INHUMANE AND CRUEL TREATMENT TOWARDS A PENSIONER

My mom went to Fourways Mall Branch to withdraw Money on the 20/12/2023. She requested to change her daily ATM withdrawal limit in order to withdraw R9k at Enquiries. She was told the Bank doesn't allow her withdrawal of R9K and that they can only give her R5K and revert to her daily limit of R3K. The staff member then accompanied her to the ATM to withdraw R5K and change the limit back to R3K. This is when the Nightmare begun with a Sim Swop done on mama's account where someone begun sending themselves Cashsend transactions. Mama is a senior citizen and has never used any form of electronic bank before. She then called ***** line after establishing that someone had *****ulently performed sim swop on her mobile nr to stop her account. Case Nr was provided by Tintswalo. She was told to go to SAPS and make Affidavit as well as MTN for proof. All the documents were provided as requested. Then Mama went to the Branch to submit the Papers which were sent to ***** Dept on the 09/01/2024. Since then, No one bothered to provide feedback. After 3 weeks she received a call saying there is a delay as the case no. was missing, yet all the information was provided. Since then, mama has been going to the branch and calling the ***** dept with no luck and they kept on telling her that the money has been authorised and that she must wait for the payment to be made. This took 4 months and I decided to accompany Mama to the Branch. Upon arrival Mama sat on the couch as she is an elderly person. The bank staff kept on calling clients from the que until I joined the que for her. According to Mama, the staff would give her a phone to speak to ***** dept without providing any further service to her every time she went to them for follow-up. Today Phumla called ***** dept on her behalf and spoke to Percival who gave us the Payout Confirmation letter and said that the Investigator was busy on a call. To our surprise, the letter is dated 23/01/2024 where the Investigation was finalised – WHICH IS 3 MONTHS AGO! Aaqila called back when we were on the way, and she said the hold-up was with the Payout Dept But promised that the money will be paid within 24 -48 hours. We are just disappointed in the manner which the Banking Staff failed to provide a senior citizen with a proper service. Surely someone could have gone extra mile and followed up on her behalf as she is not fami**** with all the technology. Surely something could have been done considering her 20 years of being an Absa client. There was absolutely no care, ethicality and humanity in how this issue was handled. At the end of the day, Absa is still operating in Africa where we have people from previously disadvantaged background with no one to help them. Surely Absa can do better for our senior citizens and those the previously marginalised. Please do better in being Africanicity and people-centricity.