Distress payments should accompany apologies
It’s too easy for companies to pop a trite “we apologise for the inconvenience” to their customers when they’ve done them wrong.
Standard Bank really upset Melita Thauthau recently.
The car she bought in 2019 to use on the Bolt e-hailing platform was repossessed on January 16 by a sheriff of the court wielding a court order obtained by Standard Bank.
That was shocking for two reasons: she was up to date with her repayments, and her car is financed by Nedbank’s MFC, not Standard Bank.
My first thought, when Thauthau contacted me was that she’d been sold a stolen car, which hadn’t been picked up by the dealership or bank. But that wasn’t the case. “The name and ID number on the court order are not mine, but the car details are correct,” Thauthau said.
“I pointed that out to the sheriff in order to keep my car, but he said he’d done his job and that I need to speak to my bank.”
That she did, arriving unannounced at Nedbank’s Rivonia branch and making her presence felt.
A representative promised to stop her debit order, discuss what had happened with Standard Bank, and come back to her within five days.
When neither happened, she turned to me for help.
“Nedbank has processed the debit order for the finance agreement on the car I don’t have, and I have no idea where it is or what condition it’s in,” she said.
I began with MFC, which didn’t apologise for the inconvenience; instead the bank acknowledged “that our client did not receive the expected level of service and feedback from us” and apologised for that.
“Preliminary indications are that Standard Bank made an error in claiming ownership of the vehicle as they released their title on it back in 2018, prior to the sale and purchase agreement by our client,” the bank revealed.
“At this stage, it appears that this was an administrative error on Standard Bank’s side and we have confirmation that the vehicle will be returned to the rightful owner (Thauthau).”
The bank refunded her January debit order and undertook to suspend further payments until the matter was resolved. But three weeks after that sheriff forced Thauthau to relinquish her car, Standard Bank had yet to contact her.
The bank’s vehicle asset finance division said it regretted the “isolated incident ”— Thauthau’s car was repossessed by mistake due to an “incorrect record” regarding its ownership, it said.
Thauthau duly got her car back, in good condition, but, unsurprisingly, she rejected Standard Bank’s R10,000 “goodwill” offer.
“I lost more than that due to your error!” she said. She demanded — and substantiated
— about R28,000 for loss of Bolt earnings, plus the cost of her hospitalisation due to stress and anxiety over the illegitimately confiscated car, and another R2,000 — what she paid in alternative transport to deal with the saga.
The bank said Thauthau’s medical scheme had settled her medical bills and rejected her request for that goodwill gesture of R10,000 on top of her out-of-pocket expenses.
In the end, worn down, she accepted a final MFC offer of just over R23,000.
“Standard Bank does not understand the damage, frustration, stress and anxiety they caused me, plus being treated like a criminal,” she said.
“I think their apology should have come with a payment.”
The Ombudsman for Banking Services, which now falls under the Ombudsman for Financial Services Scheme, does award “distress” payments to customers who’ve been on the receiving end of shoddy treatment by their banks, though usually a fraction of what those clients feel entitled to.