A cruel establishment that could not care less about you

My father was a loyal Standard Bank client for forty years and a Prestige Account holder for more than a decade. Since his passing on Tuesday, 26 May 2020, Standard Bank has done nothing but harass my family. As if dealing with the grief of losing a loved one is not enough, Standard Bank will go out of their way to contribute to our pain.

On 28 May 2020, my mother visited the local Standard Bank branch with my father’s death certificate informing them of his passing. Despite his accounts being frozen, Standard Bank still tried to deduct monthly fees a few days later (end of May) after which we were hounded about “overdue payments”. We received countless emails, SMS’ and phone calls. We explained repeatedly that my father is deceased and that his accounts had been frozen.

My father was then charged for “late payments” after the bank was informed of his passing.

One consultant asked that we contact Deceased Recoveries and forward on all documentation we have available. On the 9th of June, we did exactly that after which Standard Bank insisted on a Letter of Executorship.

We fully understand the importance of this document and want to comply, but we have been wating three months already for the Master of the Court to issue such letter. Any delays caused by COVID-19 and the national lockdown is completely out of our hands. I do not know how many times we must explain this! We have been following up with the Executor weekly, but we are still waiting…

On the 24th of August, my father’s accounts were labelled “non-workable” by Standard Bank owing to “missing documentation”. Since then, we have been harassed, receiving one email after the other, one SMS after the other, demanding deposits to be made into my late father’s cheque account (which has a credit balance by the way). We even tried making electronic deposits, but each time the transaction was denied (failed with a technical error before returning the money to the original account).

We have responded (as instructed) to *** over and over and over again but received no feedback. We responded to the SMS’ numerous times, but nothing. Being Prestige clients ourselves (like my late father), we asked the Prestige Banker for help, but received no response. We communicated with Deceased Queries, sent emails to Accounts Closure, even submitted re-certified copies of all the documents we have.

One consultant responded, saying our message was noted and that we had to send the last required documents as soon as we had such available. But even though we have this in writing, the cheque account department mailed us the very next day insisting on a deposit.

On the 12th of September, we called the centre at the provided number (***) only to discover it was closed. On the 14th of September, a very unfriendly consultant simply said that it was a deceases accounts issue and gave us a different number to dial; to which there was no answer…

We called again on the 25th of September after we were threatened with penalties and account closure. This time the consultant confirmed that the admin department had been instructed to exclude my late father’s cheque account from these kinds of messages, but on the 30th of September we received an SMS indicating that my late father’s account is to be handed over to the Legal Department?

We have responded to every single message and provided you with all the documents we had available. We have called, emailed, and even tried to do a deposit. We have proof of how hard we tried to comply.

Even the Executor responded to Standard Bank on the 21st of September, explaining that the Executor is also waiting for the Master of the Court on the Letter of Executorship.

How can you be so deliberately cruel? In contrast to your business strategy, you not only failed to support us, but you manage to make an already terrible situation even worse. I wish you would take it to heart when I tell you how many times you made my mother cry because of your blatant lack of coordination.

I pray that no-one else needs to deal with your institution on this level. You have nothing to be proud of…

I am awaiting your response.