POOR SERVICE

I am an ABSA (Volkskas) client since 1958 (60 years) Since the I did all my banking and financial business with ABSA. Due to the poor service the last few years I decided, in 2017, to move my home loan insurance to another national insurer -that is where my trouble started. In 2017 I informed ABSA that I intend to move my home loan insurance. They sent the necessary forms to fill and I sent is back with the necessary documentation. In the mean time I started to pay my new insurance monthly payment Big was my surprise when another year premium went through in August 2018. Once again I have to start from scratch followed by numerous phone calls. Again in August 2019 a year premium went through my bank account. After a complaint with the Insurance Ombudsman I receive an e-mail informing me that they will pay the amount of 23913.12 back within 3 days.

That was not the end of my problems with ABSA. Due to this poor service I decided in October 2019 to give instruction to my attorney to cancel the bond. The outstanding balance was 0 (zero) and sent a "Refund Instruction on Home Loan under Cancellation" to my attorney as well as ABSA appointed attorney. In the meantime ABSA Insurance decided on 20 December (which was not 3 days but 18 days after the previous e-mail, in their wisdom, to pay the R23913.12 in the closed home loan account, instead of my operational account.

The bond was finally cancelled on 5 February without a sign of my R23913.12. I phoned Home Loan Helpline numerous times waiting hours for response, transferred to other operators, refer to Insurance help desk and back to Home loans. Eventually I got an e-mail address of a "Manager Home Loans". She refers me to the ABSA attorney who refers me to home loans. A second e-mail to Manager Home Loans came back with the message “deleted without reading". In a second attempt the ABSA attorney suggested to visit the local ABSA branch. After spending 25 minutes in the Costumer Service a friendly lady came to my rescue but inform me that the branch cannot assist me, but phone Home Lone which refer her to ABSA Insurance which refer her back to Home Loans. After spending almost 3 hours in the bank I left without an answer and without my R23913.12 and obvious without interest on that money since 2018.

I think you can guess what I did today. I spend a couple of hours transferring my other accounts to another more user friendly modern bank.

Regards