Standard Bank should be last on your list if you're looking to open an account

I tried to open a bank account for my 18yo daughter and followed the instructions on a Standard Bank (SB) webpage about opening an account for a child (https://www.standardbank.co.za/southafrica/personal/products-and-services/bank-with-us/bank-accounts/our-accounts/puresave-account-for-your-child). This page promises that my child will get a debit card and be able to save and transact. (When I eventually saw a banker, she said that PureSave accounts do *not* come with debit cards and my daughter would not be able to use the account for these kinds of transactions--the only reason we need the account in the first place.)

The instructions on this page told me where to find the application portal on the app and said I should just complete the steps. I did so. It turned out there were only four steps. Among the four steps of the application was a marketing opt-in page with three categories. I rejected them all. At no point in the application did it ask me who the account was for, a fact that I discovered (and could only possibly discover) by completing the application process.

Having discovered that the application process was over, I found that SB emailed me a pdf of a contract that it completed on my behalf on the basis of the four things the application process asked me. However the contract also claims that I asked for the account in my name and it claims that I opted in to FIVE other marketing types that were not in the questionnaire. The contract is marked as signed by me on the basis of submitting answers to the four app steps.

For reference, the fourth and final step before you confirm your account is "Account Review" and it includes the opening deposit I chose, the account from which the deposit should come, and a questions about whether or not a banker helped with the application. That is all. By confirming this, I was apparently also signing a legal contract agreeing that the account is for me and that I want SB to use my details for five different types of undisclosed marketing.

As easy as it was to open this account, there was no means of reversing this application or cancelling the account online. According to the Ts & Cs, cancellation involves going into the branch and incurring a cancellation fee.

I protested this on the SB community website and eventually got an answer from a representative who asked me to send a details of my problem to a certain email address. At great expense of time, I put together a comprehensive report of the issue with screenshots of the whole process. No one responded. I followed up a week later. No one responded. I returned to the community representative and he asked me to post my email address to this public forum for him (and the world) to read so that help could be arranged more efficiently. I did even that. No further help came. I followed up my email 12 days after posting it. No one responded.

So I spent a Saturday morning sitting on the floor of Standard Bank waiting for them to get to me and I cancelled the account, with assurances from the banker that I wouldn't get charged (that seems to be holding true so far).

I put a grumpy message on the community forum saying that I would write this review, and yesterday I got a call from a SB social media person. Not an apologetic one, mind you. I told her that I went into the branch to close it, and she said something like, "OK, so is there anything else you need help with?" and that was it.

So there is misleading technical writing on their own website, there is a ridiculous application process that generates what seems to me to be a thoroughly ******* contract, they make application so easy that it's possible to apply by mistake but cancellation so inconvenient that it's almost not worth it, no one monitors their own email addresses, and in general they'd rather load the pain onto their customers than do their own stuff well.

I can't vouch for any other bank, but I can recommend that you do roll the dice on any other bank. I abandoned SB decades ago for their disdain for their own customers, but joined again because theirs was the most favourable bond offer at the time. But this is one of a long line of similar experiences at this bank.* If it were easy to switch home loans I would have left them again ages ago.

*Here's a fun example: I app**** for an access facility with my homeloan in 2014. When the homeloan came through, I discovered that the access facility had already been closed. Why? Inactivity on the account that I didn't have access to. So I app**** again for this facility. I eventually got hold of a person at their call centre. He told me this must be done at the branch. So I went and queued at the branch. When I got to the front of the queue they gave me a number to call and pointed me to the phone. Seriously. Try any other bank.