Active since Oct 2014
Today we experienced incompetence at the till of Toys r Us again. They did not accept the former 50 Rand note which is simply just a normal legal tender and not even out of circulation. They refused to accept it and said that we must change it at the bank. I don't know where they get this wrong information from or if they just want to make a story to be important but this was obviously wrong and nonsense. The banks do not change legal tender notes which are still in circulation and people who work at the till at a shop like Toys R Us should know that or ask their supervisor if they are not sure of something.
FNB has shown me in the past few months on a couple of occasions how unprofessional and *********** the employees are. The latest issue was again at the Somerset Mall branch where my wife wanted to deposit about R100 in coins into my daughters minor account. It says very clearly in the FNB price list that there is "no charge up to R500 for cash deposits at FNB ATM's and FNB Branch" for under 18 year old children per month. It seems that this does not count for the Somerset Mall branch. The "Sales and Team Leader" of FNB Somerset Mall tried to explain to us that there is a cash deposit fee of R85 plus R3.30 per R100. We argued that the price list says something different but she insisted on her decision that we would have to pay the fee of about R88 for a deposit of R100. This lady already treated me with her arrogant attitude like an idiot last month when it was about another issue which she was not able to resolve. I asked at another FNB branch today if FNB charges for cash deposits into a minors account and this lady from FNB confirmed that there is no fees for deposits up to R500 per month as in the price list. But I was told that I have to go to the branch at the Somerset Mall as her branch would have no tellers. In other words the FNB "Sales and Team Leader" can not even read their own price list and was once again completely wrong. So I complained about this at the administration manager of the Somerset Mall FNB branch last week but unfortunately never had any reply although this person was at work. A few weeks ago the very same manager asked me to please explain everything in writing to her again about a complaint with their Forex department when I was cheated by quite a bit of money. I wasted a lot of time again as usual with FNB and obviously never had any reply from this department as well. The service of FNB is in my opinion on level 0, absolutely disgusting and somehow shocking. Luckily it is over soon as all accounts are in the process of getting closed.
After 28 years with FNB I realized that it is really enough. The service at their departments and in the branches is absolutely not acceptable anymore. Their Forex department almost sent money back as they did not even call me when the money arrived, the other department froze my accounts for a couple of days until I brought them proof of starting and end date of my lease agreement with my tenants for FICA reasons (!!!), employees at their branches don't think it is necessary to call a customer back, one mistake after the other from various consultants always caused lots of problems, especially one with SARS as they were not able to type the correct name in the computer, when trying to help the FNB consultants to sort out their faults they don't even investigate and leave everything to me and on top of that treat me in an arrogant attitude that one can not believe it and this list goes on and on. Time has come to an end now and close my accounts with them as there is not even one person working anywhere at FNB who is really helpful and clued up. The way they handle customer complaints is absolutely shocking. Seems that they don't even read those messages properly. I just got a short "copy/paste" excuse email and the chapter was closed for them and then even confirmed with an automatic message. The fact that they did not even answer to my comment that I will close my accounts because of their bad service shows how unimportant a customer is for them and proves their unprofessionalism.
I tried to do an online booking for overseas travel with 4 passengers with Travelwings.com. It worked well and even the payment seemed to have been successful. Straight after the payment I received an email that the booking failed. I was in contact with them but nobody was able to tell me what went wrong. Instead I was advised just to try it again. So I did and surprise, surprise the price was about R1000 higher. I gave it a thought but sill did the booking. The card payment was successful again and I was happy. And again I received an email that the booking failed. I contacted them again via email and whatsapp. Their service of answering messages is very slow and most of them stayed unanswered. Inbetween I was told I should accept a change from R50000 to about R75000! I told them that this would be just nonsense and never heard from them again. After the second booking failed I never had any answer from them anymore. Guys, you waste your time with those companies. No service at all. I am somehow glad that it failed. What if I have to change or cancel my booking? I might have ended in a nightmare.
We need 6 year old bank statements for SARS. At Nedbank Strand branch we were told that they would charge for them in the bank a fee of R80 but that we could call the service number and they would email them to us for free. As usual the information which we got from the staff was once again wrong. We went to another branch were we also got some wrong information but at least we found out that the statements via email from their service center cost R50 (!!!) per month. How they can rip people off. But anyway, we need them and were prepared to pay. The call with the guy from Nedbank took about 20 minutes as they asked us many questions and he had to ask colleagues a few times as he seemed to be not really qualified. It was then confirmed that we have to pay R50 per statement and that it takes up to one week. One week! For what? To email a few bank statements! Anyway, after almost two weeks we called again as we have a deadline at SARS and we must urgently submit. We were told that they were not sure if we really want to pay R50 per statement and rather wanted to confirm with us! How stupid can one be? We order and confirm bank statements from 2019 and also confirm the ridiculous rate of R50 but they don't send it to us as they thought it would be too much money. We tried to be calm and patient again and were told that we should have the statements latest by today which was another waiting time of 4 days. It is now 21h00 and obviously nothing happened and we can not send SARS the statements as Nedbank is not able to assist with bank statements. Terrible service as usual.
And again a bad experience at Food *****s Market Somerset Mall. I was already at the till and just before payment the cashier stopped assisting me and helped another customer by handing out cigarettes. This customer obviously thought that he can pay and held his card on the card machine. So he paid for my goodies instead of his cigarettes. It took the stuff about half an hour to sort out this issue, taking me here, then there, then waiting here again, then ringing my goodies up again and then again and so on. If I would have not waited already for 20 minutes in the queue at the tills I would have maybe just leave all the stuff at the shop and do my buying somewhere else. So I asked for the manager of the market to tell him about this. The coordinator manager came and played or worked with her phone. I explained to her that I am a customer and that I would like to speak to the manager and not with someone who doesn't speak to me but is rather busy with her phone. She told me that he would be on his way. I explained to her that it makes sense to tell me as the customer that I must please be patient and wait a moment as the manager is on the way instead of doing something with her phone. This is so unprofessional. Then came the manager. He was even more a waste of time than all his other colleagues. I am not sure if he listened to me as he could not even look at me or even if he understood me as he could not even discuss this matter with me. At the end he only said the standard words: I apologize. That was it and left. I don't know how Food *****s can employ such unprofessional people in manager positions who have no idea how to treat a customer.
I had a prescription for a cream and went to the pharmacy at Clicks Gordon's Bay. The price was R350 so I asked if she has an alternative product at a lower price and she offered me one for R250. So I discussed it with my wife and we decided for the cheaper option. Even before payment I saw that the price was now R300 and not 250 anymore. So I asked the pharmacist (Mishka) why she did not stick to the price of R250 anymore and was told that on this R250 she had to add dispensing fees etc. I rep**** to her that she can not change her price within not even a minute and add other fees as she likes. So I spoke to the manager of the pharmacy and explained it to him. I told him that he can not expect from a customer that we ask if there are any fees on top of prices which they display or offer me verbally. He completely understood and apologized. Unfortunately he was not willing to stick to the verbal offer of R250 and asked me what I want to do. I tried to explain to him that he should not ask me this kind of question and rather stick to his offer but I had no chance. So I obviously did not buy this item in his pharmacy and will in future also not buy there anymore. I had very friendly and professional help at another pharmacy and even got a much cheaper product on top of that not even for R50 and it also helped.
I wanted to pay at Faithful to Nature with the former 100 Rand notes which is still legal tender. None of their staff wanted to accept my note and said that I should change it at the bank. So nobody in the whole shop knew that all previous notes after 1961 (except the first series of R200 banknotes) are legal tender. I never had a problem when paying with those notes and was shocked that they think that they can overrule the laws of the South African Reserve bank. By law they had to accept these notes but put themselves above the law. Incredible that business like this can act like this.
Just booked an accomodation for 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 nights on booking.com. Price and dates were confirmed. Final payment in full was done. Unfortunately very unhappy as after payment only 1 adult and 1 kid was confirmed. Contacted the owner of the property but he asked for an additional payment or R1300 to get what I looked and booked for. Cancelled the booking but will never book on booking.com again.
I would like to share a very positive experience with the company Harewood Projects in Strand. They built a wooden pallet box for me. It was unfortunately bigger than expected so it didn’t fit my need. They straight away made plans to help. Within not even 24 hours they managed to build a new box according to my wish, delivered it to my house and collected the other one. Very professional and friendly service which I can only recommend. Thank you, Shane and your team!
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