More financial losses after referring the matter to NFOSA (Ombudsman for Banking)

I recently assisted a complainant where money was ****** from his credit card account.

I was informed that after more than 12 months of investigation by NFOSA (Ombudsman for banking) (including a review of the initial outcome) that interest charged by the bank does not stop during the investigation.

The complainant has now incurred tens of thousands of Rands in interest charges. If he had been aware that the interest charges do not stop during the investigation he would have abandoned his complaint.

During the investigation, the original NFOSA adjudicator failed to respond to correspondence for several months, giving the complainant the impression that the investigation was ongoing. Instead, the adjudicator was simply ignoring his correspondence.

As a result the complainant was prejudiced by incurring these interest charges for months when no investigation was occurring.

The public should note that interest does not stop during investigations and they should be advised to abandon their complaints where interest is applicable or risk incurring further losses.

The public should be aware of the high risk of incurring additional losses when lodging complaints with NFOSA (Ombudsman for banking) relating to credit card or credit matters.