Nedbank shocking "service"

<p>I am a Finance Committee member of a small congregation of a South African mainstream church. The congregation has a fixed deposit investment with Nedbank, through its St Georges Mall, Cape Town branch. The service (or absence thereof) received from the personnel of this branch has been unprofessional and quite shocking, to say the least!</p> <p> Because of the passing of one of the previous signatories on the investment account, four replacement signatories were authorised by the Council of the congregation. On 20 January 2016, these mature gentlemen (including the pastor) visited the Nedbank branch and had to stand for 1 ½ hours at the enquiries counter, initially in the queue and then while the clerk (Alicia) looked up information on “the system” and reviewed the identification documentation and authorities submitted. The process could not be finalised, as the clerk insisted on a copy of the “Constitution” of the congregation. It was explained to her that this was an existing fixed deposit that had been in place for years, that the congregation itself did not have a separate constitution, but that it was part of the bigger Church which had an overall constitution, but not specific to the congregation. She then produced a form “Declaration of other entities if there is no constitution or founding statement”, which she said should be signed by the proposed new signatories and returned to her and she “will fill in the rest”. The process was then aborted for that day, as she could not determine from the “system” who the previous signatories were and she would have to obtain the information “from Johannesburg”, which would take “about two days” - after which she would contact us. Some time elapsed, but no word from her. I then visited the branch on 25 April 2016, only to find that Alicia had transferred to another branch. I “refused” to stand in the long Enquiries queue yet again and managed to see a person (Bongani) who was very helpful, but advised that the proposed signatories would all have to come to the branch Enquiries counter again, to complete the change-of-signatories process. Some time later, I ‘phoned the branch and requested to speak with the Manager (Farieda?), but she was “not available” and I was asked to leave a message, but my call was not returned. On 6 June 2016, I again visited the branch and managed to speak again with Bongani, who was at that time the Acting Manager in the absence of the Manager (who was on leave). He agreed to enquire about the whereabouts of the documentation that we had submitted on 20 January 2016 and advise me. As I did not hear from him, I contacted him again on 27 July 2016, but nothing further had transpired and he advised that Alicia could not remember to whom she had handed the file when she left the branch and also advised that the file could not be found. This meant that the proposed signatories would all have to return to the branch and go through the whole exercise again. As the fixed deposit was due to mature on 30 July 2016, I raised the problem of us giving termination/renewal instructions. He requested that we produce a letter on the congregation’s letterhead, giving instructions as to what we wanted to do with the funds. I explained that we could not do so with the signatories on record (which was the whole reason why we wanted to change the signatories). He then verbally agreed that, if the fixed deposit automatically reinvested for another year although we may not wish to renew it, Nedbank would allow early withdrawal (should we so decide), without penalties and the interest for the period would still be at the one-year fixed deposit interest rate. On 5 September 2016, I 'phoned Bongani to enquire about the next step in the process, but he was "not available". I left a message, but he did not return my call. The next morning (6 September 2016) I 'phoned again, but was advised that he was "going into a teleconference" and would 'phone me back. He didn't. Since then there has been absolutely no contact from the branch. Currently there is a "stalemate" and there is little point in continuing to try and resolve this matter with the branch in question. </p> <p> Earlier in the year, a letter dated 9 March 2016 was received from Nedbank, requiring that the account be “re-fica-ed” and that the documentation needed to be submitted by 29 April 2016, or the account would be frozen. Clearly, this could not be comp**** with, as the change of signatories process had not been completed and a previous signatory had passed away. I assume that, by now, the freeze is in place? </p> <p> An overriding aspect of poor service is that, at the “switchboard’s” request, over the period I left at least 10 'phone messages for the person/s I was trying to contacte (Farieda or Bongani) to return my calls. On not one occasion did this occur, to the extent eventually, when asked to leave a message, I used to "laugh" at the person requesting me to do so.</p> <p> Would you do business with this organisation? We would prefer not to.</p> <p> </p>