ABSA Charged Me to Pay My Own Instalment Manually, then Penalised My Credit Score

I have financed two vehicles through ABSA without issue - until January 2022. The bank did not debit my account on the 1st of January 2022 as it was a public holiday. Unlike other finance providers or financial organisations that debit from my account each month, ABSA did not notify me of this, or arrange for a debit order on the 2nd of January to rectify the issue. Instead, they let my account go unpaid.

Despite having both my cell phone number and email address on file, the bank neither emailed nor SMSed me to notify me of the problem. Instead, they repeatedly try to call me from a number marked as SPAM. I eventually answered one of these calls when they phoned outside of working hours, as it is my prerogative to answer my cell phone or not. As stated previously, the bank had both my email address and cell phone number but did not reach out via written means.

At the end of January, I arranged for a debit order to be taken to catch up the missing vehicle instalment. This debit order failed, as the bank failed to notify me that the amount to be debited was going to be higher than my normal instalment, as they were charging me interest, and thus my bank account did not have sufficient funds.

Now, over a week in to February, I have had to back-pay the missing instalment manually, plus almost R100 in interest - for what I feel is an admin error on the bank's side.

I will now have this marked against my otherwise perfect credit score. Never before has a single instalment ever been missed for either vehicle I have financed with ABSA. Until now, until their own stupid mistake.

When expressing my frustrations and disbelief, I was told that "This is not a fight I'm going to win against the bank". I have had the worst experience of a bank in my life, and their standards are just another poor reflection of the toilet South Africa's standards are going down.