********* money-making schemes by First National Bank (FNB)

I have a gym membership and on Saturday (31 August) they tried to deduct my monthly membership fee because they claimed they couldn't deduct the amount on a Sunday (1 September).

Unfortunately, on the Saturday I didn't have enough money in my account for the debit order because it was a day earlier than usual and I wasn't able to deposit money into the account during the weekend.

The problem arose when FNB decided to honour the transaction even though my account doesn't have an overdraft facility. At no point did I authorise such an action. My understanding is that FNB should've not paid for a transaction where there was no money for it to be paid, because that's what they usually do when you try to make a purchase at a till point and there are insufficient funds for the purchase, for example.

In the days leading up to Saturday I made a few purchases and those funds were reserved as usual, but because FNB 'honoured' the debit order and decreased my balance, I was then charged 3 times for there not being enough money in my account (even though there was money when I made the purchases), which amounted to R375 (R125x3). For the debit order that they 'honoured' even though there was no money for it, I was charged R125. I was then charged R8.50 again for the unpaid debit.

I realised this when I deposited some money into my account that I had a negative balance of R500+.

All of this would've never happened if FNB didn't 'honour' the debit order, because there was no money for it. This was just an ********* way for FNB to make R500. I would like a reversal! I can understand the charge for R8.50 for an unpaid debit, and the pricing guide makes provision for that deduction, but the four deductions of R125 each are ludicrous.

I have been a client of FNB for 15 years now, but this is the straw that has broken the proverbial camel's back. I cannot believe it. I spent more than two hours at their branch in Rondebosch trying to resolve this. I was made to wait 20 minutes on the phone for some supervisor to sort this issue out and they still couldn't fix it.