Personal Finance reader Ray Joseph questioned First National Bank's introduction of different charges on its student account after the bank levied a R60 fee on his daughter's Student Account.
In January this year, FNB relaunched the Student Account as the LifeStart Transmission Account, with a different fee structure.
According to Joseph, FNB did not notify him of the different fee structure, nor was there any literature about the charges at his bank when he followed up the matter on his daughter's behalf.
After Joseph made several attempts to find out what was happening, the bank reversed all fees dating back to the introduction of the new charges.
His daughter has since registered with FNB's online banking service and will in future do most of her banking online to save money.
Francois Naude, FNB's marketing consultant for the student market, says the bank believed that the best way to communicate the new fee structure to its clients was to display messages on its Automatic Teller Machine (ATMs) screens between December 2001 and January 2002. The screen messages advised students of the new charges and referred them to a call centre or the FNB website for more information.
Naude says that the fees were refunded in Joseph's case because of extenuating circumstances.
FNB will not refund fees on
student accounts because the bank believes accountholders were given adequate notification of the new charges, he says.
See also: