Account Closure Madness

I have been living abroad for the past 6 years and maintained my Standard Bank Account to pay accounts and living expenses for family members. I decided to do financial emigration from SA this year and contacted Standard bank Prestige Banking via email to ask for assistance in closing my account. I never actually received a response from the prestige banking team beyond the first standard response which says it will our pleasure to help, please provide XYZ. I then called Standard Bank and the consultant Mike Dlamini assisted me in closing a revolving credit account and credit card. He said he was having problems closing the current account and requested a follow up email the next morning as a reminder for him to complete the closure. I requested that he calculate any charges that would still be deducted and transferred the balance out, thereby bringing the account to zero balance for closure. I was impressed with his service and thanked him via email for his professionalism. Unfortunately, thats where it ended. I never received another response from Mike and the account remained open (incurring charges and is currently -R950) even though follow up emails were sent to him directly and cc to prestigebanking @ standardbank. I have funds waiting to be transferred to me from a blocked account which cannot be done while any bank accounts are open. Yesterday I called the prestige banking international helpline number and got through to a consultant. The first thing I explained was that I was calling from Japan and I neede the call to be handled as quickly and efficiently as possible. I then explained the backround of my dealings with Mike Dlamini and the urgency of closing the account. The consultant said the current account cannot be closed by them, upon pushing the issue he said he would find out what the procedure was (I was then put on hold for 15 minutes) at which time I ended the call due to the cost. I called back, again explaining that I had been dealing with someone and could I get back to them. I couldnt pass the security questions for some unkown reason, probably due to my rising anger and not able to recall details to security questions such as in which year I had opened a business account! Nonetheless the lady remained calm (sorry I didnt get her name) and got her team leader to access the account to see which consultant I had been dealing with. After being placed on hold for another 5 - 6 minutes I was told that the first consultant had reached my "personal Banker" at the Rosebank branch and they needed my email address (is this information not available on my account records?? They also have a local contact number for my daughter who had signing power on my account) and my Japan contact number. The personal banker would email me a form that I need to sign and scan and email bank for the closure to be completed. Well what a fool I was to expect that it was finally taken care of. I have still not received the email from the personal banker, nor any followup from the prestige banking call centre to see if this fiasco had actually been resolved. The service is beyond shocking. There appears to be zero accountability and follow up. Where are the supervisors/team leaders and how are consultants able to get away with not responding or completing a task? Are there no checks in place to see that a customer request has actually been attended to? I am completely disgusted by Standard Banks lack of service.