Absa insurance example of ******* customer service

Great, stuff. I rep**** to your email within 30 minutes this morning. The day (and almostbthe week) is over and you have not provided feedback, full well knowing that I have been waiting for Absa for 3 weeks. I contacted your useless call centee again and after 4 hours on the call with them still nothing. No one has the authority to escalate...

Dear Rezona
Thank you for your email that says I must wait for another 3-4 days while you investigate. Do you realize this is the same message I have been complaining about for 3 weeks. Seems as if it is part of a default script. Please actually do somethin that helps. I gave you sufficient details for you to recognise that the claim is stuck waiting for one person to sign of a final as*****t. This is what I understood after another glorious few hours on the phone with your call centre. Why would you need 4 days to get somebody to do their work.......

That doesn't make sense by any stretch of the imagination. same old same old...... lack of customer care.....fix your broken process and make sure it actually factors in the customer.

Dear Rezona. I finally understood why this process took so long. You needed time to figure out how to falsify the original documents from the contractors you yourself sent out for an assessment. You needed time in the words of your assessor to figure out how to save money. In his words "don't replace the broken pool pump, but send it for repairs as it is cheaper. Paint 1 meter of the ceiling on the kitchen as that is the only part that is damaged and assume that its ok because even if it doesn't look normal its cheaper. Remove items claimed from the list without providing reasons and write an ABSA version that ignores those items without providing reasons. Replace pieces of a the three 6 meter polycarb sheets with patched as that is then repaired even if it doesn't look normal or doesn't restore it to original because it is cheaper.

The only process that functions in ABSA in the one that collects monthly premiums. If you even dare delay that you will quickly get the waring that your insurance will not be covered. Ironically seems that that threat is futile as you don't actually do insurance you to restore to original but seem to be doing insurance to save and do shoddy repair work....

I now have the immense pleasure of having to work through your claims dispute process. Based on the lack of processes and or management I can only assume this will work the same. Call every day and ask for outcomes and if someone somewhere decides to do some work I might be lucky to get a response.....

People take note...... This is what you sign up for and who you sign up. No processes,, no customer care, no common sense.

Dear Rezona

Thank you for escalating. I sincerely hope you have a reasonable timeline for dealing with escalations. You have not given any indication of what this means by ABSA standards ( weeks, months, years, never)?
To speed up the investigation from your management please ask you internal assessor Mahmood to provide the original assessments that was done by the 3 different contractors you sent to do the initial assessment. Also ask him to explain why he said to me on the telephone when he assumed I was someone else from Absa internal that the cost is to high and he will find ways to reduce it. When I told him I am the client he cut the call. The outcome of the response you sent me yesterday reflects his intent of reducing cost by all means.... eg: remove claimed items, create estimates for work that is impossible to get done at the cost he us suggesting and insinuate that the property had previous damage that he conjured up without explaining why or how he got to such lies.

Hi Rezona

Your email says case closed, with no further information.
Are you suggesting the only way to deal with ABSA is to now seek legal recourse and hope the SA courts can help?

I double checked your email to make sure I understand you correctly. Your email indeed says case closed. Absa totally ignores all my requests for information or clarification. You have not paid a single cent of the claim. Does that mean you are now refusing to do anything further?

Bo consequences for absolute **** service, bo improvements, just continue *********** people?... case closed.....wow

ABSA management confirms the objective of your insurance company as stated by your internal asessor is to to find ways to cheat customers and reduce claims....

Rezona is probably a robot.... typing the same ******* answer over and over again....

Will share your ******* answers on twitter and Facebook to see if the robot replies the same answer.

People take note there is no sensible emails sent, it's social media lies to ensure that they can con. more victims. They have not responded to a single question. Now they sent a contract company to fix electrical work, but only Absa and the contactor know what they fixing. I asked for details and the contractor says to contact AbSa. I ask Absa and they don't respond. So the insurance company sent someone to fix 1 part of the claim, but I'm not allowed to know what they fixing. They sent another part of the claim to say they pay 50 % of the cost of what they decided to fix on a house that they don't know tha Mahmood their ****** asessor decides he knows better than the owner and work out prices for parts and labour that doesn't exist. Absa and Mahmood can paint 2 quotes of quality paint for R28.00 a square meter, but only you accept the cash, they can't send a supplier to do the work but decides that's what it cost. Absa and Mahmood can replace 3 sheets of 6 meter polycarb sheets for R2000, but only if you take the cash......

4 months later and still no resolution. I keep calling and emailing but your office has not responded to a single query. It seems as if you way of dealing with customers is to ignore them until they get tired of demanding decent service.

I have 5 simple questions:
1) How do you find a problem with an outside step and use that as an excuse to try and justify ignoring claim items. Nothing on the house was changed related to the step. When you did the initial assessment and happily insured the premises you did not mention this as an exception. Now you derive some 50% cost sharing that does not exist anywhere in the contract. Should you not hold your own assessor who did the initial insurance accountable?
2) Ask your assessor Mahmood why he told me that his objective is to make the claim less, instead of doing a fair assessment and looking at the assessment from the same people ABSA sent to do the initial assessment? --
Note to all South Africans -- if ABSA send an assessor by the name of Mahmood to assess something, send him away, his objective is to reduce the cost to ABSA not to handle your claim fairly....
3) How does Rezona answer by saying look at private response from ABSA if ABSA is not responding to any questions. Rezona, please check the last response and see if it makes sense and also note that there has been no communication from ABSA since December... over 4 months... now.

Pravesh, thank you for expediting the response. Your reply states that you will not reply because the matter is now with the insurance ombudsman.
4 months later and this now where we find ourselves.
Dealing with your insurance has been nothing but time-wasting, frustrating, shocking disregard for the customer. Your business model to use assessors who only cares about reducing cost to ABSA instead of restoring what was contracted for is pathetic. To now have to deal with the legal processes of holding you accountable for what we contracted and paid for over 13 years without complaints is what you have demonstrated is at the heart of your business. I will post further updates to this whenever this process unfolds to share how long this next step takes. I can only hope others (existing clients and new prospects) take note of this experience and use the insights to decide whether you are worthy of wasting their money on.

Amazing ******* service..... I have paid for the repairs to the building myself (ironic as this is the main reason people use insurance -- Insurance don't work this way with ABSA, they just take your money and do nothing in 4 months, just keep paying them and all is well. Oh I could also take the risk to leave the building damage and allow the leaks to destroy the building, but then they probably send Mahmood their genius assessor to tell me the damage is because previous damage wasn't repaired.

As for the claim itself ABSA officially indicated that will not communicate at all further as this matter is now with the ombudsman. I am not sure why social media replies and says refer to personal emails. You not allowed to send me personal emails as you only work through layers to cover incompetence and useless service. Don't tell me to look at personal emails, explain to the public how you conjure up stories to reduce the clim so that you can make money as stated by your assessor....

6 months later and the absolute amazing customer service in Absa Insurers view that translates to total and utter ******* for everyone else stands out. The great service from Absa insurance is to deliberately delay every interaction to the maximum.... 3 months to reply and explain their views, request time for further investigations. After they investigated for months....Only objective frustrate customer and delay so much that customer give up on receiving fair treatment and Absa wins and the lesson "don't fight the big ******* industry bully" is learnt. Again, if you still a customer and haven't had to claim (took me 13 years to reach that point and happily paid them their exorbitant rates every month), go learn from my post and all the others, if you are thinking of becoming a customer go read my posts and all the others and choose wisely. If you are buying a house don't let them trick you into taking their insurance, buy making you feel that you have to.... you are not obligated or forced by law to use their insurance service. There are others that is cheaper, better and more customer focused. The time is here where the bullies will soon realize cusomters are connected and share experiences so that staying in business requires customer service.....