Poor Service Loses Elderly Client Money

My mother, 81, had a fixed term investment at Absa, maturing on the 12th March 15.<br> She asked Absa to transfer funds, upon maturity, to another institution where she would get a much better interest rate (9.25%). Absa refused to accept these instructions, forcing her to go back to the branch, upon investment maturity, which she was only able to do 4 days after maturity (16th March 2015)<br> She requested a portion of the funds to be transferred, electronically to (Finbond) - this was done. However, Absa flatly refused to transfer the balance of the funds to another bank via electronic transfer, petulantly and determinedly insisting that they don't transfer to other banks and could only make these funds available via cheque. Apparently some sort of 'punishment' for moving the funds to another bank? <br> Including the 14 day clearance #special requested#, she lost a total of 18 days' worth of interest, amounting to R1,400. For someone dependent on these funds as their only source of income, this is a significant amount.<br> Absa demonstrated extremely poor customer relations, inefficiency and a totally uncaring and unhelpful attitude, especially considering the age of their client.<br>