, have undergone the same fate. “On my account, there is permanently between 5,000 and 6,000 euros, thanks to small rents which fall every three months, and approximately 300 euros per month of entries and exits, he testifies. One day, I discovered that the bank had taken me expenses of behavior of account of 30 euros per month. By telephone, I asked why. My interlocutor answered me that it was related to an insufficient activity of my account, and that they would be removed if I opened a booklet A.I said to him that they all were of the robbers. It retorted me: in this case one awaits that you enclose your account, which I did.”

Rene Iglesias, customer of the Agricultural credit for thirty years, has been requested to change bank, him too. “That made a long time that my agency tans me so that I take a credit card, for which I do not require, because the accounts - checks are enough for me, he tells. I ended up saying yes when she proposed to me to refund it completely, in 2002. I forced myself with me to be useful about it, and to make less accounts - checks, until 2009. But this year, the agency me refunded only 20 euros, and not 34.90 euros. As I disputed this decision, it sent to me in recommended a letter informing me that my account and my booklets would be enclosed in 45 days. I asked for a deadline of one month and half, time to find another bank, and to transfer transfers and taking away to it, but he was refused to me.”

In a letter of December 3rd, 2009, it responsible “listening customer quality” for the regional Case of the Agricultural credit of the Center-Loire explains to Mr. Iglesias: “We note with regret (...) that your relationship to the Agricultural credit is not based any more on confidence and is not thus constructive any more for the two parts.” It reproaches him, indeed, “for regularly disputing” the cost of the services.

The grousers seem to be particularly in the collimator of the banks. Muriel Pear tree, his sister and his mother made the bitter experiment of it: they have just been gotten rid of CIC, where they had their accounts since 2000. “We disputed the fact that the bank operated a seizure on the handicapped allowance of my mother, whereas this service, which constitutes its only income, is imperceptible. We asked the mediator of the CIC to intervene. We did not even obtain an answer”, explains Muriel, swimming instructor.

Questioned by Le Monde, the French banking Federation (FBF) is not able to say if this kind of end of account is frequent. “It is the first time that I hear of that”, declares its director of information, Colette Cova. However, certain consumers' associations have standard letters for the customers who are victims. Because the banks have, like the customers, the right to break the convention of account. No recourse is possible. But they must respect a notice.

“The time suggested by the charter of the basic banking services is from 30 to 45 minimum days. This time must make it possible to the banker to have a discussion with the customer”, explains the academic Thierry Bonneau, in banking Droit, the reference book of the FBF. None the people questioned by Le Monde however was entitled to a maintenance.

Difficult to estimate the number of credit customers thanked by their banks. In Banque de France, it is specified that these cases do not enter the statistics. The French Association of the users of banks (AFUB) indicates that it recorded 500 complaints and testimonies in 2009. “For six months, one has witnessed a recrudescence of the phenomenon, with 50 complaints on our Internet site in December, declares Serge Maître, the general secretary of the AFUB. There was a wave of authoritative fences in the years 1990: the banks threw the people at the risks then. From now on, they sanction the customers who do not answer their requests and refuse the exaggerated sale of banking services. It is about a new marketing policy, which turns the back on engagement that they took in 1992 near the public authorities not to proceed more in a brutal way to ends of accounts.”