Neglect in support for potential future clients

<p>On 15 May I sent the below email to Absa. They rep**** promptly with an apology, stating a case manager would be in contact with me within 8 hours from the time I logged the complaint. As you can tell, it has been 22 days and I am yet to be contacted by the case manager. About a week ago I emailed the customer support again, but never received any reply. The email and my argument follows:</p> <p> </p> <p>"Dear Sir / Madam</p> <p>I have recently (January) opened a student account at Absa as I<br /> started studying at a university this year. As you know, the student<br /> account gives the account holder a R20 meal voucher, 50mb data bundle,<br /> a Nu-Metro movie ticket and a discount on bus tickets each month. My<br /> first grievance is that to redeem these vouchers, one must have loaded<br /> airtime onto your cell phone. The reason this is a problem is that I<br /> like to redeem my 50mb data bundle each month when my existing data<br /> bundle expires. However, then I need to buy airtime from the Absa bank<br /> app, which needs internet access to work, which I do not have since my<br /> data bundle has expired.</p> <p>The second problem I am experiencing is that I am for some reason<br /> never, or very seldom, able to redeem my vouchers. I dial *120*3475#<br /> and follow the process indicated on screen and choose my desired<br /> voucher. I then receive an SMS stating “Thank you for entering. You<br /> will receive an SMS shortly with the details of your voucher.” The<br /> second SMS, however, almost never arrives. This has happened quite<br /> often. I have tried this last week numerous times trying to redeem my<br /> voucher and ended up depleting the airtime I had bought specifically<br /> for this purpose. It has even caused me to not have received my meal<br /> voucher in February. (It should be noted that I contacted Absa support<br /> for this problem and they had stated that they will send an SMS for my<br /> February meal voucher, but that SMS didn’t arrive either.)</p> <p>Recently, Absa bank replaced the Hungry Lion meal voucher with a<br /> Burger King meal voucher, which I redeemed last night (after again<br /> buying airtime) and the voucher code did arrive after some wait.<br /> However, when I arrived at Burger King and tried to redeem the<br /> voucher, their computers declined the voucher and they stated that<br /> each Absa student account holder who had tried to redeem the voucher<br /> had been unsuccessful. They also stated that neither Absa bank, nor<br /> the Burger King head office had informed them that these vouchers were<br /> being issued. I then had to leave without a meal.</p> <p>I understand that student account holders are not one of Absa bank’s<br /> priority clients (hence the email listed for student account enquiries<br /> is the same email as for general enquiries). However, I pay for this<br /> service each month and I must insist that I receive the service I am<br /> charged for. I am a new Absa bank client and a student who will<br /> certainly need a bank one day when I am a working adult, and so far<br /> Absa hasn’t given me any reason to consider them. I am really<br /> questioning whether I should continue using an Absa student account,<br /> as so far it is costing me more than it is worth.</p> <p>Regards"</p> <p> </p> <p>Today I received two SMSs with apparent voucher codes, which I thought to be Absa resolving my problem, but when I tried to redeem these vouchers, none worked. As I said in my email above, I am paying for this service and thus far I have not been able to use it to its full extent. I am on the verge of closing my account and making use of another service provider. As this is happening to me, there is a large possibility that it is also happening to a number of other students, who would also not receive any assistance whatsoever. Is this the way a bank should be treating the future working class of our coutry?</p> <p> </p> <p>Case reference no.: ********** </p>