Another banner speaks out on bad service
SANDTON - Following the controversy caused by a Cell C banner blasting the network company's Sandton City branch, another irate customer has taken First National Bank to task over their poor service.
The customer, identifying himself as Nico Niemand, placed a poster on a trailer which read, “In the interest of the public, FNB’s slogan sucks,” adding that when he asked for assistance from the bank, none was given. The website www.rottenbank.co.za was also posted on the banner which explains Niemand’s gripe.
Niemand explained that the troubles began when issues arose with the sale of some of his properties, which he claims was conducted in an unfair manner.
“This is not a summary of just bad service received; this is an honest and accurate version of me being on the receiving end of what I can only assume as a personal vendetta against me by First National Bank Financial institution. ‘How Can We Help you?’ Not in my case,” he said.
Niemand also elaborated on various cases launched in an attempt to resolve the problems and the severe financial strain it caused on him.
He also blasted the bank’s chief executive officer of FNB Home Loans, Jan Kleynhans and the former CEO of FNB, Michael Jordaan for their inability to live up to the ‘so-called’ promise relayed to the public in their advertising campaigns. The poster was seen being driven on Beyers Naude Drive, the same spot where the Cell C banner was placed.
Read our previous stories here:
Black tape on billboard that slams Cell C
Cell C takes legal action to remove controversial banner
Cell C launch urgent application to remove billboard
Cell C banner re-branded once again
Irate Cell C customer allegedly spent 61K on banner
As more customers make their frustrations about service providers public, what can these providers do to ensure that complaints are heard? Share your views on the Sandton Chronicle Facebook page.
I would say that my experience with them thus far from a service point of view has been pretty decent. However I do feel like the victom of some form of crime after walking out of FNB the other day. I was utterly disgusted. I was going through the process of applying for finance for my first property and that means you have to get bank statements stamped by the bank. As I am a commission earner I needed 6 months bank statements. My account is a busy one. Lots of transactions meaning one month bank statements is made up of a lot of pages so 6 months statements is a health stack of paper. So imagine how I felt when I found out a SINGLE PAGE COSTS R13.00. let me say that again. FNB charges its clients R13.00 per page for a statement. These pages are not diamond encrusted, they are not gold plated, you don’t get issued FNB shares with each printed page. These pages are not printed in color, they are not laminated. Hell the FNB didn’t even put them in an envelope. On what planet does a single printed page cost R13.00? While R13.00 is not a high number, lets calculate the the mark up to truly show how wrong this price is. Postnet charges R0.75 for a black and white print and they are a business that makes money. They make money from the price of R0.75. Meaning the cost is more like R0.35 or R0.45 per page. But lets take the worst case senario and say it costs FNB R1.00 per print. That means that they have marked up 1200% to arrive at our price of R13.00. I do no know how many branches they have or how many pages a day each branch prints but I would bet saying that 100 branches printing 100 pages a day is so far below the actual figure that its a joke but even at that ridiculously low guess they would be printing 10 000 pages per day that they charge R13.00 for. This equates to R120 000.00 profit a day on printed pages for statements. And im telling you now its more than that. Its made me feel truly ill working these numbers out. I feel a whole lot worse now than I did at the start of this article and I will definitely be moving my account elsewhere. I dislike feeling like my pants have been pulled down and you know what follows…