A pathetic comedy of errors

My wife and I have had our Amex credit cards for years. During the holidays, both our cards suddenly stopped working. We didn't receive any communication from Nedbank as to why. Needless to say, it was a huge inconvenience to suddenly not have your credit card working while on holiday.

When I called the call centre, I was informed that the cards were blocked because our FICA docs had to be updated. They reckon that the bank sent us SMSs, but if they did then why didn't we receive them?

I was asked to go visit a branch and to take my ID and proof of residence with. No idea why these docs can't simply be e-mailed to the bank. Anyway, after waiting for 15 minutes the branch teller informed me that I also need to supply three months' worth of bank statements. Why not tell me this beforehand? Went home and was able to e-mail the docs to them. The teller confirmed that the FICA block would be lifted after 48 hours.

Needless to say, the cards were still blocked three days later. Again had to call the call centre. The person promised me that the block will be lifted ASAP and that she would call me back once done. Not surprisingly - no one called and two days later the cards were still blocked. Shocking.

Again had to call the call centre, and I was put through to the FICA department. They told me that I need to go BACK to the branch for the chip cards to be re-activated. I asked whether Nedbank sends all their card clients to a branch TWICE every time FICA needs to be updated and she confirmed that this is the case. It's a shocking process - and it doesn't seem like the staff in the branch or in the call centre are even aware of this.

Anyway, went back to the branch today to get the chip cards re-activated. Now the teller told us that our cards are suddenly damaged. This is impossible, as they were simply in our (different) wallets waiting to be re-activated. So, new cards had to be ordered and it's another week of waiting.

A pathetic comedy of errors.