Artificial intelligence is beginning to change how South African consumers lodge complaints against banks, insurers, and credit providersand not always in ways that make resolving disputes easier.
The National Financial Ombud Scheme (NFO) , which handles complaints about financial services, says investigators are increasingly receiving submissions generated with the help of AI tools.
While these tools can help consumers organise their cases, they are also creating new complications.
The Problem
Reana Steyn, CEO of the National Financial Ombud Scheme, told Africa Melane on The Money Show that some complaints now arrive as extremely long documentssometimes stretching to more than 100 pages.
In some cases, they include references to legal cases that do not exist.
“The biggest challenge is that complaints often make reference to information that appears factual but is actually incorrect or entirely AI-generated.”
The Simpler Way
Steyn says the most effective complaints are often the simplest: a clear explanation of what happened, supported by evidence such as emails, policy documents, or account statements.
“There are hundreds of thousands of financial transactions taking place in this country every day. Every payment is a potential problem. Every time money moves out of an account… all of those things can give rise to a complaint between a consumer and their financial services provider.”
The AI Uptake
“There’s been a sudden uptake in the usage of AI… and now we see the complaint is no longer a simple paragraph or two. It’s actually a very long-winded document with pages and pages citing various acts, legislation and citing case law, and we now have to sift through that.”
The Advice
“If you do want to make use of AI, then please be so kind to go and check the references and not just send us everything that’s there. Some of those things are plain wrong.”
The Bottom Line
AI can help. But it can also hallucinatecreating fake cases, inventing laws, and burying real complaints under mountains of nonsense.
The ombud’s message: keep it simple, check your sources, and don’t assume the AI knows what it’s talking about.
