Absa Private Banking Account is less than useless

Given my history with the bank, I thought Absa Private Banking would not be able to surprise me with bad service. But...I was wrong. I need to transfer a large amount of funds from a foreign account to my Absa account, so I did a test transaction to make sure it would work. The funds were received by Absa, but then returned to my foreign account because it could not be allocated. I checked with my foreign bank what the problem was, and they indicated that they had no more information and that I needed to contact Absa.

On Thursday morning I sent a message marked as urgent to my private banker because the issue is time sensitive. It was forwarded to a forex team on the same day (and I was copied) with a request for assistance. This team sent it to another team requesting assistance (with me copied again). The next day (Friday) it was forward to a third team (I wasn't copied) and then to fourth team (copied again).

By Tuesday morning I had not received a response so phoned the general (not Private Clients) Absa forex helpline out of desperation. I received an answer within 5 minutes. There is a R180 minimum limit on incoming foreign transactions and that is why Absa declined the transaction.

On Wednesday afternoon I received a response from my personal banker apologising for the delay and saying the details I used was correct, but "According to our forex team there was no funds received from this overseas bank. You would need to follow up with the overseas bank." So not only was the response slow given that it was an urgent matter, but it was also wrong.

I have yet to figure out what the point of an Private Banking Account is and shall be contacting Absa to downgrade my account.