FINANCIAL NEGLICENCE - ABSA FOURWAYS

Id like to share the experience we had with ABSA FOURWAYS and the fact that a financial institute could not provide us with a call recording of what they said we agreed upon. We consulted at this branch last year , seeking financial advise/guidance on how to settle current Debt with another bank. Bare in mind we went in there completely unaware - and needed the guidance. The consultant proceeded with doing an analysis of current salaries / and debt /followed with living expenses after we explained our financial situation. He then suggested we do a BOND SWAP and register the home at a higher value - the difference will be paid out to us to settle current debt so that we can be debt free. We did explain to him that we already had been very deep in current debt and he advised us it will work. BUT we must move everything over to ABSA first. We have endless comms back and forth on the amount he suggested to after having done our vetting - baring in mind we failed the first application due to affordability - he then suggested he could help us align the documentation to be able to show affordability. We then had to incurred another debt in the form of an overdraft to cover the attorney fees. Mind you non of us qualified for this overdraft as we had outstanding debt , but somehow he made a plan for the qualification of a 60k overdraft. - which the consultant said would be settled upon the registration. We are at the attorney when we noticed the amount on the docs where not the TELEPHONIC agreed amount with the bond consultants (which cannot be provided by ABSA as they don't record calls ), and brought that to her attention - she said to call the bank and resolve this . Which we did the consultant advised not to worry all will be as discussed.

We had no reason to swap a bond in the first place we where happy with our SP at the time. We moved only because it was made to believe we would have financial freedom upon registration -we did the admin and moved all our accounts over to ABSA. The house registered at an amount we never agreed to. Between the consultant at the bank and the attorney there had been a miss communication. Which was never rectified or resolved for us. We now are paying for a bond that is supposed to be at the actual registered amount which never happened and cant settle any of our other debt which has left us in an extremely difficult financial position. We lodged a complaint against the bank and then the Banking ombudsman's who also could not prove that we agreed to an amount at a lower rate. We only moved for the offer that was presented to us - we could have stopped the process but the consultant was convincing enough to us.

This call recording that ABSA is holding against us was the main discussion we had. Had any of the consultants told us that we didn't qualify or what we were doing wouldn't work then we would have stopped the process with immediate effect.

If you are in the process of applying for bonds with ABSA be very careful. This was financial negligence on every level.

I am going to be seeking my rights as a consumer- We will not let this rest. As the banking ombudsman also did not engage us regularly we had to keep calling and following up .