ABSA Bank / Attention: Aletta Barlow

Admitted, I messed up some vehicle finance installments as I was forced into an unpleasant situation, Covid aside.

A week ago I receive a Whatsapp from what appears to be a repo guy, working for ABSA. Prior to getting in touch with me, he first bugged my family. He identified himself by no more than a first name, stating he is contacting in regard to ABSA and they want their money ASAP! Short and to the point I guess. It was imp**** he was a repo man and I needed to pay 60% of the outstanding immediately or my car would get taken to storage and ABSA would then sell it. I won't get into the detail around this and the Debt collectors act, but perhaps the most astonishing of all of this, was when reaching out to ABSA, or specifically, the lady calling the shots from that side, who goes by the name of Aletta Barlow!!

This debt collector gathered some information and told me, which I have every message for, to contact her as she is the "boss" over them at ABSA, to make an arrangement, so I did just that.

At first, Aletta ignored me, but I was persistent. I quoted the messages directly from her minion at the collecting agency, in my correspondence to her, and she responded eventually stating she didn't make any ruling, and has no mandate to do so. I have the actual email that Aletta Barlow send the collector, making that exact ruling, by the way.

She is flat out lying about this, ignores the variables I personally made sure she got, and brushes me off. She has absolutely less than zero customer skills, and complete disregard for any person, or situation.

I am well aware of the law and my rights. I am also well aware that ABSA is not that shallow to offer zero help. I know ABSA has options available, more than what Aletta Barlow and her minion is trying to force into me. I am not one to be intimidated (going back to the debt collectors act), and she now refuses to give me the contact details of her superior, or anything else that would be happy and willing to help a long standing customer, who also happens to have a good payment track record, apart from the mess things became when Covid tumbled everything in the gutter.

The lack of empathy, understanding, consideration, ************ tactics, flat out lies from Aletta Barlow, is enough to raise brows everywhere.

Now, I respectfully ask for someone else, higher up the chain, and with more customer skills than this lady, to help me! She is most definitely a questionable asset to the company, and while she may have been there for a long period of time, doesn't excuse or give her the right to handle things so unprofessionally. The lies though!! I have actual email and Whatsapp evidence of that.

As she is ignoring me, where can I lodge a formal complaint against her.? As for the collecting agency posing as a repo man without any clear identification and communication steering into legal and judicial, well, I will take that to where I need to take that, too.