Nedbank Service Fail

<span style="font-style: italic;">Rant ahead. Feel free to leave now.<br /><br />No, really! This is just whining in public about the unbelievably crapulatious service Nedbank dishes out to its customers.</span><br /><br />A service I recurringly buy, and have repeatedly bought for... oh, probably more than 5 years, now... using the self-same <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nedbank</span> credit-card... came up for renewal yesterday. Mysteriously the transaction failed, so the vendor sent me an email to let me know. Very odd! As I say, it has worked fine for years. The card has not expired - the only reason transactions have failed before now.<br /><br />Oh well, off to pay the invoice manually. Using the same card, naturally. (It's the Business card, you see, so simpler for tax and accounting than using a personal card.)<br /><br />Next thing, I find my browser redirected to some foreign website "bankserv.co.za" for "verification". <span style="font-style: italic;">Oh yeah?!</span> There's a crappy, pixelated copy of a Nedbank logo at the top. <span style="font-style: italic;">That sure looks convincing!</span> And they're asking me for all sorts of account details, including my CVV number, ID number, and some arbitrary and mysterious field labeled only "Personal".<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">What sort of phishing operation is this?</span><br /><br />Actually it turns out to be an alleged "Fraud Prevention" thing called 3-D Secure. I've only heard of it because I know people who have had the pain of implementing payment solutions that use it.<br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Question</span>: Why did Nedbank not <span style="font-style: italic;">bother</span> to communicate to their customers that they would be requiring this much-changed payment process?</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Question</span>: Why do Nedbank not do it on <span style="font-style: italic;">their own website</span>, instead sending me to some website who's identity is a complete unknown to me?</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Question</span>: Is this not the most incredibly stupid thing to do in a web where phishing and identity theft is rife?</li></ul>Later, a call to Nedbank's unbelievably crappy customer "service" centre illuminated a whole lot of these details. The bottom line is that:<br /><ol><li>Nedbank <span style="font-style: italic;">absolutely require</span> us to use this 3-D Secure thingie.</li><li>The shitty 3-D "secure" thingie absolutely requires that I enter my cellphone number to complete their process. Unfortunately, where I live, cellphone reception simply does not exist, so <span style="font-style: italic;">not an option</span>.<br /></li><li>So: I have no way to complete their crappy process, and</li><li>Nedbank has no other process.</li></ol><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fail!</span><br /><br />The 3-D Secure form did not even have a field labeled "Cellphone number". How is anyone supposed to guess at this?<br /><br />Then, too, there is no way to opt out. They claim that the 3-D Secure process is to "verify my
identity". This despite the fact that they have all my FICA docs on
record. They have my other business account details on record (because
that's how they get paid every month) and they manage to successfully
send me statements every month, and a new card every couple of years.<br /><br />And the process <span style="font-style: italic;">absolutely requires</span> that I be reachable by cellphone. What if I don't have or want one? What if I have one but can't get reception? Has anybody pointed out to the shit-heads at Nedbank that <span style="font-weight: bold;">SMS is not a secure nor reliable channel of communication</span>?<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Question</span>: Why would I <span style="font-style: italic;">jump through all these hoops</span>, put up with really shitty service and all this pain from Nedbank when Standard Bank (my other, other bank) have been trying to give me a business credit-card for years, only to be turned down (because why would I want <span style="font-style: italic;">another</span> credit card?)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Question</span>: <span style="font-style: italic;">How quickly can I close this Nedbank account?</span></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Question</span>: Did anybody at Nedbank <span style="font-style: italic;">bother to turn their brains on</span> when thinking about this process, or were they - as usual - operating with their heads stuck so far up their own arse that they could see out their own throat?</li></ul><br />Oh! I paid the invoice using my personal credit-card (Standard Bank.) Payment went through flawlessly, painlessly and instantly with no hoops to jump through.