FNB: 1 Million ways we can not help you

I’m hoping that this review will not only be seen by FNB, but the broader public as well. I’m hoping that anybody considering moving to FNB for a private banking experience will reconsider making the move and choose a different bank instead.

For the past three years I’ve been a private banking client and on countless occasions I have tried contacting my Private Banker. Unfortunately I have never received more assistance than being greeted by the ever fami**** and annoying voice saying "Your private banker is currently unavailable". This normally ends with me being transferred to the service desk, them not being able to put me in contact with any private bankers (to be honest I don’t think they even exist at FNB) and I need to hold the line for ten or more minutes while I wait in a queue to be assisted by the relevant department. Is one of the perks of being a private banking client that you get a dedicated go to guy to effortlessly and painlessly assist you with your day-to-day banking experience? Unfortunately I was never fortunate enough to receive this type of service and believe this to be complete lies.

To summarize, FNB is not only wasting my time when I need to unnecessary hold the line when my private banker should have been able to assist me in less than 2 minutes. Secondly they are also wasting my money, as I’m paying for a service which I’m clearly not receiving.

I have subsequently made the decision (one of the best I ever took) and decided to move my primary bank account to another financial institution. Within the first few weeks I have already received a much better service than I ever received at FNB. Subsequently I would like to close my private bank account, however this exercise has left me with even more reasons to add to the ever expanding list of 1 million ways FNB will not help you. I have tried to contact my imaginary private banker for the past three days, however this only resulted in wasted airtime and that horrible annoying voice being played in my ear that I referred to previously. I then logged a query via the online banking portal on the 16th of October for which I received an email that my query will be attended to within the next 24 business hours. Given 8 hours in a normal working day (also keeping in mind that I don't even know if people at FNB work for more than 1 hour a day) , this is a 3 day turnaround period. What happened to my go to guy, or is he unable to get back sooner since he has thousands of other queries from other frustrated clients to attend to? What is your private banker to client ratio? I think your private client business model needs some serious work!

Also note that prior to this I also contacted the Private Clients Service Suite, to say that they were useless is actually giving them a compliment.

This is now my last resort in trying to get someone from FNB to assist me regarding the closure of my FNB accounts.