Open letter to SA banks wrt debit order fraud

I bank with FNB, but in truth this letter could apply to all the big banks in South Africa.  Last year a company tried to fraudulently debit my bank account 3 times.  Luckily I did not have enough in that account and the debit orders were returned unpaid.  I raised disputes with the bank 3 times which went nowhere.  They refused to respond via email sent directly to the person who was supposed to handle the disputes and if I called them, they would only fob me off with a ‘We’ll contact you when there’s feedback’.  I had to call the company doing the fraudulent debit orders and threaten them with criminal charges before they deigned to stop debiting my account.  In total I spent over R250 in phone calls trying to sort this out.  After this, I just gave up in trying to have the unsuccessful debit fees reversed at FNB since the phone calls had become more expensive than the fees I’d lost! 

 Sure it was only R22.50 in total for all 3 failed debit orders, but with the amount of fraudulent debit orders skyrocketing and in the news frequently, I’ve had to start questioning my decision to give up on getting these fees reversed.  The truth is that SA Banks are making a substantial amount of money with these fraudulent debit orders.  Isn’t this fraud in itself?  How can a bank charge just because they don’t have the security systems in place to ensure the safety of your account?

Let’s do some maths:

-          There are close to 1 million disputed debit orders each month. (November 2015 figures from PASA)

-          Not all of these disputed debit orders are due to fraud, but if only 10% are truly fraudulent (which is on the low side), that still leaves us with a massive 100 000 fraudulent debit orders each month.

-          If the banks only make R7.50 out of each fraudulent debit order, that translates to R750 000 per MONTH.  Which is R9 MILLION a year!

-          And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Many people pay far more than R7.50 per fraudulent debit order for unsuccessful collection fees or to get the fraudulent debit orders reversed. 

I’m wondering whether a class action suit might be the only way to get their attention….