Shocking Treatment of Small Businesses By FNB

I have a business loan account with FNB and because of slowness in the industry we are in we have been making a few late payments but always settle our account. We have had numerous incidents where the bank has randomly decided to seize funds in our account needed for day to day running of the business even with payment arrangements in place.

The last incident was just last week when I received funds to pay a caterer and the account was frozen. I had to speak to our consultant Sipho Kubayi to unfreeze the account because if we failed to deliver a service to our clients we would not be paid and would therefore not be able to settle the overdue installment. He listened to reason and the funds were released. The Parastatal client had promised to pay us this week and based on this promise we also promised to settle our account in full this week. The client has since advised that they will only be paying us on their mid September pay run yet FNB has once again decided to take R4400 by force from our business account - money needed for staff, airtime, web hosting, transport and other essentials to keep us running till the payment comes in.

I tried to get hold of Sipho Kubayi but his number has been down since 8am. I went through the call centre and finally after over 10min managed to get through to his colleague Fabian after being told that Sipho was not in the office. When I asked Fabian if he could assist me he told me that Sipho was seated right next to him with his phone off. He offered to transfer me but I told him I would prefer for Sipho to come to the line since it had taken me so long to get hold of him. He insisted that Sipho had turned his phone on before his eyes and that he would definitely answer. The call then cut. I tried Sipho's direct line and his phone was still off.

This is very frustrating and I need to get this matter resolved and my funds returned or I will be shutting down my account permanently. No business can survive under such circumstances.