Unparalled Dishonesty

Other than the South African playing field of politics, I doubt anyone or anything surpasses ABSA on the lack of transparency and client centricity. The brochures for a number of packages / services offered often enlists an array of meaningless benefits, yet have little to information on the financial implications of opting to make use of the service. I feel as if such information is deliberately withheld as a means of affording the institution an opportunity to bill you for additional services that are not made very clear on the info packs. I am at my wits end with how abantu be Africanacity have plundered my account with ever increasing fees for services they have failed to offer. For one, IB fee for making use of the app when it's functionality comes nowhere near the options available on the Web page. Example, there is no option to apply for an overdraft facility, vehicle and asset finance as well as a few other forms of credit on the app, yet you are charged the full service fee for Internet banking. Since the using the app is basically a usage based agreement, I fail to understabd how it is legal for them to do engae in such ********* practice. I find that a bit questionable considering the fact that the competition does it freely or for a fraction of the fee you greedy *******s charge. Also, no notification is ever given on what they charge for, the amount they charge, and when it takes place. You need to skim through the app in order to come across admin charges, monthly account fees, Internet banking fees and all sorts of other monies they pocket without having the decency to text you in connection with. More specifically, money out, card swipes and debit order notifications are delivered via text, yet when ABSA helps itself to whatever is left in your pocket, they do so under the radar and do not care to inform nor explain the act. When you raise questions, you are simply referred to their help pages where all of this info is supposedly listed kodwa all you were handed at a branch or wherever makes no reference let alone advise you to fami****ise yourself with whatever was left off the brochure. I believe this is done deliberately in an attempt to highliglight the main selling points of whatever product is on offer. What the ****? Where the **** was the referral to your help pages when you stood to benefit from the situation? Now that it may cause a potential loss or gain for anyone else other than yoyrself, it is made to seem as if the information was readily available and that I simply ignored it. In other words, you are politely forced into accepting such pieces of information, despite ABSAs non-existent efforts to disclose such from the onset. Is anyone under the company's employ fami**** with the concept of guilt by omission? I am not asking you to run workshops geared toward customer education and how we can all maintain a healthy balance, just be honest. Parting ways with hard earned money that you ********* feel entitled to simply because I walk up to a machine with your branding on it to pick the fruits of my labour has been a recurrent pattern in our relationship. The least you could do would be to send some sort of useful tip or free financial advice that affects your customer, atleast once a month. Do not claim to value me as a client, knowing full well that your profit margins are set to increase if my financial standing is in ruins. How dare you plunge my creditworthiness into the base of hell by consistenty rejecting any lending applications I had in the past, then offer me a self-serving settlement on condition that I move the a loan you had initially declined to you? Rather convenient how this was done after having witnessed your competition (Capitec) profit off of the little faith they had in my ability pay the money back. Atleast reckless lenders have a heart, Unlike a greedy corporate giant who conveniently forgets the billion rand bailout they got from a government that earns its revenue with our money. A few years ago, you took the liberty to help yourself to a few hundred rand in overbills and ********** charges on a student achiever account I had. I was refunded after the Braam staff were open minded and honest enough to admit to the 'error' that occured on my account. A whole R500 was credited back after I simply stated that I feel as if money is disappearing from my account at an alarming rate.

2 - Moving on, I was automatically switched from a student account to that gold value nonsense simply because I was earning an income. I only caught wind of this after seeing the charge for R107 coupled with an admin charge. If the R107 is a monthly account fee, then what the **** are these admin charges, debit order reversal fees and Co being charged for? When I asked, I was told that for the student plan you need to be under 27, enrolled full time at a university, etc. This was only revealed to me after the R107 had been deducted and the plan change made. Why was this not stated beforehand, and why on earth are these particular account related changes made without requesting approval or checking to see if I still have an interest in keeping the account since the student benefit was coming to an end? The other questions did not receive a response.

2 - Wat is a gold value bundle account and what exactly do I stand to benefit from having one if admin charges and other acount related fees appear after the 107 has been deducted? I am sick of this ************ ****gery. Now that I'm penniless for the next week or two, I have come to realise that I would like for our parasitic relationship to come to an end as soon as possible. I would like to close my account and have no further association with your deplorable institution. Greedy ****s who do not even have the decency to grant credit to a client of 7 years that is permanently employed, with a disposable income that would be enough to cover a R1200 debit order over a 36 month period. Even though such claims will be vehemently denied, credit at ABSA has nothing to do with score, affordability and behaviour. Race is the primal factor. Case in point, I have a colleague who has had an account with ABSA for the sanme number of years as I have. He earns R103, 21 less than I do in a month. The difference in our disposable income is less than that. Mind you, I have an additional source of income that has consistently brought in atleast R5000 for the last 6 / 7 months. The man does not have a credit profile, I do. ABSA recently approved a R600 000 bond application for a unit he now lives in, I recently app**** for vehicle finance and was declined despite having a fairly decent score as well as not having a record of missed payments before the application. He is a white male in his early 30s, I am a black man in my late 20s. No one seems to have a detailed answer on why and a lot of your staff quickly assume it is a matter of affordability before actually running through your statements as well as the calculations.

3 - Call center staff are unbelievably rude, unhelpful and have a tendency to whisper their names in order to avoid an escalation since they are already geared in 'do the bare minimum mode. ' Also, branch staff and call centre staff provide contradictory interpretations of company policy. Branch staff gossip to colleagues and customers about your personal finances, behaviour and account related activity. Call centre staff place you on hold, then reroute you to the main switchboard, lock your account after you are not very graceful for how you have been treated, cut the call or silly pretend that they cannot hear you due to connection issues. What tops the cherry on top is being informed hy one rep that the hold was lifted, only to find it hasn't, then have to call back their line and provide personal information over the phone in public.

There are an array of similar complaints on social media, hello Peter and other platforms. I have attached a screenshot of what I found on just 1 of hundreds of pages. Most of which express dissatisfaction with how responsive you were to the situation. I have also read up on Liebenberg sisters, Greg Smith and other instances. I am disgusted by all the shenanigans of your shady undertakings. I intend to make a lot of noise about this to anyone and everyone I know in the legal and financial sector.

All I have enlisted as well as a preponderance of other issues will be raised with legal counsel. I am prepared to dispose of assets in order to afford the fees for such. With all due disrespect, I hate you ****s, and will do my damndest to seek retribution through the courts. Today, tomorrow, together se **** maan.