Terrible 'bank', abysmal service and liable to literally hold your money hostage.
Everything was fine until I had my bag stolen- At the first opportunity I contacted N26 to inform them and was told that as I had lost both my paired device and phone number I would need to complete another verification call to regain access to my account. A couple of weeks later (I had to wait to obtain new ID to complete the process), I completed video verification successfully and immediately regained access without any issues. 

A few hours later I was locked out of my account with no explanation from N26 about what was happening. This happened on a Friday afternoon so I tried contacting them a few times and eventually decided to wait a little as I was confident it would soon be resolved. I was wrong. The following week was spent desperately trying to get answers from chat support. 
Though I was a premium customer, I could not contact them on the phone and kept asking for someone to give me a call so I could try to speak to someone about what was going on. Not only did they refuse to contact me but then agents took to lying to me about what was going on and when I could expect to hear from someone about my account. On one occasion I was even given a falsified 'callback code' and told someone would contact me within 24 hours. On another occasion I was told to have a little more patience and assured someone would be in touch by the end of the day. On another occasion I was asked to email about the issue which I did immediately-  to this day I have never received a response to that email or many of the others I sent in increasing desperation, as I tried to access my account or at the very least the money that was in it. 

Finally, 10 days after being locked out of my account, at 5pm on a Monday, I received an email informing me that my account was being cancelled in accordance with a section of the terms and conditions that literally did not exist. I had not done anything wrong- the only transactions I had completed were transfers to and from an account in my home country (UK), rental payments to my landlords in Germany and card payments for basic everyday expenses. In fact one of the very last items on my account before this happened is a salary I received from N26 themselves- yes that's right I am actually a former employee (though I opened the account before I actually worked with them). That means in this instance not only have they treated me appallingly as a customer but as an employer they are essentially withholding money that I earned legally and fairly under a section of the terms and conditions that nobody is able to properly cite, let alone explain. 

Anytime I try to follow up I am given niceties without action which I think most of us can agree is not helpful when you are experiencing financial hardship BECAUSE of an institution. As a result of all this I am now at risk of homelessness; unable to pay for health insurance, content insurance or legal insurance- because all of these things were tied to my account- and have even had to borrow money for food because I have no access to my own money or account. The account was also my only one in Germany, so now I am also unable to receive payments from my clients ( I am now a freelancer). 

The most frustrating thing is that all of this is happening for the simple fact that N26 cannot be bothered to implement proper recovery tools and instead find it easier to close an account than to come up with better processes to prevent this from happening. As a former employee, I know for a fact that they simply do not care to work towards improving this situation for their customers and instead hide behind the excuse of carrying out 'regulatory checks'. Other banks (both traditional and those in fintech) are also obliged to carry these out, yet they manage to do so in a fraction of the time because they have prioritised the acquisition of the necessary resources. N26 does not have the resources and though their expansion is rapid they lack integrity and therefore do not care to resolve these issues in a timely manner. 

In the short time I was there I observed a clear culture of distrust and contempt for the customer, systems designed to frustrate, poor data practices, abysmal security and an unwillingness to fix any gaps in their banking processes if it was not directly linked to an increase in their profits. 

As a customer, I now understand something that I strongly suspected but could not quite believe while I worked there- N26 simply do not care about you, your money or your financial security and no amount of pastel colours and targeted advertising will ever be enough to make up for the gaps in their service that create this reality. 

Avoid them like the plague or risk experiencing something similar.