Equity Bank

After reporting a stolen card I have had nothing but trouble from eq, I received one of the 2 unauthorized transactions right away and since then I have not received anything. I've lost my job and my home as a direct result of eq and the misleading and false information they give.

Today I find out that they have to wait for Mastercard to reply when nobody even informed me nor did I sign anything stating that I would be dealing with Mastercard since j don't have a credit card.

I wouldn't recommend this supposed bank to anyone. They do nothing to help and don't even care that they have caused me to lose everything

Complaint about the uncouth behavior of Equity Bank officials
About mid-July 2022, officials of Equity Bank personally came over to our business premises at Nakivubo Mews, Kampala. They assured us that if we needed an Equity Bank Loan, they would avail it in a two-week period if we met all conditions they asked for.

Since we had experience obtaining and paying loans from other Banks (Stanbic, DFCU and Mercantile), we opted to try Equity this time round since their offer appeared attractive. We were more comfortable since the officer who approached us from Equity was actually the same officer who had processed for us loans in DFCU, but had now been recruited at Equity Bank at Market Street, Kampala.
Little did we know that we were falling in a trap!
First, they requested us to submit relevant documentation - Bank Statements for the past six months, Company Articles of Association, Registration Certificate, URSB Documentation etc. We did all that, it was nothing new.
Then, they told us to Open an Equity Bank Account of UGX500,000/- in the Company Name with accompanying passport photos of Directors. We did that too.
They then came back with a complaint that our daughter was one of the Company Directors but she did not have a National ID (she was underage by the time we formed the Company and included her name as one of the Directors).

It was therefore necessary either to have her get a National ID or delete her from the Director list, whatever would be possible. We pursued both alternatives and since they volunteered to assist us with the Deletion process using a certain lady who sat at the General Post office, we paid fees for both processes. Whereas we thought the process of getting a National ID would be very long, it turned out that the Deletion process where Equity Bank Officials were involved turned out to be longer! In the end, both processes worked out.

The only problem was that whereas our daughter had acquired the National ID, she was no longer a Director in our Company, a sad occurrence since she is the one we expect to take on the Company mantle when we are long gone. But we thought we could be able to put her back after sometime. We needed to solve the financial situation for our business first.
Lastly, Equity Bank informed us that they needed a recommendation from our Supplier Crown beverages Limited (CBL) or PEPSI to confirm that we were their Distributors. We contacted CBL and they wrote a recommendation letter to Equity Bank.
We were however surprised that after all this hustle, Equity Bank, after keeping quiet for a more than three months, and we reminding them about the Loan, told us that we had to start the process again and submit Bank statements for the Company!
We later realized that all this was a ploy to extract money from us for processing fee before we could get the loan.

This was unfortunate because we expected Equity to be a Bank of Integrity, beyond petty bribes since we knew it funded the Church House! But more frustrating is the fact that:
1.We lost time and business;
2.We still hold the Contract with CBL but cannot salvage what we have lost through delays and corruption of Equity Bank officials;
3.If the Loan Authorizing Bank officials had wanted a bribe, it should have been asked for straightforwardly, not using delaying tactics that have cost us business;
4.We have read in News that this has been a practice with Equity Bank. Unfortunately we did not do thorough ground work or due diligence before taking the face value of what we were told by the Bank officials.

We could have used other Banks as before and held onto our business; and
5.There seems no laid out procedure at Equity Bank where such complaints are handled. That is why we are telling/spreading this story so we can be told where to lodge such a complaint, if anyone cares.
Kiizza-Wandira
KAM PLAZA Investments Ltd
0772 51* ***