Debit orders: free for all
SIKONATHI MANTSHANTSHA: How banks rip you off with debit orders
I was told it was my sole responsibility to ensure the safekeeping of the cash the bank holds for me. For that luxury I pay the bank a monthly figure determined by the bank
Imagine a farmer who labours on the land the whole planting season, carefully tending the crops from which he hopes to earn a decent income. After expending more resources and energy to harvest the produce, the farmer packs it neatly and leaves it outside the farm gate for whoever wishes to help themselves to it. That would be beyond charity, an unthinkable deed of madness. The fastest way of sinking the farm. Yet that is what each of us do daily when we entrust our hard-earned income to a bank. After diligently tending to the income-producing endeavour throughout the month, and like the mad farmer, we also dump it all outside the proverbial gate for all manner of creatures to help themselves. Unlike the farmer, we even pay the bank for the luxury of it displaying our wares for strangers to help themselves. For that is what the bank does when it facilitates fraudulent debit orders. For two years I have noticed the occasional odd debit order going through my long-held but soon-to-be-...
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