{"id":476401,"date":"2023-01-14T13:01:56","date_gmt":"2023-01-14T11:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=476401"},"modified":"2023-01-14T13:04:36","modified_gmt":"2023-01-14T11:04:36","slug":"postbank-hit-with-another-glitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/banking\/476401-postbank-hit-with-another-glitch.html","title":{"rendered":"Postbank hit with another &#8220;glitch&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Last Friday, Postbank acknowledged that a glitch had prevented many social grant recipients from accessing their January 2023 payments.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Postbank said the issue had been resolved.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">But GroundUp visited a Cape Town payment branch on Tuesday and found several beneficiaries had still not been paid.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">This is the second time in about a month that a major \u201csystem glitch\u201d at Postbank has left grant beneficiaries with empty pockets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A Cape Town mother spent hours queuing outside the Post Office in Athlone this week, desperate to collect her child\u2019s unpaid social grant.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"gu_counter\" class=\"leave\" src=\"https:\/\/republish.groundup.org.za\/counter\/hit\/12368\/postbank-glitches-cause-delay-in-january-payment-to-thousands-of-grant-beneficiaries\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cNovember was the last time I received a SASSA grant for my child,\u201d Angelina Stuurman told GroundUp while she waited in line with dozens of other beneficiaries who had also not received their money for January 2023.<\/p>\n<p>In a circular, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA)\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OfficialSASSA\/status\/1608680052589486084\">stated<\/a> that all grants were to be paid by Thursday, 5 January. But last Friday, Postbank, <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1Ep0NRBVxFkdvkwHWVXroW_g7OMYUzdd2\/view?usp=drivesdk\">in a statement<\/a>, acknowledged that its payment system had suffered yet another \u201cglitch\u201d which meant many people could not access their grants.<\/p>\n<p>Postbank spokesperson Bongani Diako explained that the system became \u201cunstable\u201d on Friday morning. This caused social grant beneficiaries who use the SASSA\/Postbank gold card to experience \u201cchallenges when doing transactions\u201d. Diako said that the issue had been resolved by Friday midday.<\/p>\n<p>However, when GroundUp visited the Athlone SASSA and Post Office branches on Tuesday, we spoke to many beneficiaries who had still not received their much-needed grants.<\/p>\n<p>Among them was Stuurman. She said her son\u2019s last child support grant payment was in November and even that was paid late. She is yet to receive the grant for December and January. Tuesday was the third time she had visited the office to ask why the grant had not been paid.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI first came in December, and they said they were going to sort it out. They made a copy of my SASSA card and ID but still nothing. Now I\u2019m standing here again because SASSA sent me here to sort out the payment issue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Stuurman is currently unemployed and relies on the grant money to buy school supplies for her seven-year-old who starts at a new school on Monday. \u201cParents are really dependent on this money. How are they supposed to live? The past two months have been difficult for us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of the day she had been paid.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_476403\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Yolanda-Lawrence-and-Angelina-Stuurman.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-476403\" class=\"size-full wp-image-476403\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Yolanda-Lawrence-and-Angelina-Stuurman.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Yolanda-Lawrence-and-Angelina-Stuurman.png 1200w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Yolanda-Lawrence-and-Angelina-Stuurman-600x400.png 600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Yolanda-Lawrence-and-Angelina-Stuurman-800x533.png 800w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Yolanda-Lawrence-and-Angelina-Stuurman-768x512.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-476403\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yolanda Lawrence (left) and Angelina Stuurman (right) were among dozens of grant beneficiaries waiting outside the Athlone Post Office on Tuesday. Photo: Marecia Damons \/ GroundUp<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Stuurman was with her mother-in-law Yolanda Lawrence who had not yet received her disability grant this month. \u201cI can\u2019t pay my debts or anything. I\u2019ve had to tell everyone that I borrowed money from, that I didn\u2019t receive my grant yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawrence has been receiving the grant since 2015 and said she has never had any payment issues until now.<\/p>\n<p>Further down the queue was Sadiyah Manuel with her children aged one and six. This was her third attempt at the office to get their child support grants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe came to the Post Office last week and they said there was no money,\u201d said Manuel. When she returned on Monday morning at 6am, she said the line was snaking around the building. \u201cThere were almost 100 people already waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy daughter has to start grade R but there\u2019s no money for stationery. Most of us are unemployed, that\u2019s why we rely on these grants,\u201d said Manuel.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first payment glitch at Postbank. Last month, millions of beneficiaries who use Postbank\/SASSA gold cards were\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/i-had-to-put-my-groceries-back-says-delft-mother-after-her-sassa-card-declined-at-the-till\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">unable to withdraw their social grants<\/a>\u00a0from ATMs. At the time, SASSA said that this followed attacks and fraud on the payment network by criminals.<\/p>\n<p>Diako said about 4,450 people had been affected by the glitch last Friday. He said the problem should have been fixed by now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPostbank sincerely apologises for the impact this has had on the limited number of beneficiaries this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/author\/508\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Marecia Damons<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/postbank-glitches-cause-delay-in-january-payment-to-thousands-of-grant-beneficiaries\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">GroundUp<\/a>. Republished under <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">BB BY-ND 4.0<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"my-4\">Now read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/473611-postbank-security-crisis-over-r150-million-stolen.html\">Postbank security crisis \u2014 over R150 million stolen<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Postbank said a &#8220;glitch&#8221; had prevented many social grant recipients from accessing their January 2023 payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341078,"featured_media":413640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10106,18668],"tags":[83671,19639,35,3888,70103,83673],"class_list":["post-476401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","category-government","tag-angelina-stuurman","tag-bongani-diako","tag-headline","tag-postbank","tag-south-african-social-security-agency-sassa","tag-yolanda-lawrence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341078"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":476405,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476401\/revisions\/476405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}