South Africans are not financially literate enough to protect themselves against opportunistic banks. This is the warning from personal finance expert, Moeshfika Botha. She says that Standard Bank’s conduct in the repossession of a KwaZulu-Natal couple’s home is nothing new. She contends that there is a practice where banks repossess homes falsely claiming that residents are in arrears of their loans. This is when the banks sell the house without a reserve price, which is then swooped on by a syndicate. They then put the house up for a pittance, and then resell it for a high price. In the KwaZulu-Natal case, the High Court found that Standard Bank served summons to a post office box owned by the couple, and not to the couple in person as is required by the courts. The scathing judgement resulted in the bank being referred to the banking services ombudsman.