Standard Blank - Moving....certainly not forward

[Marq]

Standard Bank have been been extremely forward and aggressive with their latest terms and conditions and requirements for indemnities etc.

Effectively -

• They are now no longer responsible/liable/accountable (fill in own words here) for any balance/transaction/activity made by you/3rd parties/scam artists/con artists/thieves/any persons including themselves.
• They reserve the right to cut you off/deactivate card machines/do what they like at any stage they feel like doing this.
• They reserve the right to reverse any transaction if asked/feel like it/(fill in a reason here).
• Their rules are binding to the extent of the law/on you/any successors in title/(fill in anybody who you may know here).
• In short - they are a law unto themselves and owe you nothing in the way of looking after your money (your loan to them), your business, any transactions, your information, security, and will take your last possession through legal action in the blink of an eye should they feel like it. And if you owe them anything, well then, it would appear that the loan sharks depicted in the movies are children in comparison.

You may or may not receive this information/ letters/email/phone calls because .....well because they feel they dont have to/forget to/dont add attachments/ write strange emails that dont make sense/ just dont.

Complaints via phone call to central system - get cut off/staff denial/dont answer phone/pass the buck/(fill in any reason here but you are not going to get an answer)
Complaints via email - receive an out of office reply/nothing/obtuse thought of the day.

So thats the latest sitrep on Standard Wank.

Just wondering if the other banks give the same dreadful service and terms of banking?
Are their terms hidden in their dungeons of despair or are they open about them and are they as onerous as Standards?
Are they as bad at communicating as Standard?
What happened to the bank manager who cared about you?
Which one of this evil lot is the best to deal with at the moment for your personal and business banking?

[Marq]

Guess you are all banking fans out there.

[Justloadit]

I've been with Find Nother Bank for most of my business life. Was with Stranded in the early days but moved on because of the nonsense I had to put up with. I briefly tried Nerd Bank, but moved very quickly, and Absent bank was just crappy, even charging me to use internet banking, so also moved on.

Can not remember the last time I was in a branch. Do everything via internet banking, sometimes I use cellphone banking. If I have a problem I usually just email my 'personal banker', the person allocated to my account, and must say have always been well treated. Yes the bank charges are a bit of an issue, especially now that they charge me monthly for my credit card, and O/D facility, where as in the past it was a yearly deduction.

[Dave A]

Just wondering if the other banks give the same dreadful service and terms of banking?
Are their terms hidden in their dungeons of despair or are they open about them and are they as onerous as Standards?

I have to say I've been reading the latest changes to Standard's terms and conditions, particularly those relating to online transacting, with some concern.

6.6.4 If we receive an instruction from you, using your Access Codes, we are not required to check the authenticity of that instruction and this will be the case even if the instruction is a fraudulent one, unless it is proven that we clearly knew the instruction was fraudulent.

It seems like a self-fulfilling prophesy clause - If there is no check for authenticity, there is no way of knowing that the transaction is fraudulent.
If I accept that they have no responsibility whatsoever to check for authenticity, when challenged they need only respond that they did nothing to authenticate and it's game over.

It really does seem like a bridge too far. There has to be some level of responsibility on the bank to take due care...

..and in reality, it's quite obvious they actually are doing quite a lot to try to validate any deviation from normal behaviour.

[BusFact]

... - If there is no check for authenticity, there is no way of knowing that the transaction is fraudulent...

I suppose there is always the remote chance that they are advised about the transaction being fraudulent by a 3rd party perhaps, in which case it would be possible to know about it being fraudulent despite not having done a check.

[Houses4Rent]

The day has come where Standard Wank gave me notice on both my accounts. Absolutely disgusting. I simply complained too much. Sub Standard Bank send me a monthly statement by email. After many years they stopped that without any reason. I chase and chase. Eventually I get a statements and they slapped a hectic fee on my account for that. That repeats a few months. Still nobody makes any effort to find out why never mind fixing it. So I fight again to get the fees reversed and to get my regular statement bank. Eventually they say they can't give monthly statements anymore. Whaaaat? Funny, on my other account it still works. Total wankers. I had it escalated to the CEO's office as I could no believe that something that simple is so complicated, but they just cover each others asses and say piss off to me.
I read a little on the Banking Ombudsman, but that route seems a waste of time. Had anybody ever tried that route? What can i achieve if anything at all?
So where do I go? Huge hassle to have to recapture 150 beneficiaries at some stage (apparently they cannot be exported) never mind trying to find out who all has my banking details so I can tell them otherwise ONCE I found a new bank.

I looked around a bit and want to avoid the usual remaining 3 suspects. Investec is a no go as they wasted my (and their own) time royally last year already. Has anybody ever tried simple business banking (I would day internet transactional banking with very few features will do, no branch, no card required) at banks like:
Bidvest
Citi
Grindrod
Ithala
UBank
Sasfin
Mercantile
VBS Mutual?

[Dave A]

I'm truly impressed that they want to close your account because you complained too much!

What type of bank account was it that they would not send monthly statements?

[Houses4Rent]

Hi Dave, its an account for a trust, 2-3 transaction per month. They say its a savings account. The statement itself doe snot say what kind of account it is. To me an account is an account is an account. Either way they changed something, not me. The other account is my business account. I have about R4.0 Mio per year flowing into that account. The issue there is that they did not allow me to pay the same recipient twice a day which I often have to do when paying council. Instead of displaying a warning of duplication to the client (like any other programm does) it simply refuses to allow the transaction. So I could not fulfill my contractual obligations. I found a way around that by loading same beneficiary a second time, but its a principle matter to me that I want to be in control of my account/funds and not told by my bank who I can consciously pay twice. I am an adult, not a baby.