Worst bank in South Africa

I took out a loan with Standard Bank in July 2017, my monthly installments are R1 876.33.

On Tuesday the 10th of July 2018 I received a call from a number which was picked up by True Caller as Standard Bank with around 800 spams reported against the number. A lady informed me that she is contacting me from Standard Bank and the reason she is calling me is because my loan payment for the month of June 2018 didn't go off due to technical errors from Standard Bank's side, I then told her that it did go through as I saw the funds go out of my account.

She then said that before she could speak further she needed to verify my identity, she then gave me my date of birth (this can be obtained from my social media) and asked me to complete the rest of my I.D number, even though I felt uncomfortable answering the question as all banks always tell you not to give your personal details to anyone claiming to be from the bank as their staff are trained not to ask or verify clients details over the phone when they are contacting the client I still answered her question and verified my I.D number.

After verifying my I.D number, she checked the system and verified that it is an error and that my account is up to date, she stated that she will put a note on my account to state that its up to date.

On Friday the 13th of July 2018 I received another call from another lady from Standard Bank which was also picked up on True Caller to have numerous amounts of spam reports against it, she also said that there was a problem with my account and asked me to verify my I.D number. I told her that I already spoke to another lady from Standard Bank on Tuesday and we verified that my account is up to date and that she must check the notes on my account, she still insisted that she needed to verify my I.D number and I told her that I don't believe that she's calling me from Standard Bank as this is the second time I received a similar call in the same week.

I then asked her to send me an email regarding the issue but she said that she wasn't able to which made me even more suspicious. She then gave me a number and asked me to go to my nearest branch and ask them to call head office.

On Saturday the 14th of July 2018 I went to my nearest branch and explained everything to the consultant, when they checked my account on the system they confirmed that my account was paid for the month of June 2018 and that no notes were made on my account since February 2018.

They advised me to contact their ***** department immediately which I did shortly after leaving the branch. The ***** department advised me that I would need to speak to the loans department first and they put me through to them.

The loans department checked the system and advised me that I missed a payment for December 2017 but this was due to the fact that Standard Bank debited me roughly 2 weeks before my debit date without informing me and I asked for the money to be reversed as I needed the money to honour other payments.

I also asked the lady to put another debit on my account for my proper debit date which I have just found out, was not done. The loans department consultants advised me that there was also a tracking on my account to recover the arrears but it didn't go off. He was not sure as to why and he advised me that he couldn't do anything as the account was handed over to Stupel & Berman Attorneys and I would need to contact their lawyers directly.

On Monday the 16th of July 2018 I contacted Stupel & Berman Attorneys and spoke to Lisa whom advised me that their systems are down and would contact me once the systems are back up. She proceeded to take down my details such as my name and number.

2 hours had passed and I contacted Lisa again as I didn't get any call backs and once she checked the system, she advised me that the account was only handed over to them Monday morning (Monday the 16th of July 2018) and it wasn't assigned to anyone yet but she will get it assigned to someone and get them to contact me in 10-15 minutes (I still haven't been contacted).

On Tuesday the 17th of July 2018 I tried contacting Stupel & Berman Attorneys but nobody answered the phone.

Throughout all of this, Standard Bank hasn't tried to recover the funds neither did they inform me via email, SMS or registered mail that my account was in arrears hence they did not follow correct procedures.

I have been banking with Standard Bank for about 18 years and if my problem isn't resolved within 48 hours, I will be changing my bank and contacting the ombudsman.