AFRICA ( Commonwealth Union) _ Although banks appear to be making stronger attempts to address some types of customer issues internally, complaints to the Ombud for financial Services South Africa regarding financial fraud, relating to current accounts and internet banking, continue to be at the top of the list.
The annual report of the Ombudsman for Banking Services (OBBSA), which was published this week, includes this information. The OBBSA reports that the two primary categories of cases opened in 2022 were complaints about current accounts and Digital Banking, continuing the trend from previous years. The majority of cases in both categories contained fraud of some kind.
The greatest subcategories of complaints in this regard are mobile banking fraud and phishing, according to Ombudsman for Banking Services Reana Steyn. Phishing, sometimes known as voice phishing, is the practice of a fraudster calling a client on the phone or leaving voicemails pretending to be from a legitimate business in an effort to get personal information, such as bank account information and credit card data. She claimed that year over year, concerns regarding banks collecting on prescription debts significantly increased. This group accounted for 1,4% of complaints in 2021 and 4,5% of complaints in 2022.
The OBBSA reported that it was able to recover more than R30 million for customers in the previous year, which is almost R10 million higher than in 2021. According to the research, 23% of the cases resolved in favour of the customer out of those closed in 2022, or little under one-quarter, were consumer-related.
As always, the types of complaints that the OBBSA had to deal with covered a wide spectrum, with digital banking, current accounts, and personal loans at the top end and Covid-19 complaints and business banking among the bottom categories, said John Myburgh, chair of the Ombudsman for Banking Services. In contrast to credit cards, which accounted for 7% of all complaints, personal loans were the topic of 13% of all opened cases, according to the report.
According to the research, ATM-related complaints, which were previously among the top categories, have further decreased, from 8% in 2021 to 5% in 2022, suggesting that fewer consumers are using this channel and that fraudsters have switched to other targets.
OBBSA claims that the bank claimed the complainant’s communications were intercepted and that as a result, there was no negligence on their end, thus they should not be held accountable. According to the newspaper, the bank agreed to reimburse the complaint for her R2 million in financial losses.
