The complainant, who was a pensioner, visited the branch and advised his private banker that he had made an erroneous payment into a third-party account (which was also held with the bank).
The private banker established that the beneficiary account was held with FNB. The funds cleared before she could action a reversal, so she took the initiative and contacted the beneficiary account holder. She advised him that the funds were paid into his account erroneously and requested his consent to reverse the funds.
It must be noted that the funds were credited to the beneficiary’s savings account and he immediately transferred the funds to his credit card account. The banker requested him to move the funds back to his savings account so as to allow the bank to process the debit/reversal. The beneficiary account holder agreed and moved the funds back from his credit card to his savings account. However, before the bank could process the debit, he moved the amount of R38 500.00 back to his credit card.
It was ascertained that there was a 7-hour time lapse from when the third party moved the funds back to his savings account to when he changed his mind and moved it back to his credit card. Whilst acknowledging the consultant’s pro-activeness when she initially assisted the complainant, we couldn’t ignore that, given the urgency of the matter, specifically with these types of customer complaints, had she immediately reversed the transactions after the beneficiary account holder returned the funds to his savings account, or at the very least actioned the reversal by the close of business on the 30 January 2020 (4pm) and moved the funds back to his savings account, the complainant would have not suffered a loss of R38 500.00. It is our view that the private banker certainly had a duty of care to action this matter as a matter of urgency or give it the priority that it warranted on the day in question.
Further, from a customer service perspective, it is noted that the bank failed the complainant in this instance. No follow-up was done by the private banker with the customer to provide him with the status of his complaint / request. The complainant called the branch on the 13 March 2021; instead of informing him that the recall request was not possible, the bank requested him to complete an online recall form, thus giving him the impression that there was still a possibility that he could get his money back. To aggravate matters, this form was only sent to the reversal department on 10 April 2021. The bank’s actions most certainly caused the customer a fair amount of distress and inconvenience.
It was therefore recommended that the bank reimburse the loss in full. The bank accepted our recommendation in this regard.
Principle: When placed in a position to mitigate a customer’s loss, the bank has an obligation to ensure that it does all that is necessary to assist the customer. Any failure on the part of the bank will result in the bank being held liable for the loss that it was in a position to prevent.
