Extremely Disappointing Service and Failure to Protect My Account

I have been banking with FNB for over 10 years, and until now I trusted them to do the most basic thing a bank is supposed to do: protect my money. Unfortunately, this experience has completely destroyed that trust.

Three unknown companies deducted money from my account via debit orders. I have no knowledge of these companies, have never given consent, and have never approved these debit orders. Under normal circumstances, debit orders must be authorised through the FNB app — yet no notification, no approval request, and no warning was ever sent to me.

This alone strongly suggests ***** or a ****, yet somehow FNB allowed it to happen.

When I contacted FNB via their chat service, I was simply given telephone numbers for these so-called companies. Unsurprisingly, none of the numbers work. No answer. No accountability. No real investigation. Just passed from pillar to post.

What is even more concerning is that South Africa’s DebiCheck system exists specifically to prevent this exact problem. Debit orders are not supposed to be processed without verified customer consent. If consent was never requested or approved, then this is a clear failure of FNB’s controls and checks.

And the cherry on top? When the debit orders were reversed — I was charged reversal fees. Let that sink in.

I was charged fees for undoing *****ulent deductions that I never authorised in the first place. This is completely unacceptable and frankly ridiculous. Why should a loyal customer pay for a bank’s failure to prevent unauthorised transactions?

FNB markets itself as a secure, innovative, customer-focused bank. This experience shows the opposite:

No proper checks on debit orders

No approval notification sent to the app

No real support or investigation

And customers footing the bill for *****

After more than a decade of loyalty, this level of service is shocking. If FNB cannot ensure that debit orders are authorised and verified — the bare minimum of banking security — then customers are right to question whether their money is actually safe.

I expect:

A full refund of all reversal fees

A formal explanation of how these debit orders were allowed

Assurance that this will not happen again

Until then, this experience deserves nothing more than a 1-star rating.