Standard Bank Bluebean - Unfair practices

Absolutely unacceptable, unfair practice.

On 8 March 2018, I requested a settlement amount for my credit card, as well as the closure of the account. The agent assured me that the account will be closed once the settlement was done and I would receive a letter of closure. I made the payment and took no further action. Today when I needed the proof of closure, I realized that I had never received this letter, and had to phone Bluebean again for the letter of closure. This costs me extra as I am phoning from an international location. The lady at the bluebean call center informed me that the account was in arrears, and cannot be closed. I questioned the arrears and was informed that there was a service fee that was being deducted every month. I explained to the agent that this should not be the case, and I should not have to be held responsible for the mistakes of other agents. The agent simply had a "could not care" attitude and said I can lodge a complaint with the complaints department and she can do nothing further. I requested that she escalate the matter to somebody who can resolve this matter immediately. She continued to refer me to the complaints department, at which point I ended the call as I was already wasting enough money on ***********/******** people.

At a later stage, I called the call center again to request a statement of my account. This I was charged R25 for. How is this even regarded as a fair business practice?. I am charged for a statement after paying monthly for admin/service fee. Now my balance is even worse off, and I am not in a practical position to settle this as I currently reside outside of South Africa and international payment cost additional money. Additionally, I am in process of closing all my South African account, thus this even further complicates the matter.

There are so many things wrong in this matter, and I will be considering legal action against Standardbank, as well as Bluebean. I will also be lodging a complaint at the NCR.

I am not sure if this will be helpful in any way, but it will inevitably cost them in wasted resources to investigate and respond to this matter.