FNB Cheating the unbanked

I received an E-Wallet payment from a random person who owed me R100. If you've read my review you'll know that I no longer bank with FNB.

When I went to withdraw the cash from an ATM I learned that only R98.75 of the R100 was available. As ATMs don't dispense change or R10/R20 notes I could basically only access 50% of the money sent to me.

I'm sad to realise that many of the unbanked in South Africa who try to use this channel will have little amounts stuck in their e-Wallets while they live day to day.

I left the ATM dissapointed by this interaction. I approached FNB Waterfront in Bloemfontein who first tried to turn me around and make me call their e-Wallet call centre when I'm right in the bank. At my insistence the gentleman who was helping me decided to leave. A very s****ed customer service employee helped me log the fault. I applaud her s**** at assisting.

But as it turns out I receive a call today from this department explaining that FNB charged a fee for the purchase of airtime after the last e-wallet I received some years ago. This fee apparently was not charged then but kept as a minus until now to surprise me. With no notification of this fact that I'm aware of.

I'm indeed surprised as there was no way for me to anticipate that an action from several years ago would essentially cost me R50 for buying R30's airtime.

It seems clear that there was very little through given to the problems of this product's rules in practice. Since there is no way to withdraw the change unless you buy Airtime - again in round amounts. This would ultimately lead to a bigger fee as lost money that you cannot possibly withdraw.

The two things that really bug me is that this product forces me to buy airtime and still lose money in the process. When asking about this FNB replies that most users use e-Wallet to buy airtime. No wonder since there is very little else you can do with it. So this is not out of preference rather a lack of options. I might as well have told my friend to just send me airtime which would have been delivered with only an SMS fee on the sender end.

Another option suggested was that I could coax someone else (who uses FNB) to pay R1.25 into my e-wallet resulting in more fees on this person's side and then withdraw R100.

In the end I want to withdraw my R98.75 without further fees. Since e-Wallet is a sort of cardless bank account I don't expect to be locked to Airtime transactions and lose the change.

This is the most frustrating product I've used. I'm happy to say that this will be the last time I'll consider using any product of FNB. And lesson learned - I will never pay or suggest someone pays anyone who is unbanked with an e-Wallet payment.