ABSA: Absolute Blessing to Screw Anyone

Is it right that we all bitch so much about banks? I think one of the greatest lessons in life is gratitude.

When I was in SA I ran motivational, empowerment courses for children. One lesson dealt with gratitude. All the kids were put in pairs, blindfolded, had marshmallows shoved in their delighted mouths, instructed not to swallow (awww, Rod!) and had to exchange telephone numbers and street addresses with their classmates using the hand they are not accustomed to writing with. The result was sheets of paper that looked like a fox terrier had padded about the paper with inky paws.

Message: be grateful for what we have instead of moaning about what we don’t have. What we do have are our eyes, ears, hands and so forth. The children then wrote a gratitude list in which they had to write down at least twenty things they could be grateful for. Oh, things that we, who have them, all take for granted: running water, a roof over our heads, the ability to walk and talk, Crunchy chocolate bars, a bed to sleep in. Every week the kids had to add to their gratitude list. It was powerful.

So, okay, I am glad I can keep my bucks in bank accounts in China where they are safe for a very minimal charge.

But I am really peed off with SA banks where the costs are criminal, in particular one bloody Absolute Bonus to Steal from Anyone, namely ABSA who steals from my 83-yea- old-pensioner mother every month.

I send her bucks three times a year. Just before her birthday (May), just before Christmas and another top up in about September. That’s what children are for when their parents are no longer able to fend for themselves.

Every time I send money to my mom that greedy guts ABSA helps its piggish self to R100. Yes sir, a “service fee” of R100. I have an option in China to pay for all the costs, including bank charges in SA, instead of the beneficiary and I duly do. I can understand that bloated, self-serving porker, ABSA, would still want to squeal for something, maybe R1 or R2, but not R100. For my mom I would imagine that is easily four or five decent meals. Or a contribution to her next hearing aid.

Then to add further abuse, the amount she receives is always suspiciously lower than the quoted exchange rate at the time the bank and I did the conversion. She gets roughly R300 rand lower than what the foreign exchange conversion quote was at the time. That’s on top of the R100 “service fee” deduction.

And further, I am enraged as I listen to her on the phone telling me about all the R7 and R10 charges she gets for various transactions she makes, which she does not understand and no one at ABSA seems interested in helping her understand. That’s because they don’t want her to understand that that fat bully is just stealing from her.

Why not just instead send a friendly customer care official around to her tiny pensioner flat in Fish Hoek, and knock on her door?

“Hello, ma’am, today, tomorrow, together! Hurrah! Please don’t get up; we just want to help ourselves to your precious larder. Mmmmm … let me see; oh you do like cheese, tinned peas and chicken drumsticks, don’t you? And look at those tins of bully beef. Well, we will take all those in return for the efficient service we strive to always give you.

“No ma’am, take your hands off them! They’re ABSA’s now. Just a small, teensy-weensy fee for providing you with a pensioner’s saving account. Do you have a shopping bag to put these all in? Oh, you can’t afford shopping bags? Well maybe you shouldn’t be eating luxuries like bread and try use less water when you shower. Okay, off we go now, toodle-loo, and always remember: today, tomorrow, together! Hurrah! See you next month.”

That’s what that corporate monstrosity is doing to my mother and tens of thousand of other pensioners like her. My mother worked for a solid fifty years in SA before she retired. She deserves a lot better than that, ABSA, you greedy, selfish, obese bully! You loathsome @%$# … (the entire Thought Leadership staff drags the spluttering, foul-mouthed Rod MacKenzie off the blogging stage in embarrassment, apologising to the audience as they heave and pull …).