FICA DEBACLE

<p>In February 2016, my wife and I went through the FICA exercise at the ABSA Tygervalley branch.</p> <p>However, to our horror, we found ourselves at a till point last Monday unable to pay for our groceries.</p> <p> </p> <p>On Tuesday we visited our branch again to enquire about the problem. They were able to download the forms we completed in February but indicated an IT problem was the cause of our account being placed on hold and that we would need to go through the process again. Which we did – taking about 30 minutes.</p> <p> </p> <p>On Thursday, our account was still not active. On enquiring with the branch manager, we were told our FICA was declined due to an error made by the ABSA enquiries staff member completing something in pen on the form. We therefore had to visit the branch again to complete yet another form.</p> <p> </p> <p>It is now 1 week since this debacle started, and we don’t yet have access to our account. </p> <p> </p> <p>As you can imagine, blocking a client from their monies due to an error on the part of the bank for over a week, is beyond anybody’s understanding.</p> <p> </p>