You cannot trust Absa with your money.

You cannot trust Absa with your money. Or at least, that is my experience.

On 19 February 2020, I did an EFT payment of my retirement savings from my Absa account to a PPS Retirement Annuity business account at RMB Corporate Banking. The money never arrived at the PPS account. In fact, I now know it ended up somewhere in a private persons account banking with FNB at Okahandja branch, Namibia.

I have been trying to get the issue resolved within Absa, but it feels like I am trying to talking to a brick wall.

• Absa Private Bank – My private banker at Menlyn Maine has not added any value in my attempts to get the issue resolved. In fact, in more than one occasion he made promises to me that he did not keep. He then just ended up ignoring my email communication. In retrospect he made the issue worse for me, by not properly explaining my options to me at the time that I first spoke to him.

• Absa EFT Payment Enquiries – I raised a query with them on the 9th of March and did several follow-ups with them in the weeks after that. After having not received any feedback from them for 17 workdays, I escalated the issue to a manager in their queue. The manager Cecile was at least helpful in giving me the contact details of the person who finally got the money. She suggested that I contact this person myself and ask him to pay me back.

I then did contact the person, who confirmed what I suspected all along. Absa did allocate my money incorrectly to the wrong account at the wrong branch, a private individual banking at FNB Okahandja branch, Namibia.

Turns out that this person has exactly the same bank account number as PPS banking with RMB.

Since then I have been trying to get help from Absa to reverse the error transaction, but with no success.

• Absa Group Customer Care Action – I raised a complaint with them on the 15th of April. After 13 workdays they responded back that the issue has been address by Absa EFT Payment Enquiries and they closed the my complaint.

• Absa Resolve - Query raised 18 May 2020– No response to date.

• OBS Referrals - Query raised 30 May 2020 – No response to date.

It cannot be acceptable that transactions get allocated incorrectly by your bank like that, and that you then need to contact the recipient pleading with them to pay you back. Absa did not protect me sufficiently in in this situation, nor are they helping me to rectify the situation. I am disappointed and think I cannot trust them anymore with my money.

I want Absa to return my money to me with interest compensation for the period.

I also want Absa to implement measures to protect other people from going through this ordeal in the future.

I now have raised the issue with the Ombudsman for Banking Services