POOR SERVICE

My mother has been taken from pillar to post by the Absa Zeerust Branch regarding my late dad's estate who was the account holder.She visited the branch early November to sort out all the paper work which she was returned because of her proof of residence which was a tribal council letter.She was told that she had to take it back as they couldn't use it because of the word village which was written on it and they had to amend it at the tribal office together with the name of the village (Tamposstad) which is only one S according to them as they can't find it on their Absa system . How are they supposed to omit the word village whereas it is indeed a village she comes from and secondly if Absa doesn't have Tamposstad in their system at what liberty do they have to ask the customer to go back as there is nothing they can do.Why can't they amend theirs or give a customer other FICA options because the tribal council refused. The consultant (Anna) failed to give her other options and told her to wait 8 weeks for her claim to be processed.Well the duration given passed over the holidays and I decided to take leave from work to assist her as she is an old woman.We get to the branch and she is still feeding us the same story .I then called their Estate department to find out the requirements they need to start the process.I was assisted and notified that she only did an account closure and not the claim back in November and to my suprise found out as well that my dad qualified for a Death Claim which my mom was not informed of in the first place by the consultant.I went and complained to the branches service manager because they informed my mother that they could no longer use the letter she brought in November as it was old .Yes it was but who had to take accountability for misinforming an old woman so we resorted to using her bank statement as instructed by the Estate department . And the consultants explanation was that she didnt mention the Death Benefit to my mother because he did not qualify which is totally different from what I heard from the estate department and I adamantly told her to confirm which she did but kept on blaming it on the policy changes she is not aware off. We managed to fill everything out and she transferred us to Boitumelo her colleague to finalise the Death Benefit ,on Wednesday the 23rd .We later received an SMS saying that the claim was received by the department and she was given 48 hours to come back to the branch with a letter of authority ,in the evening of Thursday she received a notification saying the money was paid into my late dad's account ,how? as we were told that it's closed and she(my mom) was clear that she wanted the funds in her FNB account because she provided the statement for that . This morning she went to the branch to find out what could have happened and she was told by the same Boitumelo that she is not seeing anything reflecting on my late dad's account ,so she must go to FNB to retrieve her statement to see if the funds are not in her account.What level of incompetency is that.I then called their Benefit Department to check what was going on ,which is something that she could do and has access to from the branch . Fortunately I was assisted by someone(Busi) who understood my frustration and found it baffling too as the money did reflect on their side.I decided to call the Absa Complaints department from where I am because my mother is sitting in the branch and the consultant is clueless too which I find weird because if you can't solve something yourself you have to escalate it.The department also decided to call the Zeerust Branch in vain as they found it weird that my mother is not being assisted after so long.I was pleased when they told me that she will be assisted and the funds will be transfered to her FNB account with 3 working days.The same consultant speaks to me over the phone while calling my mom to update her that I managed to resolve it as far as i am over the phone yet she is sitting across an *********** consultant who then asked me for the numbers of the department's I have been calling .Aren't they supposed to have the numbers ,why do their customers have to go through such means to get help whereas it's in their job description.My mother has been travelling up and down because the workers in the Zeerust Branch who have been assisting her are pretty clueless about what they are doing .I gave her the numbers, she called the Death Benefit department spoke with Busi who i said she must speak to .She got the same feedback I initially got that the account was only closed today but the money will be transfered to the external account.Couldnt she have called in the first place when she saw a glitch instead of making my mother go up and down .What kind of service does Zeerust Absa Branch level give to their customers .It is ridiculous really.There is no uniformity between them and their other departments.No professionalism or sense of urgency at all.