How Standard Bank’s Ferrari spat went viral

Social media, unfiltered and accountable to no-one, is the stuff of nightmares for the CEO of a bank like Standard Bank. Marshalled to cause maximum damage by opponents on a platform where engagement rather than accuracy is the defining characteristic, the strategy to counter disinformation can confound companies.

These are the stakes in the high-profile battle between Anele Mngadi Hammond, who has framed her battle with the bank as a “David vs Goliath” case of “the powerful abusing the vulnerable”. It’s a narrative that creaks a bit under greater interrogation, when it turns out that the sum of her complaint is over a 2013 Ferrari California that she bought with bank financing, so hardly the stuff of the financially downtrodden.

Nonetheless, this dispute has blown up, largely thanks to Hammond’s videos, which she has posted online detailing this “fraud”, and which have now been seen by thousands. Her story has, however, exposed a deep scepticism of the banks, a deep scepticism over capital more widely, and demonstrated the extent to which conspiracies can travel a thousand miles online.

So who exactly is the protagonist in this case? Well, Hammond, 59 years old, bills herself as a “retired professor” of law and finance, someone who has two pilot’s licences and who has had a career in investment banking in South Africa in 2002, and then Switzerland. A City Press interview in 2018 describes her as “one of this country’s most qualified academics” with 11 qualifications, and someone who “made herself unbelievably wealthy” in the Swiss banking world, which allowed her to buy supercars including a Maserati.

What happened in this case is that in 2015, she bought the Ferrari from a Rolls Royce dealership in Joburg. But, she claims, Standard Bank committed a horrendous fraud against her, changing the instalment sale agreement and forging her signature. “Had it not been for my expert knowledge in finance and law, Standard Bank would have buried me,” she says in one of the videos.

She says she discovered this when it came time for Standard Bank to deduct the first repayment and “they took nearly double the agreed instalment”. She called the bank, telling it there had been a mistake, but it ignored her, so she stopped paying.

In 2016, Standard Bank went to court to repossess the car and, in its filings, it included the instalment sales agreement in terms of which she apparently agreed to buy the 2013 Ferrari California for R2.4m, to be repaid in 71 instalments of R31,884 and a balloon payment of R180,057.

Hammond says: “To my shock, it was a completely different document. This one came from a dealership I have never dealt with, the contracting party was changed, the address did not exist, the employer did not exist, the engine number was changed.”

And, she says, the signature was forged. At one point, she says the bank conceded in court that there may have been fraud, but “deflected blame” to the Rolls Royce dealership.

Her story meanders from there, including an accusation that Standard Bank’s executives sent thugs to rough her up and poison her daughter – which seems, on the face of it, implausible. Hammond says she was delivered “one unwavering threat: that if she wants to live, Anele must immediately withdraw the criminal case against Standard Bank [and] allow the fraudulent contract to be enforced”.

The whole point of her documentary series, she says, is to provide a teaching moment: “to teach Goliath that I don’t get bullied [and] they will never touch my car – I achieved both”.

Kicking back

Now Standard Bank, like all banks, likely gets into these sorts of lending disputes all the time. The difference is, most of these cases don’t end up as viral social media posts. In this case, Standard Bank’s response has been to issue a press statement, pointing out inconsistencies in Hammond’s evidence.

Kabelo Makeke, its head of personal and private banking, says it was “irresponsible” of Hammond to make these “false and baseless” claims. Makeke says Hammond “voluntarily agreed to settle the debt” and paid what was outstanding, so it didn’t ultimately repossess the car.

“At no point did Standard Bank or its representatives perform any acts of violence or intimidation towards Dr Hammond and any of her family members,” he says.

Makeke says that it was only in 2020 – a full 21 months after she’d signed the settlement – that she issued a summons against Standard Bank and CEO Sim Tshabalala. And, he says, that summons does not contain the bulk of the allegations she is now spreading in her videos.

“The reason for this is obvious. If there was any truth to the allegations that she is now levelling, all of these allegations would have been made at the time that the summons in 2020 was delivered, and they would have taken steps to have the alleged claims determined. They have not done so,” he said.

Nonetheless, Hammond’s videos have caused an almighty fuss online. But even on Twitter, a place where conspiracies and half-truths prosper, the verdict is far from unanimous.

Hammond has faced a huge amount of scepticism. As one person, who himself says his personal view is that South African banks are “evil”, puts it: “I believe half of Professor [Anele’s] story, and don’t believe half of it.” Others are clear that “we are being fed fiction”, questioning her claims to be a “retired professor”, among other things.

Hammond has even squabbled with some of these critics. “Do your research,” she tells someone who asked which universities she lectured at, accusing him of being “bought” by Standard Bank.

When Currency contacted her, Hammond said she was “furious” by our questions both about her credentials and the fraud, which including asking for her response to the bank’s statement.

“My phone is ringing off the hook as all international universities I worked at are being harassed by South African mainstream media just trying to authenticate qualifications and research work, instead of reporting the fraud,” she says. “I am a seasoned highly intelligent academic … you are focusing on the wrong things with flawed reasoning.”

Nor would she answer specific questions about the bank’s response, saying: “You may view my evidence only with Standard Bank present in a public platform – I am not here to feed curiosity.”

Engage not avoid

So how should a company navigate a situation where it is accused of something like this, where it is adamant that this is all made up?

For a bank, operating in a country of mass unemployment where so many are sceptical of big business, convincing people that it doesn’t operate by swindling people isn’t an easy task. The extent of the responses to Hammond’s post, many of them instinctively inclined to believe the worst of the “evil banks” based on the scantest of evidence, demonstrate the immensity of this task.

“Fact-checking alone won’t stop it,” said a Harvard Business Review article last year about how to respond to viral allegations you believe are false. “Assess whether a story has gained enough traction to warrant a response. Once it has, focus on understanding the communities engaging with the narrative before you step in.”

Second, it says companies should open their processes to public scrutiny ahead of time to earn trust. And third, ask its partners – like customers or experts – to share their support.

Now, it’s easy for companies to simply throw up their hands, believing they might as well not bother explaining how they operate, or their ethical fundamentals. But that would be a mistake. If Standard Bank’s heated online clash has demonstrated anything, it is that a story can travel many miles online before a company’s crisis communications expert has even opened his or her first email.

People aren’t idiots – they can make up their own minds – but they need to have all the facts on the table. Opting for righteous silence is no real option.