Be very careful when you put your bank cards in a Standard Bank ATM. There is a know flaw with their ATM network.
What a painful day.
So on Wednesday night I go to get some cash from the Standard Bank ATM in Camps Bay. It gives me my cash, but it keeps my card and prints out some lame slip saying my card was retained because of a technical problem. Error code: 0231 *ARgghh!!* The ATM goes into “broken” mode, with a red screen… which is kinda warped.
No phone number on the ATM.
The next day I attempt to figure out which branch is responsible for that ATM.. I try the branch locator on their website.. it’s broken so I attempt to phone the Standard Bank call centre.. useless as expected, but happy to put me through to the “Camps Bay branch”.. which is a dead end. Later I discover there is no such thing as the Camps Bay branch. Muppets.
Friday, I drive back to the ATM and start talking to the people in the shops next to the ATM. The travel agent and jeweller both seem pretty annoyed with this ATM. They tell me it’s been swallowing cards for a long time, at a rate of 4+ cards per day. Often these are cards of tourists.. even more painful than my experience.
Turns out the jeweller had phoned the people who administer the ATM earlier that day.. three guys show up. Two with bullet proof jackets and guns. I ask if my card is in the ATM. They tell me they can’t give me my card.. fine, but it would be nice to know if my card is there. Nope. OK, what now? Hmm.. not sure.
These guys were _no_ help.. they must be ex-Zim CIA.
Once a day they probably get to the ATM, see the red screen and happily reset it to the standard operating mode without wondering why the screen is always RED!! when they get there. Muppets.
The jeweller figures the closest branch is in Sea Point and they probably take the cards there.
I stand in the queue for a while, get to the front, explain the whole thing and get told my card has been destroyed.. *ARRGGHHH!!*
Sense of humour failure.
OK.. so how do we deal with a business which has obvious flaws but a million monkeys happy to follow the process of least resistance? Well, share the pain and discomfort.. waste the time of somebody with a bit of influence.. somebody who’s time is of equal or more value than my time. Simple economics.
I go see the bank manager and start asking a few questions about their ATM network.
She tells me it’s an “IT problem”.. IT knows about the problem, it affects all their ATMs but the IT department does not want to commit to a timeline for fixing the problem… this is getting entertaining. The card swallowing is happening often. Their “workaround” for the problem seems to be to wait a day before they destroy the cards.
I tell my story. She agrees their call centre is useless and their ATM staff are not helpful. I found that kind of honesty refreshing.. but somehow depressing.. she must hear stories like this very often.
Skipping ahead, she was very helpful.. ordered a new card, gave me her contact details, gave me a temporary debit card, kept the branch open to let me get some cash.
Now, I have to wait 5 working days to get the new card and I have to reset my online banking profile… so I can’t use online banking at the moment.
What a gigantic waste of time. Two hours of pain.. and more to come.
Let’s just zoom out here for a second and think about what the functions of an ATM, a call centre and online banking are… uuuhhmmm, automatic teller.. I guess it keeps customers away from the branch and allows them to help themselves. Same goes for online banking and kinda true for call centres.
These are the barriers, the primary lines of defence.. they keep customers from wanting to strangle bank employees. These functions are the true white collars of the modern banking world, they keep the whole thing civil.
Ok, not call centres.. all call centres are doomed.
Now you begin to see what an EPIC FAILURE this is.. some greasy IT brat is not fixing the problem, not taking responsibility and not seeing the effects.. but poisoning an entire ecosystem by crippling the things that make the experience of modern banking almost bearable.
You have been warned.
Hi Joe
My name is Bellinda, I’m the Senior Online Marketing Manager at Sandard Bank. We discovered your post through Rafiq’s tweet and having read your story can completely understand why you’d be so upset. I will look into the problem with more senior colleagues at the bank and get back to you as soon as I can. In the meantime if you have any other questions don’t hesitate to drop me a mail.
Regards
Bellinda
Hi Bellinda
Thanks for the quick response. Hope you can motivate the senior people to fix this.
Btw.. I’ve also been wondering why it takes 5 days to get a new credit card, I’d say one day to print and one day to transport. Let’s call it 3.. not 5?
Joe,
So sorry to hear about your experience with Standard Bank.
This type of thing is so typical in the banking industry.
You’d think there where laws to govern this sort of behavior, the sad news my friend is that no matter how Pd off we get there is nothing we can do. Well thats what the banks think
You see how fast you get a response when you post your story for the world to see. hehe, this is our last line of defense, and I can state that it works. A few years ago, my dad had a blast at Standard Bank, after they stole more than R20k from his account (also with some IT excuse.) It took 5months to get the money bank, with a most unhelpful bank I have ever seen. It was only after we went to the international press that action was taken to help us and refund the money.
Lets hope the bank wakes up to the fact that the modern generation will not wait 5months to be helped!
I hope your story motivates the bank to fix the problem sooner.
You got my vote.
Hey Simon
I can’t imagine it’s an easy job running a bank.. but I would agree that there is a major imbalance in power when the average customer falls through a crack in the system.
No more secrets.
Perhaps it’s time to consider switching banks, maybe that will get Standard Bank to act on the issue you raise. With ABSA for example, if you need a replacement debit/ATM card, one is issued to you at the branch immediately; no temporary card nonsense. Credit cards take a maximum of 1 week to be issued, and the branch contacts you by telephone to notify you that it can be collected. ABSA’s service is generally very smooth, their call-centres and staff competent and their Internet Banking just works.
I don’t work for them, I’m just a happy client of theirs.
Hi Warren
I guess I could threaten to change banks..
I’ve used other banks. I’m actually a fairly loyal Standard Bank customer.. pretty much all my accounts (including business) are with STD bank.
STD bank also does immediate ATM/debit cards and 5 working day credit card replacements. I’m assuming this is the norm.
I guess it’s a question of the lesser evil.. or the people you build the best relationship with.. or maybe everybody will just reach a point where they walk away from central banking systems
It’s not only Standard Bank. I had a simular problem with Nedbank in Robertson, Western Cape.
Went into the bank, they first refused to return my card but when I loudely and in public threatened them to lay a charge for theft they suddenly became very helpfull.
Normally it seems that one has to pay for a new card after the old one has been swallowed ….
ATM’s are like people; they are not perfect.
But there is something else. From an Australian tourist we understood that after they cashed R 1000.00 at an ATM in Stellenbosch 3000 AUS dollar was writen off their Australian bank account. They (warned for skimming) did not allow anybody near the ATM. According to the Australian bank it is very possible that telecom lines between ATM’s and their servers are tapped by crooks or an inside job at the bank in question. Stellenbosch is by the way on the ‘hotlist’ of several overseas banks. Skimmed credit cards are all cashed at ATM’s in certain areas in and near Cape Town where the cameras are ‘out of order’.
There is a general feeling at overseas banks that South African banks don’t pay enough attention to this problem.
More than enough reason for us to advise overseas visitors to go into a bank during opening hours and cash at the teller.
Nice blog design Joe. I’ve had a similar experience where the card insertion slot is loose and the atm badly lit. I stuck my card right into a gaping whole never to see it again.
Hi Joe
I will enquire about the delivery time for credit cards and get back to you.
Regards
Bellinda
Since Standard Bank uses Diebold ATMs, perhaps card swallowing is the ATM equivalent of vote swallowing?
Hey Morgan
I noticed the Diebold brand on all the new ATMs.
Get this..
Today I stick the (tmp) debit card they issued me with last week in a Diebold ATM at Cavendish Square. Screen goes blue, it reboots twice, plays me charming Windows startup sounds and keeps my card.
Am I just the most unlucky person on the planet? WTF!!
So I go to the bank and tell the lady at the info desk I need to do three things, one of which is (obviously).. I need a new card and I say: which one do you want to do first. Guess what, she wants to issue me a new card first.
Maybe it’s because it’s the easiest process they have and they are just so good at it by now.
I ask her how often she issues new cards because of ATM swallowing.. and she says: very often and even more towards the end of each month.. in fact she just issued one two minutes ago.
Can somebody spot the pattern here?
Is it easier for Standard Bank to keep issuing new cards than to fix the problem? I hear bells ringing. Standard Bank people must be really good at ignoring the sound of those bells.
Now I’m really annoyed.
Does anybody know of an ATM network than does not run Windows?
Are there laws against this? Is there some regulator for consumer banking in SA.. regulating how lame banks can and can’t be?
WOW, ok I don’t feel so bad about my rant!!!
I think it might be time to change banks… Although it is kind of a case of “best of a bad bunch.”
Sigh.
Last year, around May, Standard Bank received a batch of faulty cards, which they issued to the public, even though they were aware that the cards were faulty.
Basically, I would get a new card, it would work three times, then go mental and refuse to work.
So approximately every three to four days, I had to go into Standard Bank during lunch at work and stand in the queue for an hour for a new one.
I mentioned that this whole “card problem” was not really acceptable, but the lady behind the teller desk said “unfortunately, we got a faulty batch but we will give you a new card for free every time it stops working!”
What they didn’t take into account was the R5.50 I had to pay every single time that card didn’t work and I would try four different ATM’s to see if there would be a difference.
Grumble.
Bellinda.. one week later, no response?
5 business days later, nobody has contacted me about my credit card..
and the branch locator on your website is still broken.
Wildly underwhelmed.
I’m betting they are going to bill me for the replacement card.
faaakin annoying…
So I phone the card division number to find out if my card is at the branch yet.
I read the guy the tracking/reference number.
All I want to know is: is my new card at the branch?
I make it clear that I don’t want to do the 20 questions verification crap.
I don’t even want to know which branch it’s going to, I know that already, all I need is: yes or no.
That was a fun dead end.
Mupppets.
Why the fork bother giving me a tracking number if it’s useless?
Ah, yes.. as expected they wanted to bill me for the replacement card. How nice of them.
Finally received a text message to say that my replacement card is at the branch today, only 3 days late.. and not there anymore.
In the end Bellinda did email me some feedback… we know about the problem, blah, we can’t fix it in the holiday season, blah, blah, we’ll fix the branch-locator (still not working), blah, still don’t know why credit card replacements take 5+ days, blah, blah..
..basically useless information, makes you feel so “inspired, motivated and involved”.
Muppets.
In the last 12 years I’ve had two ATM cards. The first one got cancelled by accident in 2001 (finger trouble by the computer operator, apparently someone else with a similar name wanter to cancel their card), and Absa gave me a new one free of charge.
I’ve had zero card problems with Absa ATMs. Not sure if this is sufficient reason to recommend them, but they don’t irritate me too much except for charging R8.15 for a withdrawal (!). Easily countered by drawing cash less often.
Problems I did have: One ATM in Somerset Mall failed to supply the cash, but the error was logged and the transaction was reversed the next day.
Absa also set up two different “combi-numbers” so that my internet banking does not stop working if my ATM card is cancelled. This was REALLY useful when my wallet and ID document got stolen a few years ago and I had no way to get my hand on cash other than transferring it to my wife’s account and drawing it from there.
Finally, make sure they don’t charge you for the new card if it is their fault!