The worst bank to ever use. Join it and regret it.

This is by far the worst bank to ever use. I opened a student account in 2023. The people that helped me reassured me that I will be able to use that account until I am 27 and that it had zero bank charges. Sometime during the years, I noticed that they would randomly charge bank fees but they did not amount to a big amounts so I paid it no mind. That was my first mistake.....

Fast forward to 2025, I started using it more to save money. I eventually used up the money. Come 1 November 2025, I notice that I was charged a R300 bank fee. I thought it was a mistake since I am using a student account and I hadn't used that account for a couple of months. I waited a couple of days to see if they would reverse that charge. Unfortunately, they didn't. I went to the branch on 14 November 2025 hoping to get clarity regarding this bank charge. They told me that a consultant at an East London head office decided to change my account to a young professionals account without notifying me. They decided that since I am in my mid twenties, they think that I am working. They did not call me or send me a message inform me about this as that I can decide to keep the account or to close it since they decided that I needed to change it. I had called a call center agent to try and rectify this matter and they told me that I need to pay the R300. The call center agent told me that for my account to be downgraded to a student account, i would need to submit any proof that i am a student. I asked them that should i submit these required documents, how long will it take them to rectify this matter. She said that it would take probably 2 weeks to fix this, and in 2 weeks, it will be the end of the month. This means that i would be charged another R300 fee that I would be liable to pay. I told them that I wanted to close the account and they said that I need to pay the R300 before my account can be closed. You can imagine how annoyed I was because they wanted me to pay an unbudgeted amount due to their incompetency. I proceeded to pay the R300. When I went to the teller to try and close the account, they told me that I needed to pay an additional R120 to close the account. You can imagine how frustrated I was to hear that I had to pay another amount to just close the account. I paid the R120 and then the account was closed.

It costed me R420 to close a bank account. Tell me how that makes any sense. As a student, that is already a lot of money that could have been used for my needs.

Never again will you see me enter an Absa branch to open a bank account.