Contact details for hearing impaired clients

I’ve been a customer of Discovery Card for many years and then also with Discovery Bank shortly after it opened.

As I am profoundly deaf and cannot speak on the phone, I’ve needed a hearing enabled relative or friend to phone their customer care line for me on two occasions when I’ve had a query about my accounts with them as no written e-mail address was given on their contact details page. It is not always possible for someone to phone them on my behalf though.

Recently, I’ve noted their contact detail web page,

https://www.discovery.co.za/bank/contacting-discovery-bank

has been updated with a paragraph stating: “Our hearing-impaired clients can send an email to *** for more information about servicing options.”

I sent an e-mail to that address and received an automatic reply as follows:

“Hello

This mailbox deals specifically with existing complaints and resolving them. We don’t respond to general questions here. To speak to us about an existing complaint you've logged, please call us on ***. For all other general Bank or Vitality Money questions, please call us on ***.

If you send an email to this mailbox, please include in the email subject the call reference number that our contact centre gave you, as we won’t be able to help you without it. We take your complaint seriously and will try to resolve it within 20 working days.”

What gives, Discovery? Is this acceptable? Surely you have a number of hearing-impaired clients who are in exactly the same frustrating position as I am? Would your position stand up if you were to be hauled before our Equality Courts with this shoddy service? No wonder you have such a low rating on the Hello Peter site.