AFRICAN BANK - ******* and shameful attitudes and behaviors towards the Cients in good faith

Upon opening the relationship with African bank in January 2019 at their Bayside Mall Branch, Milnerton, among several other brochures, they provided me also that called “MyWorld Account Pricing Guide”. Regarding the notification of the use of the debit card when making purchases, they asked me to choose the notification option via SMS or Email and from what minimum amount of expenditure I wanted to be notified. I chose the option of notifications via Email from Zero Rand/up. On that same occasion, I had been informed that the Email notification service was about to be activated by their IT Department but, in the meantime, I would have received SMS notification with a periodical reimbur*****t of the cost of R0.40 each that they would have charged. That, until the Email notification service would have been activated and they told me that it was a matter of a few weeks. Over the time, periodically and against my request, the Bank refunded me such costs and, even if the management of the statements, evidence of the debited amounts, etc. is laborious causing me useless wasting of time, I sent to the Bank the periodical summary, always waiting patiently the “famous” activation of the Email notification. Last month, those SMS notifications had been suddenly turned off without notice causing considerable inconvenience and stress in having now to manage every single purchase operation verifying the statement on line every time considering that the registration of expenses and/or use of the moneys on the account happens at least with 24 hours delay! But not only that, I do not even receive notification for receiving transfers on my account and that is also worse...! I complained the matter to the Bank, which called me after weeks to “get permission to activate notifications via SMS accepting the charge of R0.40 per single operation, no longer refundable” verbally informing me that the option to receive notification via Email was no longer available. This unilateral and onerous decision suddenly implemented by the Bank without prior communication and without reason (excluding the unfair attempt of profiting on the shoulders of the Clients by charging the SMS service) considering that the Email notifications are app**** for free from all Bank Institutions in South Africa making African Bank insolvent towards the Client/s from the point of view of compliance with the conditions of the current account contract, penalizing the Clients with unfair charges for a service that is necessary to defend the rights of verification and control of the Customers and to prevent any attempts at ***** and/or undue appropriation of funds carried out by *********, who had *******ly taken possession of debit cards of the Bank's Clients. I am of the opinion that the action and the conduct implemented by the bank is contrary to the SA Law and also contrary to the rules of the Consumers Act. For that reason I invited the Ombudsman for Banking Services to study the matter and rule.