Wow, what a exercise in frustration.
When I bought my Getz I needed to get finance for it, and so Hyundai plonked me down with MFC, which stands for Motor Finance Corporation, a division of Nedbank.
Anyway, my monthly instalment of R2,350 has happily been coming off my ABSA savings account for almost two years now, when all of a sudden this month’s payment didn’t go off on its usual 1st of the month debit action. A couple of days later I received an SMS from MFC informing me that I was now in arrears.
Checking my bank account I noticed that the debit had indeed not happened this month, so I phoned up MFC where the operator informed me that according to her records, the debit was denied by ABSA with a return code of 30, which is “No Authority to Debit”. She suggested I go and see ABSA to find out why this had happened and mentioned that I could pay so long via EFT with the following bank details which she sent to me via SMS:
MFC Bank Account
Bank: FNB
Branch Name: JHB Corporate
Branch No.: 255005
Account No.: 62028411289
(A division of Nedbank with a First National Bank account. How quaint).
Anyway, great. With my Reference number in hand and absolutely no desire to make the long trek through to ABSA in the Somerset Shopping Mall, I fired up the ABSA Internet Banking portal in my browser.
So first things first, in order to make this payment, I need to add a beneficiary (because I’ll probably be doing this more than once). So given the details above, I attempt to create a new beneficiary by selecting an account at another bank option, selecting “First National Bank” as the bank and then entering the given branch code. The resulting search says ‘uh uh, no match located’. Right
So I go back, make a new selection and enter in “JHB Corporate” as a search term for the branch. No go. A search on “JHB”, “Johannesburg” and “Corporate” all result in no positive matches. Okay, I’ll just enter the branch code directly and then fill in the details from there. This I did, entered the RVN number, and whammo – denied. Apparently I need to create an ABSA-listed beneficiary.
Right, so then I decide to skip the whole beneficiary thing and attempt a once-off payment. Fill everything in, attempt to pay, and whammo – denied. Again this stupid ABSA-listed beneficiary nonsense.
Very frustrated by now, I turned to Google, with no luck. Fuck it, another attempt. This time I widen my branch name search under the beneficiary add – and finally a hit. Search for “Cor” under FNB finally turns up the right branch number – under the branch name of “CORP CORE BANKING/GTS JHB”!!
Seriously?
Anyway, entered all the details AGAIN, hit the “add” button and whammo – denied with “CREATE AN ABSA-LISTED BENEFICIARY” again!!!
Oh, for the love of Pete!!
So I hopped onto the phone with ABSA’s Internet Banking telephonic support service (0860008600) where I explained my dilemma to the lady on the other end, who promptly informed me that in order to pay this particular account (because it is a big corporate), I actually needed to select the “Link ABSA listed beneficiary” option instead of the “Account at other Bank” option right in the beginning of the whole process!
Oh.
Okay, my mistake then I guess, but seriously ABSA, improve your error messages so that we can all understand what is going on the first time around!
Anyway, I eventually did come right and was just about to pay my account, when an e-mail from MFC popped into my inbox informing me that the debit failed to go through because they mistakenly changed my account details on their system and were now just confirming the correct details before putting through a manual debit request.
Really? After all that? O.o
So all is well that ends well, but seriously, what an exercise in frustration! :)
