ABSA charging bogus fees for no transactions

Last month (February) I received a charge of R2.40 on my credit card for “SMS fees”. This month (March) I received another charge of R1.80 for “SMS fees”. These fees are notification fees for purchases. However, I had not used my credit card this entire year, and have consequently received no SMS notifications.

I telephoned ABSA and I was on the phone for 23 minutes with a woman (I think “Vashi”) to finally tell me she can see the charges for “SMS fees”, but she can also see that I have not used my credit card. Instead of saying “these fees are clearly incorrect” she told me she doesn’t know what the fees are for. She then told me I must email ABSA (***). I was irritated and asked her why she cant tell me, especially since I had been on hold for so long. She did not offer any clarity nor apologise, she just kept saying “I don’t know what the charges are, that’s why Im telling you to email ABSA.” Quite rude.

So I emailed ABSA and explained it to them. A few days later I received a response saying that I need to go into the bank to query these charges. Another person who doesn’t know and sends me off to yet another person. Except now I need to take the time to actually go into a bank to find out why Im being charged transaction fees for an account I haven’t used in months. This is on top of the ridiculous cost of R55 per month which I pay merely to have the account. It is extremely clear that Im being charged “SMS fees” (notification charges) for absolutely nothing. And instead of ABSA admitting this and fixing the problem, theyre dodging it. They make it difficult to sort a problem out so that people drop the issue.

Is this the service Im paying for? ABSA’s fees are VERY high in general, and I pay separate monthly fees for my debit account, credit card, and homeloan account. Why am I paying monthly fees when I receive no help when ABSA makes a mistake? I must run around now even more and try sort out ABSAs bogus charges? I already don’t use my credit card/account. Why would ABSA think I would keep an account when they now charge **** transaction fees on. It’s a ****. I have been unhappy with ABSA for years on their fees and their service. But this is too much. The principal is that theyre charging **** fees and if these small charges come off a lot of accounts it adds up to a nice sum for them.

In addition, I was also charged with a random “admin fee” of R35 out of the blue this month on my debit card. I pay the monthly fee of R115. This R35 is a random amount/change which I dont know anything about. I didn’t even get to asking ABSA about THIS R35 charge because you can only ask the credit card dept. about credit card issues. You cannot ask one person at ABSA about both debit and credit cards. Its ridiculous.

This year I have paid R680 for fees for only my debit account, and credit card, including an additional R115 for ‘keeping’ my Will. R680 so far this YEAR. And that’s excluding my homeloan. ABSA’s fees are beyond ridiculous. So Im charged weird additional fees on both my accounts and I cant even get an answer about one of them. ABSA service is awful.

When Im able to Im going to close my accounts. Im sick of this nonsense. Making a "mistake" is one thing, but refusing to fix it is a totally different thing. These charges must be reversed and I am NOT coming into a branch in my own time to fix your problem. Reverse this and fix it now!