Bad Service wrt Possible ***** on my account

Hi Clint I will review your correspondence and get back to you.

I received this "helpfull" response from the bank: Good afternoon Mr Martin I refer to your complaint you logged on the Hello Peter website and would like to apologise for the delay in responding to this matter. Your complaint is with regards to the fact that there are unauthorised debit orders going through your account. The workings of a debit order have been fully described in the attached bulletin from The Ombudsman for Banking Services. From this bulletin you will note that the account holder who's account is being debited is in fact protected against unauthorised withdrawals by users of the debit order system in South Africa. Any party that wishes to raise debit entries through the debit order system must at the outset apply to that company's bankers for authority to do so. Their sponsoring bank will satisfy themselves that the applicant is a "fit and proper" party to be allowed to use the debit order system. SA Banks have agreed on minimum requirements on granting authority to applicants. The approved user undertakes to its sponsoring bank that it will hold a valid instruction from all account holders, no matter which bank the specific account is conducted at, to debit their bank accounts with the agreed sum of money. The paying banker's verification of this mandate will take place only on an exception basis and this generally occurs when an account holder disputes an entry on his bank statement. Where the transaction has taken place within 40 days of the action date, the bank will summarily reverse such entry and refund the account holder. Any disputed entries that are older than 40 days are brought to the attention of the originating party who must either produce a valid instruction from the account holder authorizing such debit, or has to refund the disputed amount. The sponsoring bank enforces these terms and conditions and also acts as guarantor of last resort in the event of the refunds not being made. Where an account holder does not bring disputed entries to the notice of his bankers, it is assumed that he / she is satisfied that they are legitimate. We must point out that all banks expect their customers to scrutinize their bank statements from time to time, as a failure to do so may result in the tacit acceptance by the bank regarding the correctness of such statements. There are item limits which are put in place by arrangement with the sponsoring bank that ensures that transactions exceeding this threshold do not enter the bank's systems. The value of transactions that may be generated through the banking system by various users is also managed by an overall aggregate limit that ensures that unauthorised high value transactions are excluded. We trust that the above background information provides you with some level of comfort, as the Standard Bank (and SA banks generally) have implemented controls to mitigate any potential risk for users of the debit order system in SA. The debit order system fulfils a practical solution to business needs and has proven to successfully serve majority of all users (approved users as well as account holders). When the debit order goes through your account, you can call our call centre on ***and speak to a consultant to put through a dispute for you. The bank can load stop payments to the debit orders, but this is not guaranteed because if any detail changes on the description of the transaction whether it is the reference number or amount than the debit order will go through. The bank can also provide you with the details of the company debiting your account at a charge in order for the customer to take this up directly with the company to get the money back or let them stop debiting your account. In light of the above I am terribly sorry to confirm that the bank does not have control over debit orders as the bank is but only the payment mechanism for the transaction. I trust this response resolves your immediate concerns.

This means that the Bank must be in possession of a valid instruction from myself authorizing the parties involved that they may debit my account. Can you then please furnish those valid instructions so that I may verify them ? As per giving tacit acceptance. As I have indicated in prior queries that I had reason to believe or was led to believe that those debit orders formed part of my cellphone contract. Therefore it did not give me any reason to query the entry on my bank statement. Indeed when it was apparent to me that the entry was indeed not part of any existing account as I had fully paid off my cellphone contract. Immediately then I brought it to the attention of the bank. Your response does not resolve any concerns as you confirmed that the bank has no control over my account security. I will be referring the matter to the Ombudsman for Banking services and be processing the cancellation of my bank account in due course. I hope you do not mind me referencing this email into my query.

This means that the Bank must be in possession of a valid instruction from myself authorizing the parties involved that they may debit my account. Can you then please furnish those valid instructions so that I may verify them ? As per giving tacit acceptance. As I have indicated in prior queries that I had reason to believe or was led to believe that those debit orders formed part of my cellphone contract. Therefore it did not give me any reason to query the entry on my bank statement. Indeed when it was apparent to me that the entry was indeed not part of any existing account as I had fully paid off my cellphone contract. Immediately then I brought it to the attention of the bank. Your response does not resolve any concerns as you confirmed that the bank has no control over my account security. I will be referring the matter to the Ombudsman for Banking services and be processing the cancellation of my bank account in due course. I hope you do not mind me referencing this email into my query.