Credit Card **** or just very bad service ?

<p>Yesterday there was a post by Chava-anurag. I have exactly the same situation. More than a month ago I received a sales call from ABSA to apply for a credit card. I was immediatly approved and within days the credit card was delivered to my door. I gave all the paper work to their courier as instructed and said it will be active within a few days. I did not happen, I was then told to email the paperwork which I did. One month later the card is still not activated and I spend a lot of money calling your call centre just to get a "I will escalate it to my supervisor" and NOBODY every gets back to me. I tried using your online web service and I get a reference number but nobody gets back to you<br /><br />IN THE MEAN TIME... ABSA is sending me statement billing me services charges for a product I don't have. I did not ask to apply for a Credit Card, I was sold on it. Reading Chava-anurag post make me wonder. Is ABSA doind this just to somehow get R160 or more out of people and then withdraw the approval but still make you pay the bank charges. I can imagine many many people don't have the time to go through all the red tape to cancel the card and subsequently have to pay services fees for an account they don't have.....<br /><br />I was surprised to read yesterday that I'm not the only person who has a problem with their "FICA" department. So is this just ABSA not being able to give service or a **** to collect banking fees from customers but not really giving them credit.<br /><br />I don't think I should pay the R25 service charges of last month since I don't have a card. I don't think you should bill your customers until the card is activated. This goes directly against the consumer protection act where you cannot ask people money for a product you did not deliver. I think ABSA should be investigated to see how many cases likes this are out there.<br /><br />I accept that many small businesses may try and take me for a ride because they are deperate and need to pay school fees etc, but for big powerful banks to milk innocent people... That would be dispicable. I hope I'm wrong, and you simply need to work on your service levels.</p>