Novel Reviews 185

I opened an account and they asked me to deposit for account activation. I thought it's a legit business and deposited $1,000 to the bank. 10 minutes later they closed my account with this email: "We have closed your Novel account ending with ** due to fraud".

I sent them multiple emails and no one responds. My $1,000 is gone! I think it's Novel Bank who did the fraud here and pocketed our money. Stay well away.

Update: the readers can clearly see this so-called bank has no respect for your privacy and are ready to publish your personal email because you shared your experience with the public. If you were a GDPR compliant business, you should know disclosing customers' email is a breach and will make you legally liable.
More importantly, I have been threatened by their staff to remove this review which is pathetic. This review will stay here till you unfreeze my account and funds.
And finally, talking about being fake, you clearly can see this so-business is buying fake reviews. You can see a lot of "fake positive" reviews with only one review and conveniently this review is for Novel Bank! It's obvious they are all paid reviews created by bots and fake emails. Stop insulting people's intelligence.

I am new at this but I can tell you that the assitance and help from the Team has been extraordianry, very profesional

Novel is good, works like a charm, the only downside is a bit pricy compared to other alternatives

I recently got my account approved at Novel Bank. It was a frustrating experience that I wanted to choose another Bank. However, the customer service representative, Grace Ann Litan, went above and beyond to keep me informed and reassured me throughout the process. She was extremely responsive and clearly showed she cared about my concerns through constant communication. Despite the delay, I appreciate the level of care and communication, and assurance provided by Grace that I can now say the wait was worth it. Thank you, Grace. They need more people like you in customer service worldwide. Don't change that attitude and mindset you have towards the work.

My account was closed on October 2022, with $9767.59 balances on it. When I talk to them (there is a support client named Grace), they said I will get the money after 30 days Via Check. I asked them to send it back to my back account but they said check is the only option. Till than since now, March 1, 2023 I didnt get my money back. Even they never ever reply my emails. They once reply me saying check was send via post, But i talked to postal services it was a lie. I asked them to share postal tracking, since than, they stopped replying. I didn't get my money yet. Anyone can suggest me what Legally I can do to get it? I need help. I am in trouble because they not co-operating at all.
FOLLOW UP : ____
Its almost 26days and still issue was not solved and as usual they keep sending same email they are looking on it. Also they tried to flag my review but thanks trustpilot they verify my documents and deny their appeal.

The support was great and solved my problem quickly. Thank you, Novel.
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I have used them for two months.
They closed my account for not meeting the minimum requirements for the free plan.

I contacted them and offered to meet the requirements, but they insisted on paying their hefty fees to continue using the account.

Now my money is on hold and I don't know if I will get it or not.

Novel's reporting gives us clean financial insights, which has helped us make better business decisions

I recommend 100%. I find them as one of the best online banks .

It absolutly simple and works for everything they promise. Fast and friendly.

Easy to use and does everything I need it for. Great.

I have had no issues with my account so far. The statements have been timely and all transactions were completed within 24 hours.

This bank suddenly closed our account in August 2022 and held all funds. We were told that they will send a check of the funds in the account in 60 days. It is over 6 months now and they stopped responding to emails in November 2022.They have a single person who responds to emails Grace Ann Litan. Our lawyers have contacted their listed address and they have not responded. Avoid this company at all costs.

Grace was very helpful getting my account set up and I love how easy novel is to use. I have issued virtual cards to my team and I use the mobile app to review my transactions. Overall everything is easy to use and works for me

They really are scammers. Seems like the all positive reviews are created by themselves. They held my money in their bank for some so called suspected fraud and never paid. They also didn't reply. They never tell you the rules and then all of a sudden they block your account.

We are business owners from different parts of the world, instead of focusing on the businesses we get stuck with these types of banks and get distracted with these activities.

Novel is one of the bank probably owned by BlueRidge Bank, they did there due diligence at the beginning but still blocked the account only on the basis of 3 transactions. They do not provide any reason or option.

My experience was okay for the first several months after opening an account, but then things became interesting.
1. International USD transfers to USD-denominated UAE bank accounts get converted to AED along the way only to get converted back to USD on the recipient side with the total loss of ~2.5% - total rip off. The first time it happened Novel compensated me the fee and I was assured the issue was now fixed and would never happen again. And as you might have guessed, it did happen the second time I made a transfer and this time there was no compensation. All my emails are now ignored.
2. Novel lured me into purchasing their premium plan for $2k to avoid account closure and effectively stole the money: I was told I must upgrade my current plan because my business is related to cryptocurrency and I won't be allowed to keep using Novel otherwise. There was no option to pay monthly so I had to pay for the whole year. Two days later the plan was still not active due to "technical issues", and the next day they tell me they're closing my account because their policy changed and they will not refund me. So, I paid for a service, didn't receive it, and they won't issue a refund.

Learn from my mistakes, stay away from them!

[UPD] This is a reply to Novel's reply under review - Yes, I'm okay with off-boarding but not okay with not refunding the payment. No, I hadn't been utilising your premium services, you kicked me out the next day after I'd paid for it. And no, the initial currency conversion I've written about didn't happen at the receiving bank. The receiving bank only converted the incoming AED to USD. So you must've used a correspondent bank that converted USD->AED but the recipient can't choose the correspondent bank, can they? It's sender's responsibility.

[UPD2] Why saying the issue with the currency conversion has been fixed and won't happen again? If you hadn't, I wouldn't have tried one more time. By the way, transfers from Mercury to the same bank account went through without any conversions. While I may agree that this issue is only partially your fault, refusing the refund for the premium plan is entirely yours. I would've filed a chargeback if I hadn't been so naive and hadn't used a Novel card to pay for it.
I'm sure you can come up with plenty more excuses, but I'm leaving my review here to warn other potential clients about the kind of service they may receive if they join.