As a second guest post, I am loathe to do another on the banking industry, but as it continues to “empty our pockets”, on a seemingly unending basis, without any apparent challenge to it’s greed, I thought this story was too good to pass up.
As Iain’s pages appear to be widely read, perhaps someone, with at least with a civic conscience, larger than grain of rice, may read this article again, it’s critique from it’s customers, and realise that greed is not always “good” ?
Chris Zappone
July 7, 2009 – 9:54AM
Angry Commonwealth Bank customers are questioning whether the bank will honour its promise to repay money lost as a result of last week’s outage of its NetBank site.
CommBank said this morning that “any customer that has been impacted as a result of any NetBank issues will have their issue resolved”.
Have you been affected by the NetBank outage? Have your say
The bank has assured customers that any fees incurred will be repaid. However, asked whether anyone who lost money because of an interest charge on another account – for instance credit card debts not paid on time – or delayed or missed transactions, a spokesman insisted that individual customers should contact the bank by phone or in person.
“We encourage our customers to contact us to discuss any specific issues relating to their account,” the spokesman said.
However, CommBank customers want to know how much time will be required to get back the money.
“The key thing is ease,” bank customer John Bradbury of Brisbane said this morning. “They may well refund it but whether it is easy to get is another thing.”
CommBank customers fear they will have to spend a substantial amount of time chasing down their refunds, either on the phone or on a personal visit to the bank.
Mt Beauty real estate agent Bill McKelvey said it was “astounding” Australia’s largest bank had encountered the problems of the past week.
Mr McKelvey said not having access – first to the site and then to transaction histories – meant delaying customer accounts for days in order to verify who had paid rent and who hadn’t.
“We have a responsibility under the Estate Agency Act to receipt monies as they come in,” he said. “You try to abide by these things as best you can.
“We can cover these things but it’s not good enough. Australia’s biggest bank is down or not giving accurate statements.
“When the statement arrived (in the post) on July 2 there as bold as brass is a $60 account keeping fee,” he said. “It’s a little rude their charging that amount of money when not providing a good level of service.”
But he said he did not want compensation. “I just want some kind of reassurance that kind of thing won’t happen again. It’s a big inconvenience, particularly being the end of the financial year.”
NetBank’s problems began more than a week ago on Sunday, June 28, when customers first began reporting problems accessing their accounts.
The next day CommBank was forced to take NetBank off-line because of what the bank said was “exceptionally high volumes of traffic … some of which appears to be malicious”, implying a possible hacker attack.
After initially blaming the spike in traffic for the difficulties, the bank later said there was no connection between it and website problems, in particular details of historical transactions for individual accounts, dogging customers.
The bank said access to the account histories was fully restored on Sunday.
The difficulties have put more focus on the bank, which is undergoing a $580 million IT upgrade that is expected to take four years to implement.
The latest problems come after similar outages were reported in December. Then, NetBank was unavailable.
In October a problem at CommBank delayed Centrelink payments to thousands of Australians.
http://business.theage.com.au/business/show-me-the-money-cba-fury-grows-20090707-daxm.html
Why are our governments, (of any political leaning ?), so frightened of banks. Our government has challenged other employers and corporations over the years, without fear of retribution ?
Why is the RBA so frightened to sanction the CBA over it’s last interest rate rise, seemingly put there to recover losses from previous “greed splurges”, where it got it’s fingers burned ?
What is the banking ombudsman doing, whilst the banking industry, collectively, has the highest ratio of complaints to customers, of any industry in the country ?
Banking fees, were introduced over twenty years ago, to relieve interest rates, and to make the system pay for itself. The more you used the system, the more you paid, and that seemed to be fair. But, what has happened since ? They are even demanding massive fees, and even exorbitant penalty fees now, from even pensioner accounts. The people who can least afford it ?
What is the government doing ?
Well, you guessed it folks, the three wise monkey trick : nothing !
What is the legislature waiting for ? An embossed invitation ?
Before they put us all against the wall, don’t we think, as a cashless society, one very quickly becoming bank reliant (which is exactly the way they want it), should stand up, and say ?
Enough is enough ?
Perry Olsen
Filed under: Federal politics, Guest post | Tagged: Banking, Banking Rorts
Like most Aussies, I don’t like being charged fees by banks. That’s why I’m with a credit union. Credit unions charge far fewer fees, and as a result, I end up keeping nearly all of my money for me.
I highly recommend people who hate banks to do the same, rather than continually complaining.
Can’t help myself ?
Yeah Right !
Yep, they will discuss the issue, you betcha, but, they won’t repay the penalty fees ?
As Perry implied, (at least if I read him correctly), the first political party that promises to legislate against bank, and more generally corporate greed, and the apparent contempt it shows to it’s customers, I think would win an election by a cake walk.
What I can’t figure out, probably along with everyone else here is
Why the hell they haven’t done it yet ?
Leon
It is pretty tough to do that isn’t it ? I mean, most of us have mortgages, and the banks have ‘wired’ them up so tight, that they can get away with massive dips into our pockets, under the guise of “exit fees”.
Again, another fiasco, that banks managed to slip in, whilst the political parties weren’t looking ?
What I fear is, that the whole situation is only going to get worse, a WHOLE LOT worse.
I have always believed that exit fees should either be banned or capped: http://leonbertrand.blogspot.com/2008/02/swan-threatens-we-say-do-much-more.html
Your absolutely correct Leon. I read your post, as well as the linked article, and agree whole heartedly. BUT, to give balance to the argument, against government, Johnny and Cost Cutto, had the same oppportunity as well, and they dealt with it in a similar way, What came from them was either rhetoric or ignorance. The RBA is the worst offender. It could have stamped all this on the head in one go, but they continue to be the greatest paper tiger in the country ?
People say, well go to a Credit Union then. Hmm, after the fiasco with Pyramid, that has frightened me off them for life.
Someday (hopefully soon ?), one of these giants, will have a CEO, with at least a semblance of common sense, that will see, that by cleaning up their act, and acting fairly and responsibly towards it’s customers is far more advantageous in the long run ?
After all, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar ?
What gets me going is the fact that when times are tough any other business just has to accept that their profits are going to be a bit down but the banks just stick us with more of their blood sucking practices.
When they monumentally fu*k up they don’t care because thay just suck the life out of the customers with renewed vigour.
in these days of electronic accounting there is no real justification for the size and scale of their imposts except that they see all account holders as a Milch cow.
Congrats to Perry for an interesting Guest post
Good luck to those people who have to contact the bank by phone. I have been down that road and I would rather strap a piece of meat to my face and stick it in a wolves’ din.
You are right Eric I bet the banks over your side of the pond have those horrible automated answering things and that disingenuous “we value your custom” crap as much as we do.
I HATE calling the bank it is so difficult to get talk to a real person
hit 1 to speak to an operator
hit 2 to listen to terrible music
hit 3 continuously if you suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder ?
Iain ?
You want to talk to your local branch ?
Get out an old phone book, and under the bank, there should be a sub heading for branches. The old phone book I have, still has the direct number for the local suburbs in it.
The branch hates it, but, usually after realising that it has no choice, deals with your problem.
David
Fortunately I don’t have an account with the Commonwealth But going into the branch via the phone or in person is proably a good idea.
Except for the fact, that now the banks have imposed Xtra fees now, if you do that. They say that if you do an over the counter withdrawal, when eftpos or atm is available, they charge you x dollars for the privilege ?
They even tried some time back, to impose fees, on cash deposits, and our kid’s primary school banking ?
These organisations have absolutely no scruples, when it comes to profit. None what so ever, and the CBA, only recently joining the “private bank club”, is the worst offender ?
The CBA some years ago, actually owned up to their plan for Australia’s banking future on tv. They’re envisaged future of banking in Oz, is that there will be no branches, or over the counter service at all. It will all be done, at central locations, in the capital cities, and controlled regionally by ATM’s and phone operators on 1300 numbers.
They only way we can stop this happening, is by voting with our feet. It is already beginning to happen, with the setting up of community banks etc. It is unfortunate, with so many people being burned due to the “Pyramid” episode, otherwise, we would have a serious alternative, or other option ?
People are wakeing up far to late.
If you understood the Fed in the US and the current economic problems it is just crazy.
The government counts on the people not understanding economics. Of course most of the economic Phd’s are idiots.
The reason the English countries like the US, OZ, Canada, etc., were so successful was the lack of government (and a lack of coruption, they go hand in hand) and a belief that if you worked hard and were successful you deserved what you earned.
Now it has become a government that takes from the successful and gives to the lazy.
Which is why the economy is going to have another crash.
Well I am 52 and we were taught the story of the grasshopper and the ant. The ant worked hard and survived. The lazy grasshopper didn’t do so well.
Now the government robs the ant and gives to the grasshopper. A sure way to destroy an economy.
Shawn
Do the banks over your way, charge a fee for any ‘over the counter’ service ? Man, they do here, and don’t they just love it !
Personally mate, I think, at least down here, we are already in that crash. Our mineral wealth will help soften the fall, but if our trading partners, that purchase those minerals, crash, then we are all indeed in deep doo-doo ?
The banking industry down here, has been ripping off it’s customers for decades down here. It only really became blatantly obvious, upon the introduction of credit cards, and credit card fees. Then, their greed transferred to normal accounts. Only small at first, but as the government was too gutless to stop them, they went merrily on their way, without challenge.
I know little re the Fed in the US, but our regulator, the RBA, is too gutless to do anything down here, as they say, it is the consumer’s choice, and a market decision. Bit tough to swallow, when all our financial institutions are ripping us off ? A case of the lesser of the 5000 evils ?
Or perhaps it should be called the reintroduction of the
dance of the seven veils ?
The banks here are quite good as banks go.
Not much in the way of fees and if you call the branch you will usually get a person.
This is a very good explanation of how corrupt the US government and Wall Street have become.
These people are far worse than Madoff and the Media and the government covers it up.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine