1 reviews | Active since Oct 2025
Account frozen for no reason
The worst banking experience of my life and i regret the day i ever considrerd absa as a bank of choice. Received money from Swaziland to buy some materials here in SA and send them to Swaziland, first batch of these purchases were already made when midway through absa froze my account. From the first phone call i was told my account is frozen on the bases of suspicious activity. haven phoned a couple of times, i was then told to send in the proof of payment for the funds i received which i did. Got a reference number. Would call in only to be told the matter was under investigation, i escalated this matter and got a response that Standard bank Swaziland asked that my account be placed on hold, i quickly phoned the sender of the funds who is someone i know personally and he went to his bank only to be told by Standard bank Swaziland that they don't know what he is talking about and they did not ask absa SA to put a hold on my account. I phoned absa with this information and i was told by absa that the sender needs to go verify the transaction at his bank because it seems he paid me with proceeds of ***** which is absolutely ludacrous and laughable because when i told the sender this, he said absa is not serious becuase he paid from the business account. A well reputable and trusted business and the bank in Swaziland has not sent any information to Absa South africa of any sort. I then sent an email to absa demanding clarity because this back and forth has been dragging on for a month now. A lady by name Victoria called me from Absa SA and even she did not understand what the hold was for but i guess after reading the system notes left by the previous people i had spoken to on the phone quickly jumped to the Standard Bank South Swaziland excuse. I then told her i understand and my sender has been to the bank severally over there and there is absolutely nothing wrong from his side, maybe i should provide them with my sender's contact details so they can call and speak to him, to which the lady answered and said "we cannot call him because he is not an absa client" Which i understood, the most shocking part was yet to unfold as i then requested that in order for me to send this Man bank to the bank to go sort out(Verify) the transaction from his side, can i please have 1) A reference from the communication between Standard Bank Swaziland and Absa SA, which the person can then take to his bank to pin point the matter or 2) If the account is on hold on bases of proceeds of *****, then a case number must exist, can i have the case number so i can ask the sender to go answer that case at his bank. Miraculously, none of the above exists and when i asked her how they could place my account on hold absent the evidences of communication between Absa SA and Standard bank Swaziland, she hung up the phone. She emailed me some 2 hours later claiming the lines were cut and they have contacted Standard Bank South Africa to try and get correspondence from Standard Bank Swaziland to obtain wether or not they should remove the hold on my account. which is laughable because why do i need standard bank south africa to correspond with standard bank swaziland for me to access funds from my absa account?, i then rep**** to her email making the same demands as i did on the phone only this time i also asked for a reference from their communication with standard bank south africa which i can take to any standard bank branch to make follow ups myself, she hasn't rep**** since then. I have sent 2 unanswered emails and no one from the bank is dealing with this. The sender's account is fine as he is transacting as it should but my account is still on hold with no communication from anyone at the bank. This is blatant thievery and i fail to understand how a bank can be so shallow in their approach and have such disregard for her customers. The second part of what i am supposed to purcase has not been purchased and if i were not in school with the sender's son, i'm sure he would think i'm making up stories because everyone i explain this too, including bankers fail to understand the grounds on which my account is been held.
Absa needs to sort this out because i'm not about to take this from them and i will make the world know of this.
