An economics student from Rotterdam has made a formal complaint against ING after receiving a misdirected email describing him as the ‘crook from Curacao’.

The 23-year-old, named only as Reedie by the AD, applied for a work experience place at the bank and had an interview with the bank’s lease department.

But after an exchange of emails, he received an internal mail which stated: ‘The crook from Curacao might want to come today at 15.00. Are you in?’.

Joke

The student went to the bank’s Rotterdam hq but after waiting too long to be helped, decided to report the issue to the police instead, the AD reports.

On his way there, he was phoned by the sender of the email who described it as ‘a joke’.

Reedie said he plans to press ahead with his complaint. ‘Discrimination is really unacceptable,’ he told the paper. ‘I don’t know this man, he has never met me and still he calls me the crook from Curacao.’

Racism

Rotterdam’s hbo college has also complained to the bank, describing the email as a ‘very blunt form of racism’.

ING has apologised to both the student and the college and offered Reedie an internship, which he has rejected, the AD says.

Last November, an  electronics company in Arnhem hit the headlines after mistakenly sending a rejected job hopeful an email saying he was ‘nothing’ because of his ‘dark colour’.

On Tuesday, new figures from the government’s socio-cultural think-tank SCP showed youngsters with an ethnic minority background are much more likely to be jobless than their white peers with the same qualifications.