Never deal with Standard bank

My name is Austin Field and I am a 19 year old first year student studying at VEGA, I have a single mother and no financial support from my father. I app**** for a student loan with Standard bank, along with a handful of other banks and companies, to pay for my studies because my mother simply cannot. Standard bank does not allow you to apply in branch, but insists all applications are done online. After a lengthy online application process that could possibly be described as the most buggy and unresponsive online application I've ever dealt with I finally got my application through. I waited for a short while before receiving an sms on the 15 February 2019 saying my application was accepted and to await further contact as to when I may go in and sign the necessary documentation. This was a huge relief to me and my mother, as we had felt a huge burden lifted off our shoulders. However the celebrations were short lived, we heard nothing for a week and started bombarding Standard bank with emails and phone calls. Their call centers rarely even answer and you sit on hold for hours on end, while their email services send you useless generic replies. The few times the call centers actually did answer they just told us to wait and be patient for further contact. It is now the 1 March 2019 and we have heard nothing, so I went into my nearest branch to find out the issue, there I was met with a very impolite woman and told that my application has expired because it has been more than 2 weeks and we have not come in to sign. I showed her my sole sms from them stating that we should wait patiently for them to contact (not to mention the multiple times Standard bank staff and call centers had reiterated this) and she just gave me attitude and told me to reapply (as if the application process had been an easy one). I urge any prospective Standard bank customer to avoid dealing with the company. They're impossible to contact, and even if you do their own staff are obviously uneducated in their own processes and regulations. They do not care for the client and treat you with little to no sympathy or respect. They will provide you with faulty information and get your hopes up only to let you down. If I could issue a zero star rating I would.