In summary:

- I listed my complaint on hellopeter.com and got a response from the very competent branch manager at the Absa Heerengracht branch (George Willenburg)

- As I am a firm believer in not only complainging at bad service, but also praising good service, I posted a favourable comment on hellopeter.com for George Willenburg’s attitude and willlingness to resolve problems. Interestingly enough “Dick Garder” supposedly replied to my favourable response – just a shame that he “replied” by copy/pasting the standard response for a complaint to my positive comment.

- After closing my accounts at Absa I received two unsolicited phone calls from external agencies, trying to sell me credit cards and insurance.

- I brought this under the attention of both Dick Gardner AND George Willenburg… No response.

An extract from my email correspondence is listed hereinbelow:

“

from [.h]
to georgewil@absa.co.za
cc iansm@absa.co.za, dickg@absa.co.za
date 16 May 2008 19:17
subject Re: FW: 20 + years customer .

Dear Sirs,

As bitterly disappointed George was in losing a client, as bitterly disappointed I am for not receiving a single reply to my email below.

It seems the only way to get a response from Absa is to basically post a complaint on hellopeter?

I now look forward to any response to my email hereinbelow.

Sincerely,
[.h]

*************
2008/4/25 [.h]:
Dear George,

Thank you for all your efforts.

What still perplexes me is that I, yet again, received a call from a “consultant at Absa”, trying to sell me insurance today? The call was received at 11:59 on my number xxxxxx. The person who called me was Tyrone Oliver, calling from “Absa Finances Division” in “Johannesburg”. After questioning him, I found out that his employer was “Okeeffe & Swarts”, whoever that may be. Subsequent to asking him questions he claimed I was “breaking up” and hung up on me.

Now, yet again, I fully appreciate that you are not in control of everything which Absa does, but I am deeply worried in my personal information being bandied about to sales agents and externel service providors, with whom I’ve had no relationship.

Can you perhaps direct me as to who I should address my issues to in this regard? I would like to formally give notice to Absa, in terms of section 51 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, that I no longer wish to be contacted by Absa or any of Absa’s third party providers to sell me goods or services.

Section 51 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act states as follows:

“

1) A data controller must have the express written permission of the data subject for the collection, collation, processing or disclosure of any personal information on that data subject unless he or she is permitted or required to do so by law.

2) A data controller may not electronically request, collect, collate, process or store personal information on a data subject which is not necessary for the lawful purpose for which the personal information is required.

3) The data controller must disclose in writing to the data subject the specific purpose for which any personal information is being requested, collected, collated, processed or stored.

4) The data controller may not use the personal information for any other purpose than the disclosed purpose without the express written permission of the data subject, unless he or she is permitted or required to do so by law.

5) The data controller must, for as long as the personal information is used and for a period of at (cast one year thereafter, keep a record of the personal information and the specific purpose for which the personal information was collected.

6) A data controller may not disclose any of the personal information held by it to a third party, unless required or permitted by law or specifically authorised to do so in writing by the data subject.

7) The data controller must, for as long as the personal information is used and for a period of at least one year thereafter, keep a record of any third party to whom the personal information was disclosed and of the date on which and the purpose for which it was disclosed.

The data controller must delete or destroy all personal information which has become obsolete.

9) A party controlling personal information may use that personal information to compile profiles for statistical purposes and may freely trade with such profiles and statistical data, as long as the profiles or statistical data cannot be linked to any specific data subject by a third party.
”

I would also like to draw your attention to subsections 6 and 8 (highlighted for your ease of reference).

Lastly I would like to be informed to whom by data has been distributed and would like to receive confirmation that my personal data has now in fact been removed from all potential sales list.

I look forward to your (and/or Dick Gardner’s) formal response hereto (as well as to the outcome in due course of your investigation as referred to in your email of the 21st instant).

Thanking you in anticipation.

Kind regards,
[.h]
*********************

2008/4/21 <georgewil@absa.co.za>:

Dear [.h]
I must apologise once again on behalf Absa wrt to the possible sale of a student credit card,especially to someone that has graduated 4 years ago and no longer banks here.We will investigate further.
Regards.

George Willenburg
Branch Manager
Heerengracht
Tel: 021~415 5700
Mobile: 082 450 9333
Email: georgewil@absa.co.za
**************

From: [.h]
Sent: 21 April 2008 02:28 PM
To: George Willenburg (georgewil@absa.co.za)
Subject: Re: FW: 20 + years customer .

Dear George,

Thank you, I have indeed!

Kind regards,
[.h]

On 18/04/2008, georgewil@absa.co.za <georgewil@absa.co.za> wrote:

Dear [.h]
I would like to know if you received your gift yet?
Regards.

George Willenburg
Branch Manager
Heerengracht
Tel: 021~415 5700
Mobile: 082 450 9333
Email: georgewil@absa.co.za

From: George Willenburg (georgewil@absa.co.za)
Sent: 04 April 2008 09:43 AM
To: [.h]

Cc: Dick Gardner (dickg@absa.co.za)
Subject: 20 + years customer .

Dear [.h]
I am bitterly dissapointed in the way this matter was handled.We do not want lose customers at all.I have left a message on your cell phone on the 03/04 and 04/04 and wish to make contact with yourself.I would like to put things right,even if it is to give you a gift for all the inconvenience caused.
Regards.
George Willenburg
Branch Manager
Heerengracht
Tel: 021~415 5700
Mobile: 082 450 9333
Email: georgewil@absa.co.za

In the hope of some Absa guy reading this, herewith my Absa horror story:

I was quite happy with Absa (from way back, before it was even Absa), right through my student days, etc.

The troubles started when I started working….

First came the switch from a student account to a “proper account”, which included a garage card. The application was an issue which took 5 days to sort out since they did not want to change my account to a graduate account since I didn’t at that time yet have proof of employment (other than my salary slip and monthly deposits into my account) but also did not want me to stay on the student package “since I was earning a salary”. The mind boggles.

After about 5 weeks after my application for a garage card I was still garage card-less and asked my branch what was going on… They couldn’t tell me and promised to get back to me. Needless to say they didn’t but at least a week later I got my garage card.

So, I go about my merry way until one day I receive a rude phone call from my branch, asking my when I’m going to come and collect my garage card after all the fuss I have made – which was quite strange, seeing that I already had a garage card in my possession (and have thrown in many many liters of petrol). It transpired that when my first application didn’t result in a garage card they merely duplicated the application and issued a second card. So – they cancelled the second card. Or so I thought – in fact: they cancelled the card I had in my possesion, which led me being quite embarrassed at the the petrol station when my card was listed as blacklisted. After a few phone calls they reversed the blacklisting…. again however, so I thought: a couple of weeks later I received a sms from some Absa call center (after hours!) which basically said that I was using an illegal card and had to hand the card in at my nearest branch. Obviously when I tried to call the call centre, it was closed.

After a number of phone calls, which I had to make and pay for – the issue was resolved. Ah, but wait: it wasn’t! Two months later I received 17 pages of garage card statements…. It transpired that they “old” card number was now allocated to somebody else, but still linked to my account….! Fun and games! Luckily all the transactions were quickly reversed, save for – the bank charges! (To this day, some 6 months later I’m still waiting on the R200-odd refund).

Then, three months later, a FNB banker was at our office for one of my colleagues… He told me of his package (the electronic option at R75/month) and I did some investigation on my bank charges…. the summary of which are:
- I’m paying internet banking fees twice per month of R115 (quite clever, I must say, since one sees the internet banking fee and disregards it, but never notice that it pops up twice per month on your account).
- I’m paying a management fee for my cheque account of R200p/m
- I’m paying a yearly AND monthly credit card fee (R300-odd for the yearly fee plus another R20p/m)
- I’m paying an admin fee of some R50p/m fr goodness knows what

All-in-all, it resulted in the nice sum of R487 for the month of Feb 2008. I was shocked.

So, I decided to call my banker at Absa and left 7 messages to find out what is going on… Not a single call was returned.

My experience with FNB on the other hand was magnificient, to ay the least. The FNB rep came to my office, collected all the docs, did all the applications, sorted out my credit card, overdraft, etc – all in 30 minutes.

One week later I had my R75p/m option plus cheque card, credit card and debit and credit petrol cards as well as internet banking sorted. What a pleasure and double thumbs up to FNB!

As a final confirmation that I was right to leave Absa – I phoned Absa to ask what I needed to switch my last debit order (an internal absa one, which Absa did not allowed FNB to do on my behalf). I phoned and asked what I needed to switch my debit order and close my accounts. When I saw the senior Sales Manager at Absa Sandton City, she confirmed to me that I was overpaying on all my accounts – the shocking part? They didn’t even offer to rectify it, just basically said they understand why I would want to close my accounts.

After spending ages in the queues at the tellers to close my accounts, I was told that I also needed a statement from FNB to prove my account number (new requirement which I was not told of over the phone) – which meant having to rush over to FNB and rush bank to Absa before they closed the Saturday morning (with being totally unapologetic and basically telling me that if I didn’t return by 11am, I’ll have to do it some other time).

My warning to all – stay away from Absa: I really don’t mind paying a small premium for good service, but no consumer should have to put up with such arrogance and incompetence. And for considerably less money you can actually get better service at FNB.

I don’t understand why corporates can’t understand that such bad customer service is really bad for business (especially people who now EARN money and can and will be a good client for a long time to come)? I myself have actually told everybody that I’ve met that is with Absa that they are being ripped off and should seriously consider going to FNB.

OK, enough of my diatribe….