How useless is Standard Bank, let me count the ways. (A modified extract from Shakespeare).

The only reason this review got one star is because they don't offer lower ratings. I like going to deal with institutions when I can walk in with all of my paperwork in order. I do not like spending time dealing with forms and other nebulous paraphernalia. So I go to the Standard Bank Website and I download the “Application to buy/sell forex for travel (Travel wallet and Foreign Notes)” and I complete the form which requires some details. I proceed to the bank, Standard Bank at Campus Square in Auckland Park, Johannesburg. Now for me visiting a bank is a very tedious event, I have better things to do. I speak to the person at reception and she point me towards teller no 3. I stand in line and when teller three becomes available, I give her my paperwork and sign the already completed form. She discusses this with her colleague who is behind the teller 4 counter. I move to the teller 4 counter and I am informed that I have filled out the old form and she starts to hand me a new form. I have already spent time completing the form from the website, so I say I don’t now have the time to do it all over again. I also indicate that I am going to complain to the manager and I head back to reception. There is a longish queue at reception, but I wait until the queue is finished and ask to speak to the branch manager. I am told the manager is not there, but I can speak with a team leader. I say I would prefer to speak with a proper manager and I start getting ignored. The lady at the desk then wanders over to speak with another customer, I have just become invisible. I then ask if they can get hold of head office and I am abruptly told that the phone doesn’t work, she is obviously not interested in dealing with me, I am obviously too much trouble. This seems to be the current state of affairs at Standard Ban in general. There are no telephone numbers if you wish to speak with a branch, they are all routed through one number. I wonder if they have shares in cell phone companies as to get through to anywhere on the line takes an inordinate amount of time. So if you want any level of engaging service, don’t go to Standard Bank, Campus Square, Auckland Park, Johannesburg because it seems that dealing with customers is too much effort. It probably happens in other branches as well. By comparison, I had to deal with Nedbank earlier today and they were easy and accommodating. I complained to Standard Bank and they gave me a reference number and if the number relates to the number of complaints, then they must have issues as it was in the lower 7 billion.