Nedbank Wins the Ironized Medal

Let us start at the beginning, where all good tragedies disguise themselves as routine admin.

A 47-year-old Ms Nolubabalo Jijana; diligent, documented, and freshly armed with proof of address, walked into Nedbank’s St George’s Mall branch in April 2025 and walked out the proud owner of a new bank account and debit card to boot. A triumph of modern finance: paperwork in, plastic out. Efficiency at its finest.

Then came the vanishing act.

The card went missing before it was even christened with a deposit. Calmly, responsibly, she reported it at the Nedbank’s Sea Point branch on 2 May, 2025. A consultant assured her the lost card had been “disabled and cancelled.” That magical banking incantation that translates to: worry not, dear client, the system has spoken.

Except that the system had not spoken.

Within weeks, the supposedly deceased debit card rose from the administrative grave and embarked on a retail tour of Cape Town; including generous patronage of the Apple App Store and various restaurants. One imagines the card enjoyed its freedom immensely. The ATM, however, was less sentimental with the real account owner. It informed Ms Jijana through her replacement Debit Card that her account had “insufficient funds,” a poetic phrase meaning: your money has gone on holiday.

On 31 May, 2025, she reported the fraud to Nedbank’s St George’s Mall branch (Ref CPT-217782). She also signed up for Nedbank’s eNote for text message notification. Not leaving anything to chance, she walked to Woodstock SAPS Station and opened a police case for theft and fraud (Case No 153/6/2025).

On 6 June, 2025, she received a text message from Nedbank with a reasonable announcement; “Dear Nedbank Cardholder – Case CPT-217782. Please note that the refund for (sic) has been processed and the credit will reflect in your account tomorrow. Thank you.” 

But when that tomorrow came, her account was credited with two payments totalling R549.89 instead of the full amount of R3,826 transacted using the supposedly cancelled and disabled card.

The explanation? “That’s the only amount we’ve been able to recover from Apple.” In essence, Nedbank treated the matter as a merchant dispute as opposed to fraud enabled by its system failure.

Ah yes, in this telling, a multi-billion-rand bank is merely a humble spectator in its own systems, peering helplessly at Cupertino and shrugging.

Then, in a plot twist worthy of late-night satire, Ms Jijana was later informed she owed the bank R500. One must admire the confidence. A cancelled card transacts. A client loses funds. A partial refund materialises. And then invoices the victim for nearly the same amount they had managed to recover.

As if this were not theatrical enough, legal threats followed. Enter debt collectors. Enter ominous SMS messages. Enter the bureaucratic thunderclap of “handover for legal action.” The rock was struck, and in South Africa, we are reminded, Wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo. After sharing her experience with friends and family, in protest, Jijana simply stopped operating the bank account.

However, upon reading our Freddie’s experience, Ms. Jijana reached out to us with a simple email stating, “I know I don’t qualify as a Freddie out there, but please kindly have a look at my case.” And we complied.

We provided Nedbank with a comprehensive narrative of our preliminary findings as provided above then sought five Bullet Points remidal actions:

1. Full reimbursement of all unauthorised transactions and associated charges.

2. Immediate withdrawal of any legal handover or collection action.

3. Written confirmation that no adverse credit bureau listings have been made, or immediate rectification if they have.

4. Written explanation of how a cancelled card remained active within Nedbank’s system.

5. Immediate restoration of full access to her account without restriction.

 After requesting for more time, which we gladly granted, Nedbank’s Communication Department sent us their response, which we hereby reproduce in full:

“Following an internal investigation and review of the matter, we acknowledge that, while there was some compromise on the part of our client which contributed to her loss, we recognise the validity of the concerns raised. As such, we confirm that an amount of R R2,794.00, representing the full extent of the loss, will be reimbursed to the client. Furthermore, in recognition of our client’s experience, we will provide a gesture of goodwill totalling R1,000.

“We can also confirm that the hold on the client’s account has been removed.

“We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience experienced by Ms Jijana,”

This is PR-Speaks aimed at shielding the bank from any liability. Observe the elegance of the arithmetic. The unauthorised debits totalled R3,826. The reimbursement labelled as “full extent of the loss” does not. But add a R1,000 flourish and perhaps the numbers will blur under fluorescent lighting.

Yet arithmetic remains stubbornly unfashionable.

Jijana nightmare in graphics

More curiously, the response glides past the most delicate questions:
How does a cancelled card transact?
Was there adverse credit reporting?
Was the legal handover properly reversed?

Silence, it seems, is also part of the product offering.

Thus, the ‘Ironized Medal’ is conferred not merely for error (errors happen) but for the choreography that followed: partial remedies presented as complete, accountability softened into “shared compromise,” and systemic failure reframed as inconvenience.

If this is inconvenience one shudders to imagine catastrophe.

So we are left not with outrage, but with satire because when systems insist that cancelled cards live vibrant afterlives and victims become debtors, rhetoric becomes the last honest ledger.

Congratulations, Nedbank. The medal is iron, but the irony is pure gold.

By production time, the reimbursement had not reached the client’s bank account.