It wasn’t very long ago that our own Seth did battle with the folks at Nedbank when they took to spamming users and charging them to opt out. We thought this smelled a bit funky from a legal aspect and took the bank to task over it, eventually getting a response from a Nedbank employee and seeing a change in their ‘opt out’ policy. Score that one for the consumer then.

Now we see something in the latest Noseweek about another embarrassing slip-up for the bank. We quote here from the editor of the magazine:

A Noseweek reader, hoping to do some serious business with Nedbank’s Private Wealth division, sent an email note to the designated bank official. The official, who happened not to be in, had set her computer to send the following automatic reply: “Good day and thank-you for your email. Not in- no access to e-mail, no autoforwarding. Have a Fifty Shades of Grey weekend!” Which is not quite what the businessman had in mind when he contacted Nedbank’s premier division, so he called another bank that, he hopes, will take his business more seriously.

You’re already in hot water with me if you so much as reference that movie / book / housewife porn, but for a bank’s private wealth division to go that route smacks of amateur hour.

I imagine someone is getting a stern talking to regarding the use of automated email responses, if not a push out the door. Raise your game Nedbank.

[source:noseweek]