Standard Bank Foreign Exchange Payments

Hi, Please avoid doing any Foreign Exchange payments using Standard Bank!!!!!!!! I used Standard Bank internet banking to make payments to an Australian recipient in March 2024 (X2) and June 2024. I specified the charges for my account "OUR", and the transactions were processed. Charges were levied on the transactions and I assumed all was done. On 14 October 2024, three debits with the narration "Fee Foreign Exchange" were merely taken off my account. After contacting the Standard bank support line they SMS'ed me to say the situation had been resolved. I never received the funds back so contacted them again and to my amazement, the resolution was for me to email their Forex department as they cannot be contacted via phone. I did this and was eventually told they were "recovering funds that were unfortunately not processed in error"!!!!! This was done without notification of said error, as well as it happening 7 months after the fact. After finally chatting to the service centre consultant, it turns out Standard Bank can take over a year to recover these charges. Nowhere, on any website or communication medium is this specified, but that is supposedly "part of their process". Absolutely ludicrous !!!!! Standard bank has NO clue on customer satisfaction, notification, help or basic communication. Please be warned when using Standard bank for Forex payments - it is a nightmare !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Robin Nicholas