Appalling service from FNB business banking shuts down child protection NPO

FNB ***** division has completely shut down my child protection non-profit twice in the last two months and it seems impossible to get it sorted.

In March 2025, I logged in to my online banking profile from a new device. Instead of verifying it, FNB allowed me to do my banking and then flagged the event as a possible *****. No one contacted me to check if I was logging in from a new device. Instead they pre-emptively shut down my business banking profile (despite me having two person verification on all transactions so it would not have resulted in a loss even if there had been *****). Three days later, I got a call from someone purporting to be in the ***** division (the phone number was unverified, and he could not give me a reference number). He told me that I would have to download software to scan my computer. Thinking it could be a **** (I’m aware of people ****med in a similar way who had their FNB accounts ****** of tens of thousands of rands) I opted to go into the bank. They were unable to help me but after two hours in the bank on the phone to various divisions, it was flagged with the ***** division. More than a week later I was contacted by the same consultant who again asked me to download software or use my own virus checker (which I could have done a week previously if he had given me the option). He then took a further week to unblock my account.

I changed my username and profile but when I tried to log in again this month, I was once again told that the account was rendered inactive by the ***** division. It was once again flagged, sent to team leaders and the ***** division, In the last 8 days I’ve again spent hundreds of rands in airtime bouncing back between consultants, none of whom can help me. Enterprise sends me to ***** who send me back to Enterprise. Team leaders are supposed to contact me and don’t and there are no reference numbers or contact people that I can follow up with. Meanwhile, my NPO cannot function, I can’t get any funds out of my account and neither can my vendors.

I can’t express how frustrated I am that FNB touts for non-profit’s business but then can’t take care of their clients. When I told the consultant in March how unhappy I was he told me I should just be grateful that no money was ******! It is fair enough, but there was no risk of that and what is the use of having a bank account if I can’t even use it?