ABSA mistake now my inconvenience and problem.

So after almost 12 years of not dealing with ABSA due to really bad service experiences with them over the years, I thought it was time to give them another chance after all my daughter now banks with them and friends was considering banking investments with them.

And oh am I so disappointed for making that decision and will be sure to tell all that I know about these bad experience yet again. On the 24 March 2023 I decided to open a basic bank account that does not cost an arm and a leg to service as I don't have debit orders or require any fancy banking, I have a travel account with Bidvest for my major serious events. I found they had what I considered at the time to be a lovely supposed to be easy option that would not require me to visit a branch as I could verify the account with biometric data. I was impressed at first very honestly.

Then however came the aftermath, the very next day I got a call to enquire if I would like to move my salary and debit orders to this account and informed the lovely lady that I did not own debit orders thank the Lord above, but I would make sure that the account gets funded immediately. So as promised I made sure that what funds I required was deposited into the account as the card would be delivered in the next 2 to 3 days as per the website and the lovely lady.

Shock and horror prevails as today is the 30th March 2023 and I still have no card and am not able to access the funds sitting in that account. ABSA took it upon themselves to make use of a cellphone number that does NOT belong to me but yet is linked to the profile of this account.

So naturally I try to amend and rectify this online as I had opened the account online so in my world this should be the natural course of action. Apparently not, because several emails and phone calls later I was treated like an idiot told, I need to remove the app reinstall the app switch my phone on and off clear my cache and if this done help email us back. Now all of this while it takes them close to 24 hours to get back to you via email, so never mind me trying to access my funds or my new account, why don't you just be a sitting duck Mrs Richards while I have lunch dinner and whatever else I need to do in between while you sort your **** out that wasn't caused by yourself.

So yet again after all of this! I send another email wait another 24 hours for someone to contact me. Treat me yet again like an idiot that has no clue how a cell phone or banking app works only for the consultant to say "oh wait let me check your profile" Are you Ms or Mrs as I see two profiles, so now I raise my eyebrows as I've been Mrs for almost 30 years already. He then proceeds to inform me there is a CCP hold on my account and wants to run off and place me on hold. Before he goes I insist on knowing what a CCP hold is and he is hesitant to say. I inform him that I have a right to know and he eventually says "he doesn't know" he must find out. So off he goes and I sit on hold for close on to 20 min.

He eventually manages to cut me off, and called me back to advise that after all of this I need to go into the branch to remove the CCP hold. Again I ask, but what is the hold and for what reason do I now have to go to the branch. What documents am I going to need why do I have to do this if my account was biometrically verified and all he can say is " He can't clear the error the branch needs to do this"

Now this is a mistake that was not brought about by me but in fact by ABSA themselves who loaded incorrect data even though I gave them the correct information. I requested to speak to a manager as is my right and I was told that the manager was not able to do anything more than what he could upon my insistence to speak to a manager I was told that he would have to request a manager to call me back as there was none that could help me or available on his floor.

Now ABSA I ask in our current economic climate that can ill afford to lose customers as good business is scares. And we have banks popping up all over so your customer base is shrinking whether you like it or not, do you really feel there is a need to be chasing customers away? Bearing in mind that each customer you annoy or aggravate has the potential to expose you on every single social and general madia platform available to man. And also has the ability to speak to 100 other customers. In my case being even worse as I have direct links to the entertainment industry that has the potential to reach thousands not using social media alone. I really think that banks and service orientated business should start looking at the meak and really poor service they are providing and start considering what potential bad business publicity it's able to expose there business to no matter who the customer is.