Absa ***** Division Promises Refund Twice, but Reneges, and Does Not Answer Their Phonelines

On April 13, 2018 ********** transactions were put through on my Absa credit card. After making five calls to emergency Absa Stop Card Divisions (*****, Internet banking, Credit Card Division etc) to stop my card, after the first R1 ********** transaction had gone through, I managed to stop the credit card. The necessity for the five calls was due to Absa ***** not answering their phones in the first place.

During the time it took to make those phone calls, another much larger ********** transaction went through.

Since the *****, I have phoned Absa ***** multiple times, regarding the refund, but have not been able to get through as they do not answer their lines. I have held on for 10 - 25 minutes each phone call.

After the first ********** R1 transaction, I had numerous OTP’s coming through, by the minute. As mentioned, I called Absa ***** to stop my card. As mentioned, I could not get through, as their lines: just ring.

I have the call records made to stop my card, on my cell phone.

The fifth urgent call I made was to Absa Card, who stopped my card and then put me through to *****, to report the incident. After my waiting at least 10 minutes, finally they answered the call. I reported the case.

As mentioned, due to the time it took to get through to Absa ***** and other emergency numbers, another larger ********** transaction had been put through, and which Absa ***** Division informed me would be refunded, but which was never refunded. Instead they refunded me the R1.

In following this up: Due to the Absa ***** telephone calls unanswered problem, I tried speaking to Absa Credit Card division regarding the promiced refund.

Phoning Absa card division in respect of the *****, has been a nightmare of its own proportion, due to their consultants playing at keeping the caller/client, holding on and passing callers/clients from pillar to post. The last call I made to them, I held on for an entire hour.

Absa made a VERY MINIMAL attempt to phone me about the first R1 “suspicious” transaction, made to Unisa. They let my landline ring for all of three rings before they hung up. This didn’t allow for the time to answer the call at a phone *in the next room*. Subsequently there were multiple OTP’s, for odd amounts, up to R28,400, (which I later found out via internet search, were to dicey open corporates abroad, (one was noted as dissolved). All OTP’s were declined. (Amounts such as R5,735-25; R28,389-50 etc)

Why would Absa, THEN, at THAT time, put through a local online shopping transaction to Zando, whom I had never heard of, prior? I had already declined a OTP iro Zando. Is it likely I’d be doing online shopping at such a time, after declining OTP’s AND of which CLEARLY Absa ***** were aware, by the ‘three rings’ telephone call? My account history doesn’t show a history of online shopping.

I can only deduct that Absa claim to have alerted the card holder, then bombards the customer with OPT’s, and in the midst of this, they put through (a) ********** transaction(s). Once the money is gone, they keep it, by the ‘No Answer Call Policy’, of Absa ***** Division.

Background: The banks established the one-time pin sent to your cellphone as a security measure to protect you from unauthorised payments being made from your account. But that does not absolve the bank of its obligation to act diligently in protecting you. The onus is on the bank to make sure that when it acts on an instruction, the instruction was from you, its client.

Absa Bank has failed definitively in all of the above.

Kindly refund the money, Absa Bank.