Is There Any Wonder . . .
. . .why there is a widespread dislike of banks? Pause to draw breath . . .
I’m with Nedbank - heavy hitter bank if you’re not in South Africa. I was with Natal Building Society, which go gobbled up by Peoples Bank, which got gobbled up in a further bout of corporate incest by Nedbank. I have had such crappy service by a variety of banks over the years that I go into them in a confrontational attitude. Last year I got told not to slam the doors as I was scaring the tellers. Everyone in Nedbank knows me in our area - the Mr. Meldrew of Malvern.
I usually withdraw a chunk of cash and a couple of years ago noticed I was paying $12 for every withdrawal. I see the bank woman who tells me I need a ‘Transactor’ account with a fixed counter withdrawal fee of $2. Brilliant! I change with gusto and happily withdraw for two years.
Yesterday I see from the account that the wretched ‘counter withdrawal fee’ is $13 again. Nedbank - Oh but you changed the account on 12th December and BTW, we don’t do the Transactor any more. We have replaced it with the ‘Transactor Plus’. Too bloody right - the ‘Plus’ is not in the client’s favour that’s for cerain.
Banks don’t say tell you that they have increased their normally usurious rates to outrageous levels. They tell you that they have a new ‘fee structure’. $13 to withdraw my own money - money that they are already making interest on.
When the local little branch was NBS, there were three ladies who ran the place. Now it’s at least 8 flunkies and the service is worse. I was in the queue one lunchtime - with the usual single teller at that time - when six clients joined it within 30 seconds or so. To my great enjoyment, they all started to complain very loudly about the lack of service. Much scuttling about behind the glass and a second teller arrived, seemingly out of the floor tiles. And then the computer went down.
That’s the other thing that clients really enjoy about South African banks - the ability to form really close relationships with the bank staff.
Firstly you get scanned with a device that will render you impotent by 40 and then have to go through an airlock. You can’t open the inner door until the outer door is shut and if you already have your hand on the inner door handle, the red light will not change to green - really confusing for older clients.
Further, the airlock will not open the inner door if there is more than one person in it. How it knows this I have no idea. maybe it’s the rate of respiration or perhaps the volume of alimentary emissions.
Once having gained access to the inner sanctum and waited for twenty minutes while sundry local tradesmen have disgorged piles of coin, cheques and notes you are able to confront the teller. In South African banks, he/she is protected by a sheet of laminated glass that would stop an RPG. There is no communication system to make allowance for this impenetrable barrier so each client has to shout their personal details in full view of the assembled multitude.
The tellers, on their side of this hermetic barrier do not shout but mumble - on purpose I think. So there is this bout of yelling, a silent response, followed by a yelled ‘Pardon?’
Not acceptable I am afraid.
Now, to save their tellers from breaking into anything resembling a sweat and for the ennumerate amongst them, the banks introduced note counters. So, instead of mentally counting along with the teller, you watch this box of tricks whirr away.
Notwithstanding the fact that the thing may be wildly inaccurate, you cannot see the numbers anyway. In the bank the other day, this thing went off and the teller turns to me with the supercilious look a schoolyard bully has when he’s downed the class swat.
The machine is at the back of the office so the numbers are way below the one degree subtended by my eye necessary for distinct vision, secondly, the screen is an LCD screen with practically zero contrast and finally, the reflection of the fluorescent lights is on it.
‘Do you think I have telescopic vision?’ I yell through 4 inches of glass.
All the troubles of the world descend on the teller and with a prodigious mental rolling of the eyes, the machine is unplugged and brought to the front whereupon I have to assume ‘100′ means that there are 100 notes.
I promise that the next time I go in and this farce is repeated, I am going to say ‘Sorry, but there were only 98 notes there - I can count just as fast as the machine’ and make the teller count the bloody things by hand and exercise a bit of his limited brain power.