Standard Bank South Africa
reviews and complaints

I am in the UK and do my shopping in SA using my Standard Bank account. I have been trying to shop in Yuppie Chef and every time I try to pay I cannot click on my expiry date for my card as it won't go higher than 2017. They tell me after numerous complaints by them, Standard Bank are doing nothing to fix the problem. Is it going to take customers to change banks before this is fixed?

I sent money, R2500 from my account using instant money services and the money was withdrawn before I could even provide the recipient with the pin number, how possible is that? Are our funds safe in the accounts? I am very disappointed as I rely much on this service to send money. Can I please get clarity on what happened to my funds before I share with others my experience on social media to warn them. I feel very vulnerable as we speak and weighing my options going forward.

Hi Standard bank

My Name is Mpho Sedikelo (mi. [protected]@gmail.com, [protected]), a customer of Standardbank and a former employee.

I have a homeloans, a cheque accout and a pure save accounts with you.
My complaints are to do with my Homeloans and my cheque account.

Complaint 1: (Debit orders for my Homeloan on my cheque account)

I am writing this to complain after going through my cheque account statement.

Standardbank debited my account on dates I did not agree with them to debit on for my homeloan.

My last agreement stated that they need to start debiting on the last day of the month and not on the 20th as there wont be funds in my account then.

Because of a breach in that agreement on your side I got charged R115 unpaid fees twice. (20th July and 20th August)

R115 is a lot of money especially since it was the bank's fault to run debits on a wrong date and most recently on an incorrect account. (definitely no my fault that your systems are not updating customers data like they should)

I would therefore request a refund for both occasions.

I called your homeloans department as well as your collections department to make these debit order changes... but still debits still run against my account on a date when funds are not there.

I was unfairly charged on the unpaids and therefore request a refund.

Another point I need to Address is the process of making arrangements to pay for the arrears amounts every agreed month is tedious, we already agreed that I will pay it over a period of 3months with my homeloans installment, and have been forced to pay for it through debit orders by your agents when I opted to do an EFT payment (which I have control over)... so why do I need to keep calling to have it loaded each month... that is a tedious and manual process... automation saves us both a lot of time and energy.

Funny that I have to call your collections dept. each time so they can manually load my next payment, and yet debit orders I did not authorise are automated to run against my account on a date I did not agree upon.

The bank makes ads about being a bank that cares about their customer and try and assist them where possible. (Lies)

I am angry at the fact that I reached out for help during a period of financial difficulty after being a loyal customer that never defaulted on her payments but the bank cared less to help.

But then again as an employee of a bank I know that they care about the bottom line and nothing else.. when I left Standardbank, it was embarking on a customer centric journey... but clearly there is still a long way to go.

PS: Please refund my cheque account with those unpaid fees for July and August

Complaint 2 (Related to Complaint 1 : Incorrect Debit amounts)
I will not keep calling your call centres every time, won't waste my airtime and energy cos it's pointless, the agreements we make over the phone are not being met by the bank.

The agreement made was that I will pay my homeloan arrear amount installments (divided into 2 monthly installments) together with my normal homeloans monthly installment at the last day of the month (for August and September) as I had already paid the 1st arrear installment in July.

The agent calculated it to be a total of R7580, and that this amount will be debited on the last day of August against my Absa cheque account, however I received a notification qouted below stating only R4845.06 was debited from my Absa cheque.

"Absa: CHEQ7506, Sch t, 31/08/17 SETTLEMENT/C - NAEDO TRACKED DO, SBSA HL NA/[protected], R-4, 845.06, Help [protected]; SEDIKMI001"

I am not about to answer phone calls or respond to your smses stating that I have an outsanding amount to pay on my arrears. You debiting the wrong amounts is really not my problem, but then again it is my problem as it will affect my credit rating.

I have made arrangements with you and I am not going to keep making arrangements as they are clearly not being honoured.

Standardbank is messing with customers, I need you to fix this and action as per telephone agreement.

I don't need the stress... I already went through financial difficulties for 6 months after resigning from my old job, I defaulted on my homeloans and am trying to make amends to restore my credit profile... but the bank is now deliberately trying to mess me around.

Give me a different option to pay for my accounts as clearly debit orders are so difficult to do, always at a customer's expense.

Now I am receiving stupid smses and calls about outstanding payments that annoy me to he core, especially cos the bank is at fault and not me.

Please fix this debit order mess and pay me back the amounts charged for unpaid items on my Standardbank cheque account for July and August.

On 9 July 2017 money of R 3437.00 was taken from my account, I laid case at standard fraud department to reverse my money but they the bank can't do that.Why the bank can't reverse the which was taken from my account with out authority. The lady was helping was rude anyway doesn't have option.I m standard bank customer for long .Can you work on that, That the money be reversed.

Good Day,

I have been trying to get through to your Credit card department on both [protected] / [protected] numbers and have been on hold for approximately an hour between 10 dials made between 2017/05/02 - 2017/05/03. This is highly unacceptable and I am beyond Frustrated and Outraged with the lack of Customer Service!

No explanation can be given to me as to where the lines are down, or why absolutely no one seems to be working in that department!

I need someone to contact me urgently Today! 2017-05-03

Regards
Amerinda Eichhoff
[protected]

On the 08 April 2017 I visited the South Gate Mall Standard Bank and was attended by a lady by Mbali Mavuso.
I had visited the branch to request a mobile banker to visit my mother who is an inmate in Sun City prison the reason for the visit was for me to have sighing powers on her account and to received her (my mother) 3 months bank statement. Ms Mbali Mavuso had made me sign documents to verify my signature and to prepare the documents for when she visits the Prison.
She had said she will go to Sun City the week ahead which was between the 11th and the 13th.
I then followed up with her that week, she said she had not gotten a chance to go and so many other stories. She promised to go the following week which was the 20th or the 21, my mother had also spoken to her regarding this urgent matter and she gave us both her word. She then requested a number of the person in charge for Female inmates which both me and my mother provided for to her.I spoke to her on the 17th she then said she will be out of the office on Thursday the 20 but she will attend to the inmates on Friday. Friday came and went but still no word from Ms Mavuso.

I have been calling the branch on [protected] which is the number she provided for me but nothing, when I call she is either busy with her personal things like fetching her sister at a panel beater or I get told she is busy with clients.

It has been a month now and I really do not understand how this process works and if it is supposed to take this long as we had clearly stated it was a matter of an emergency and we were promised it would be done in a week.

Dear Sir /Madam,
I wish to bring to your notice the poor treatment I received from your bank.
I made a transfer of US$4, 500 of my salary on the 25th May 2016. Your bank deducted the equivalent of this amount in kwanzas from my account on the 1st of June 2016 and kept the money for 10 months.
I received a call from your bank on the 27th of March 2017 informing me to go to my branch and update my details so that the transfer could be done.
I went to your Rei Katyavala branch and spoke with Ivan Borge ivan.[protected]@standardbank.co.ao and I explained to him that, it was my end of contract salary that I transferred and so currently I do not have a contract in Angola that would require me to have a work permit. He thus made a photocopy of my ordinary visa and sent it to the department or manager responsible for transfers. He further made me to put into writing that, I intend to close my account after the transfer.
I spoke with Mr. Alvaro A. Pascoal alvaro.[protected]@standardbank.co.ao on Monday 10th April 2017 that the all documents had been submitted so he can proceed with the transfer. And Mr. Alvaro A. Pascoal sent an email to that effect on the same date. Only for me to receive and email from Melanea M Tomas melanea.[protected]@standardbank.co.ao that the transfer had been cancelled because I did not respect transfer deadline.
I wish to make the following observations;
1. Your bank did not respect transfer timelines when it debited my account on the 1st of June 2016 and kept my money for a period of 10 months for my contract to run out and then come back and tell me to get a contract with the required documents when it was the same documents that were used for the transfer within the timelines of my contract and documents,
2. The onus lies on your bank to make sure my money gets to my account in Ghana, failure of which I shall engage my lawyers and sue for loss of earnings, loss of interest and bridge of trust and earning unfair interest on my money for 10 months,
3. I shall report this case to the financial ombudsman or banking regulator at your Global Office in South Africa,

I have been patient enough to wait for 10 months, and your bank has been impatient enough to cancel my transfer after one week even though I made efforts to provide supporting documents that I am no more on a contract and also stated my intention of transferring my money after the transfer.
I wait for your cooperation and resolution of this matter.

Kind regards

when i sent a claim i never had a response from them and eventually i had to call them after the assessor came and check the car. after waiting for another month without any response from them i got told that i need to produce docs from assessors when the car was bought. how many people keeps the se docs as the assessors is meant to send it to the insurance company and not our responsibility. well standard bank is the worst car insurance that i have dealt with and i will definitely not recommend any friend or family to go that route.

During late august we querred the will and last testament only to find out that standard bank in durban had no knowledge of his death. The lady promised to give feedback and ever since till present there is no feedback response or even a telephone call. It is as if the things are being done behind closed doors.

I was having a claim with standardbank insurance and I was not happy with their decision and decided to cancell the insurance on the 03rd of september 2015 and it was cancelled as per my request and I called general banking [protected] to get my september premium to be reversed and they advised me they can't reverse any transaction if it's a standardbank product and I called insurance and they refered me to the branch for the reversal to be done and when I got to the branch I was assisted by Russel not sure of his surname but he's working at number 03 simmonds street in johannesburg 2001 and he told me he can't do a reversal for standardbank product. They keep on sending me from pillar to post, please help I can't be paying for insurance which is not helping me in annyway.
[protected] nonhlanhla.[protected]@standardbank.co.za

Its quite remarkable how Standard bank has been treating me as of lately.
I am currently in the USA on a trip, and will be here for quite some time, and for the past three weeks access to my money has been denied, by the bank that I have to call Africa's most valuable bank. Understand my frustration, I have left South Africa ALONE to go to a country I have never been only to find out that I Have no money... which means should I want to buy something... I can't. Should I need to get a hotel... I can't. Should I find myself hungry... so be it. It's been three weeks and NOTHING. STANDARD BANK HAS PUT ME AT VERY HIGH OF BEING STRANDED IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY WITH NOWHERE TO GO AND NO FOOD TO EAT. Now tell me how is this even legal?

Standard bank is quick to take their customers money but shockingly dismal at responding to them. The dealership is waiting almost a week for a response from Adriaan from Claims who is wasting more time dragging on CLAIM NO SHS14010396773. It is unacceptable to wait for correspondence while incurring additional travel costs not to mention the inconvenience.

This travel wallet is a complete nightmare. We have just returned from the States and tried to use this card but most merchants declined the card. The only thing it is good for is to draw cash so why go to the trouble. Trying to sort things out with the travel wallet division is another joke as my card then was stolen and trying to call the fraud department from overseas requires a lot of money as you are hold forever and most of the time you are wasting your money. I stopped the card as soon as I realized it was gone and further transactions were registered after this date and they are now saying this is my problem. Really never go this route it is so frustrating and the worst product we have ever used. I am so infuriated by the whole experience I am considering changing my bank, home loan and cut all ties with them - it has just been totally unpleasant!

I am under debt review - since Feb 2013 I have been trying to get a settlement amount on my cheque account with no success! I even went to Standard Branch Bloemfontein that could not assist me at all, since the account had been handed over. The attorneys on the account gave me an amount which was impossible because for the 3 year period that I have been making my monthly payments, the amount owing did not change a bit! I have investigated this - got statements and about 9 payments that I have made into this account does not reflect while others do and up to date, nobody came back to, either with explanation nor settlement amount? I also have a revolving account which I have settled, I have paid the amount into a standard bank account given by First National Bank Internet - till date Standard bank is unable to give me a clearance letter because they cannot trace the money? How is this possible even when I gave them the account no and branch code for Standard Bank - I have been struggling with Standard Bank for months now - All I need/want is a settlement amount to settle the account and a clearance letter in respect of an account already settled in Feb 2013. I am so sick of Standard Bank - their service is pathetic - in my life I will never ever do business with them and nor will I advise anybody to do so!

Having had insurance with Standard Bank for more then ten years I thought i will have now problems when a Hale Storm damaged my property was I wrong.At first they did nothing then they only wanted to paint and not do any repairs and then when they send people to do repairs they are not qualified and causing more damage. To start with I only had roof damage, windows, out side electrical and a precast wall. Now after a month and a half added to the above list complete electrical of house and out buildings, complete floor of house, ceiling damage to the complete house, Alarm system and because the floor is wood I now have ants and termites in the house letting water get into the foundation causing unrepairable damage to the house. Best of all they do nothing and do not care about there customers

I have spoken to a number of people at standardbank and their so called attorneys and no one has been returning my call,
1.My account no: [protected] was supposed to be closed and to my according to standardbank the account is still open, without my knowledge, now there is a outstanding payment of over R8000 on the account . according to the debt review as well as my itc balance on this account should be R 974, so why has standardbank kept a inactive account open, that is under debt review, and continue to charge service fees on account that is not in use.
2. My wife recently underwent a operation to which Discovery medical aid had to refund her a amount of R1700, not knowing that my standardbank account was linked to discovery, they advised me that they deposited the funds in the incorrect account and await it to return so that they can refund her.
Now standardbank are keeping the funds back because they say the account that was suppose to be closed is still open and they are going to keep the deposit as a payment,
That funds should be returned back to discovery so that they can transfer the funds into my wifes account for her to pay outstanding medical bills,
3.lack of communication from standardbank, no one returns calls to advise why the account is still open and how they came to the figure of over R 8000, and if standardbank pries themselves to be so customer orientated then why don’t I get any call backs . standardbank does not want to answer questions or assist in any way

Ons het n huislenig by Standerd Bank gekry en sit nou met al die probleme van n dak wat lek die skade beloop R40 000 en die elektriesieteit sertifikaat is nie geldig huis kan afbrand.Skade van Elektrieseteit is R15850. Ons wil weet hoe is die huis in so n toestand aan ons besorg na ons skade uitgevind het hoor ons ons is ook nie verseker Ons sal graag wil weet hoe is die huis so goed gekeur Kan u ons asb laat weet wat om te doen

I'm under Debt Review and Standard Bank terminate the Debt Review process, so I decide to give my Toyota D/Cab Bakkie D4d back to Standard Bank. Mr R Manny was a consultant who came and see me and took the Vehicle for Standard Bank SA. This ahppened in the beginning of December 2011. According to me, Standard Bank SA have to keep the vehicle for a month to make sure I couldn't came up with the money which was outstanding. Then they should have get an offer for the vehicle and have to informed me of the offer, where upon I can except or decline, and where maybe I could gert a beter offer. The differents between the offer and the oustanding amount could then be arranged between me and Standard Bank SA. Since the beginning of January 2012 I phoned Mr. R Manny a few time as well as send him SMS's, requesting and informing him that nobody of Standard Bank has made contact with me yet and I don't know who the contact. Standard Bank can't just sell the Vehicle without informing me, so I need to know what is going on, or where the Vehicle is?

I have a standard bank account, in the past three months i noticed that there were withdrawals which they couldn't explain to me amounting to R4600.00 which they only paid me back R1600.00. Since then there was transfer of R5000 last month, which when i enquire they just gave me a run arround. Again this month a transfer of R6279.59 which no one is giving me a valid reason and telling me who authorised the transfer.

Is this how banks should work? Are they allowed to just take my hard earned money which by the way i needed to pay my kids' school fees before the schools opens next week.

Please someone advise