FNB Investments Fees: am I stupid/blind?

[Eti1]

The purpose of this thread is twofold: first, to warn FNB Investments clients about something that could be slightly dodgy, and secondly to ask for advice. The background is that I have a TFSA with FNB and last month downloaded three statements to check something. Looking at my transaction history this month I noticed something strange. I then communicated my concerns to FNB via e-mail. The below is a paraphrased summary of my interaction with several consultants.

Me: Please explain this fee.

FNB consultant: There is a R6 charge for downloading statements.
Me: First I hear of it. Where does it say this?

FNB: It would have been free if you had requested an e-mailed statement. FNB annually updates banking fees and charges. Here, I have attached the latest pricing guide.

Me: I have read the pricing guide, it doesn’t mention this fee. Please point me to the exact clause.
FNB: A fee is charged for downloading statements. See attached pricing guide.
Me: You are not answering my question. Where exactly does it stipulate this fee?

FNB: “Please be advised that when you download the statement via Online banking there is a charge. When you accept terms and conditions, for service fees that may be associated with requesting archived statements.”
Me: Huh?

FNB: “The charge is shown before you download the statement
When you logon on your FNB Online Banking
- select "€œMY ACCOUNT"
- select "STATEMENTS" this will show the attached message”



Here is where it gets infuriating. I follow those steps, and I don’t see any terms and conditions when I click download, no option to accept that I have read them like in the attached image. Something like that appears under “e-mail”, yes, but that applies to e-mails and the linked document there doesn’t mention anything about fees at all.

All I want, is for someone to show me in black and white why I am being charged R6,00 for downloading a statement, and where exactly I agreed to it. I have now read all of these pricing guides on the website https://www.fnb.co.za/downloads/pricing-guide/Saving_and_Investments_Pricing-Guide.pdf https://www.fnb.co.za/downloads/pricing-guide/products/FNB_PricingGuide_GoldChequeAndCC.pdf and https://www.fnb.co.za/downloads/pricing-guide/products/Investments-Pricing-Guide.pdf

The closest clause that I could find was a R6,50 charge for requesting e-mailed statements older than three months, in the gold cheque pricing guide. But I don’t think that is applicable here.

Since this whole saga began, I have repeated the process of downloading a statement a few times to see what I could be missing, I have probably racked up R42 in charges by now. It’s not much, but if I haven’t agreed to these charges, am I not being robbed?

So I hope that the mybb community, especially FNB clients, can advise on two things: first, am I losing my mind, and second, should I pursue this further or just write it off as school fees?

 

[UrBaN963]

View attachment 471139

This is for my cheque account. Not sure if it's different for TFSA.

 

[Eti1]

View attachment 471139

This is for my cheque account. Not sure if it's different for TFSA.

TFSA looks exactly the same.

 

[nemo415]

Page 15 - you need to show the noob at FNB that your statement was requested for the last 3 months

 

[nemo415]

Generally, the FNB consultants can be as smart as the ruling party.

Once upon a time: I was charged for prepaid recharges

I am on Premier Acc with bundled pricing, so this is free according to the pricing guide.

They charged me the fees from the Easy Acc. (50c per recharge). The amount was negligible, but the principle is not cool.

I had to literally tell the consultant to download the premier pricing guide, tell her to go to page x, line y and read what she saw, i.e. "Free"

She then told me to download the Easy Account pricing guide to see the price I was charge, I had to tell her to use her eyes and see if I had an Easy Account..

It is so frustrating when FNB employees these buffoons... the chair they sit on works harder than them!

 

[TelkomUseless]

.. the chair they sit on works harder than them!

lol!!

 

[f2wohf]

Generally, the FNB consultants can be as smart as the ruling party.

Once upon a time: I was charged for prepaid recharges

I am on Premier Acc with bundled pricing, so this is free according to the pricing guide.

They charged me the fees from the Easy Acc. (50c per recharge). The amount was negligible, but the principle is not cool.

I had to literally tell the consultant to download the premier pricing guide, tell her to go to page x, line y and read what she saw, i.e. "Free"

She then told me to download the Easy Account pricing guide to see the price I was charge, I had to tell her to use her eyes and see if I had an Easy Account..

It is so frustrating when FNB employees these buffoons... the chair they sit on works harder than them!

Exactly why l left FNB, I couldn’t cope with anymore.

 

[backstreetboy]

They charge tax with the TFSA so this is also understandable...

 

[supersunbird]

I just use them for ebucks and buy lotto tickets. I have also found them to be grossly incompetent.

 

[HavocXphere]

Hate it when banks do that. How difficult can it be to pull records 4 months back?

Scam of note...

 

[Swa]

It's FNB, nuff said. Why I left the scammers. TFSA's afaia shouldn't even have charges associated with using them. Neither should any investment account for that matter.

View attachment 471139

This is for my cheque account. Not sure if it's different for TFSA.

That is so ambiguous. Every statement you request is under the last 3 statements. I suppose they auto generate them and you then just download them but they can word it better.

Hate it when banks do that. How difficult can it be to pull records 4 months back?

Scam of note...

Yup with Capitec I can see my history for the last 2 years and download any 3 month period within without paying.

 

[Venomous]

I'm with Nedbank.

I can DL more current statements whenever I feel like it.
But if its older than 6 months there is a small fee charged. Think its R5/6. I can then for the next 24hrs(or is it 48hrs) open/DL that older statement as many times as I wish.

 

[ele33]

FNB emails monthly and quarterly statements. You can even set it for PDF and excel.

So no need to request them?

 

[Eti1]

FNB emails monthly and quarterly statements. You can even set it for PDF and excel.

So no need to request them?

Sure. But I did download. My point is that I can't find where the fee is stated.

 

[Hamster]

Hate it when banks do that. How difficult can it be to pull records 4 months back?

Scam of note...

Those documents are probably archived at another facility. They have to draw the line somewhere and generally, you only need 3 months' statements anyway. It'll be silly for them to keep every statement for every account for every customer on their primary servers when there are companies out there that specialise in these things.

That's my guess anyway. It's not difficult to set up a rule in gmail to auto-label your statement emails and archive them for you.

 

[Swa]

FNB emails monthly and quarterly statements. You can even set it for PDF and excel.

So no need to request them?

Who in this day and age takes statements on a monthly basis instead of as and when needed. I don't see why banks should charge for it when the info is there and it only costs them a few processor ticks.

Those documents are probably archived at another facility. They have to draw the line somewhere and generally, you only need 3 months' statements anyway. It'll be silly for them to keep every statement for every account for every customer on their primary servers when there are companies out there that specialise in these things.

That's my guess anyway. It's not difficult to set up a rule in gmail to auto-label your statement emails and archive them for you.

All the banks I've ever been with keep records for at least a year. Capitec for 2 years. Only records older than that should be archived and kept for at least 6 years.

It's also not stored as statements but as transactions.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Why do you need statements of a TFSA constantly?

Can’t you get the required information through the account balance and transaction history?