ABSA - How can we not help you

ABSA is by far the most useless bank and one of the most useless companies as a whole that I've ever had the unfortunate experience of dealing with, both in my personal and business capacities. I've moved all of my personal accounts away from ABSA several years ago due to their terrible customer service and generally ****py service offerings. Unfortunately, my business account is still at ABSA due to the inconvenience of moving it.

To summarise my latest bad experience with ABSA - I app**** for a credit card and petrol card for my business on 9 April 2018 (my business has been with ABSA for almost 10 years and has always been in good standing with the bank). Both of these were approved. It is now the 26th of May and I have still not received either of these cards, even after several follow-ups with our business banker. I am heading abroad for business on Tuesday (29 May) and needed the business credit card as this would have made my trip much more convenient (thinking that there is no way that the card would not be delivered within 7 weeks).

I understand that they needed us to re-FICA our account to update our details - this was done about a week after applying and the final documentation was sent to us to sign on 11 May (and signed on the same day), which is already a ridiculous time to wait.

Just to put the uselessness of ABSA into perspective, on the same day that I app**** for these cards I app**** for a new passport and a new ID card with the Department of Home Affairs (which themselves are notorious for their bad service). Both of these were delivered within 2 weeks. If your service is worse than that of Home Affairs then you need to start questioning your service and general business approach.

I'm not sure if the problem is incompetence, bad service processes or just generally not caring about customer service at all, but ABSA has really tested my patience and has now pushed me to a point where I literally have no other option but to move to a different bank that actually wants to assist me.