Credit Insurance ****

Where does 1 even start. I’ve been a client with Nedbank for well over 8 years. I’ve always been loyal to them, and happy with their service, hence I’ve never, ever contemplated changing banks cause to me Nedbank was the best.

I took out a personal loan with Nedbank in 2018, all was well. Loan was approved quickly (as they’ve always done with all my credit applications) hence my loyalty to them, installments were paid in time as affordability was not an issue, till COVID 19 happened. Before going into my actual issue, I’d also like to state that included in my monthly personal loan installment was credit insurance, which I believe is there to assist in the unlikely event of a loss on income.

Okay with that said, in March right after lockdown was announced our company ceased operations and went into business rescue, saddest day of my working career. We were told that given that we not operating (flying, I work as a flight attendant) at the moment, our income would unfortunately be affected. Stress as this was, I was still able to make 2 months worth of my personal loan installment payments. I then reached out to my favorite bank, advised them of my situation and provided a letter from my employer stipulating to at we currently not getting an income, and then I was given a 3 months payment holiday.

The problem started just before 01 June after the payment holiday had expired and I was advised that I would not be given an extension. I informed them that I’ve got credit insurance on my loan and would like to utilize it, seeing that I’m still not getting an income from my employer. I was instructed to send a letter from my employer stating such, a bank statement and my payslip, which I sent immediately but got no response. I waited for about a week and sent it again, 3 times but still got no response. I then called towards the end of June and was told that they had not received my document and that I have to resend them again which I did. After still having not responded to my request I once again used the little money that I was getting from the government’s TERS fund to call Nedbank and get some feedback, but there was no feedback. I called again towards the end of July and was told to resend my documents to an alternate email address, as the one I’d been using had some sort of back log, for such a major corporation I was disappointed to hear such 2 months after my initial email was sent. I repeated the process of sending my documents in august aswell and was advised that the claim had been registered but still hasn’t been dealt with. Long story short, I’ve been fight with Nedbank constantly to get some clarity on my claims, and needless to say, I have not been assisted till date. Matter was escalated to managers specifically Vincent from Personal Loans Collections, Thina R from personal loan claims and also a Pearl who the claim was allocated to, but none of them have returned back to me with credible feedback. My claim is still outstanding 3 months later, and I’m not at a crossroad as i do not know what to do. I tried complaining in their Twitter page, but cries on there fell on deaf ears aswell.

My question is, why did Nedbank include a premium for credit insurance on my monthly installments, if I’ll be given the runaround or not get assistance in situations where I need it the most, like now. I’m writing this complaint, I’m still not back at work, still not getting an income apart from the government fund and my claim has still not been attended too since June 2020.

I’m seriously disappointed and disgusted at the level of service I’ve been getting from Nedbank, and I’m definitely changing banks as soon as this mess is sorted out. It’s clearly evident that they are ********.