From now on, I have decided to call Standard Bank – “Standard Wank”, just like the Laugh it Off tshirt that got banned in 2003 (I think?). No wonder Standard Wank wanted the tshirt banned – it pretty much summed up what they must get up to in their 9 till 3.30 working day: Absolutely FUCK ALL.
My peril started when I realised my bank card was missing yesterday. I know myself pretty well and I have a memory like a sieve so the chances of remembering where I lost it are slim to none, so I cancelled the card straight away with no problem.
Like any normal person, I then decided to transfer all of my funds across to my credit card for the month so I would have a card to use whilst I waited the 7 working days it was going to take for my new card to arrive (it has to get sent down from Johannesburg and then I have to go and pick it up from my branch).
Then I went onto Standard Wank internet banking to be told “There is a problem with the card number you have entered. It is either illegal or has expired.”
In other words: “FUCK YOU, you dumbass client!!! You wanna lose your card? Well we are gonna make your life a living HELL. Even more of a living hell than banking with us!!! Aha! AHAHAHAH!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”
I phoned the call centre straight away, asking why I can’t get into my internet banking after I had cancelled my card. It took a while to get the message across to the operator that I had not cancelled my ACCOUNT but my CARD.
When we had established that I had only cancelled my card, the gentleman on the other side of the line told me “you can’t use your internet banking until you have the new card or you have to go into a branch.”
So basically, if you lose your card, you can’t use your internet banking for transactions etc for seven days. Screw paying rent. Screw paying bills. You just have to sit with no card and no internet banking and get into sheit with your creditors. Or go into the bank, wait in a queue for an hour, come back to work late and get into more shit. Could the woman who cancelled my card not have warned me about this teensy little detail?!!! I pay R170 a MONTH for my account! That is R2040 a YEAR!!!
Nice.
Now, the entire reason I have internet banking is so that I don’t have to go and stand in bank branches for my entire lunch hour, squeezed in between dunbious people, most of whom need a good scrubbing or at least some deodorant. If the banks could stay open later than 3.30pm or have their employees roll out of bed just a bit earlier to open up at 8am, this would be a different story.
But banks in South Africa don’t really seem to be able to grasp the concept that in order for their clients to be able to bank with them, they have to be EMPLOYED. That means they have to have JOBS. And jobs usually START BEFORE 9am and END AFTER 3.30pm. But why should Standard Wank and other banks get up a bit earlier and work a bit later to suit their clients? Puhleaaaaaase, I shouldn’t be so self centered should I?
Plus the bastards are going to charge me R75 for a card replacement.
I think every single person, and I mean every single individual I know has had problems with their banks. One friend was charged for a petrol card which she didn’t apply for. One other friend applied for a credit card which was then sent to the wrong branch. Because banks cannot send cards between branches, the card had to be cancelled and she had to reapply for it. They failed to include the origional application specifics, such as a budget facility so when she discovered that her origional requests were not valid on her new card, she was told she would have to wait for six months to change it or pay off the entire amount owed on the card.
But this is stuff that happens every day, all day! It is such a regular thing in this country – literally millions and millions of these fuck ups happen a year! That is a couple for every single person in the country every year.
And the problem is not just with banks. The council repeatedly forgets to send me my water bill, or sends it to the wrong address, then charges me interest when I don’t pay it (because I have not been sent a bill). ADT has taken double my monthly installment out of my account on numerous occasions and when I complained, I was told that they could not pay me back the money. Even though they had literally charged me double my fee more than once. It was only when I wrote an incredibly snotty and vicious email to the regional ADT manager in August that the problem was noted. I was paid the money back A WEEK AGO (it is December now, they decided to pay me via a cheque so I had to wait seven days for the money, even though they have my account details and could have done a direct transfer).
The scary part of all of this is that when you complain, the reply “I’m sorry, there is nothing we can dooooo” is the regular lifesaver for all incompetent service providers, thriving off their monopolised power. Now, I’m sorry, but that reply is just not good enough anymore. Actually, it never has been good enough or acceptable, but as a country that is pretty much devoid of any skilled labour, appalling has become so accepted that these bastard companies just get away with shitty, inconvenient and costly service (to the consumers) time and time again.
I think it is time to move to another country, because South Africa is not moving forward in any way. Yes, nice football stadiums and statues of freedom fighters are nice and pretty, but couldn’t we spend the money on education instead or feeding kids that are so starving that their brains are being chewed up?
Bleh, that is my angry rant for the day.
