eBucks Flawed Rules & Disastrous Support: Penalized for Transferring My Own Interest

I have been a loyal FNB customer for over 4 years without a single issue, but a recent experience with eBucks support has left me thoroughly disgusted with the bank's rewards system and front-line management.

I recently logged a query regarding my reward level points allocation. I was shorted 500 points, dropping me to Level 4, because the system claimed I did not meet the requirement to grow my FNB Savings account by R1,400 in the previous calendar month.

I did, in fact, deposit the full R1,400. However, I changed my settings so that the interest earned on the account was transferred out to my cheque account.

According to eBucks rules: 1. The account must grow by R1,400 monthly. 2. Interest earned does not count toward this growth requirement. 3. If you make a withdrawal, it must not dip into the R1,400 you deposited (e.g., if you deposit R1,400 and withdraw R200 of it, the system only counts a net investment of R1,200).

I completely understand the logic of preventing net-deposit manipulation. However, because FNB's system is fundamentally flawed, it is treating the transfer of my monthly interest as a withdrawal from my principal deposit.

Since interest does not count toward my R1,400 growth requirement, it should be entirely ring-fenced. Moving my interest out to my cheque account did not touch a single cent of the fresh R1,400 capital I transferred in.

To be told by support that I failed the rule because I chose to utilize the interest my capital generated is completely absurd. If interest does not count toward account growth, why on earth does transferring it out count against account growth? Nowhere in the official terms and conditions does it state that moving your interest constitutes a violation of the R1,400 deposit rule.

To make matters worse, the front-line support was a nightmare. After going through two agents, I spoke with a "Manager" who lacked any basic problem-solving skills or empathy, casually telling me, "That's just how it is," and refusing to manually reinstate my 500 points. I was told that if I want to use my interest, I need to over-deposit past the R1,400 threshold just to trick their poorly coded system.

Why should customers invest with FNB if you are actively penalised for accessing your own capital gains? The rewards program has degraded significantly, and this experience has me seriously considering moving my account to another bank.

I spent 1 hour and 20 minutes on the phone being passed around.

The matter has allegedly been escalated to a manager named Kimberley, but given the dismissive attitude of the team I spoke to, I am posting this here for visibility.

Call Reference Number: ***Q

I expect eBucks to review this system glitch, look at the actual intent of the rules, and manually reinstate my missing 500 points.