Australian banks...
...are unbelievably crap.
I have never in my life had such appalling problems with banks than since I have lived in Australia. Not only was there the shock of having to pay for everyday banking services (in the UK if your account is in credit this is not usual), but the double indignation that even then they still stuff up the services you are paying for. Plus, standard practice here is to be charged even more than ordinary banking fees for the huge luxury of having a chequebook (which means you have to pay stamp duty not only on cheques, but also on every EFTPOS transaction as apparently, the banks' systems cannot distinguish between the two - yeah, right). And as for anything more complicated, like resolving why H's interest-bearing account had had no interest paid to it, forget it. I had to make three visits to the bank, including one to take in original statements as they couldn't see further back than 3 months on their computer screens, chase them by telephone half a dozen times, and then when they finally admitted they were wrong, a miscellaneous credit appeared in his account with not so much as an explanation, still less an apology, or anything in writing. At one stage the person who was dealing with it simply disappeared on holiday, without having handed over anything to anyone else. I asked who was dealing with her ongoing business, a concept clearly alien to the branch. 'I suppose I could go and look through her tray...' one of her colleagues eventually suggested when it became clear that I was not prepared to wait another 3 weeks until she returned from Mauritius. That little debacle was with ANZ, who worryingly have won the best bank in Australia award.
Commonwealth are no better. Having spent an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to resolve a mess concerning our new mortgage with them, which included them debiting tens of thousands of dollars wrongly and then bombarding us with threatening letters and further charges, I finally received a phone call last week admitting that the situation was entirely their fault and promising that the affected accounts would have all transactions reversed by the end of last week.
First thing this morning I looked at the account on the internet, and surprise surprise, only one account had been corrected. I left a short message on the mobile answer service of Andrew S, the person who called me last week, in which I asked him to call me urgently. Two hours later I get a call from 'Irene at Commonwealth'. I enquired whether she was calling on behalf of Andrew S. Plainly puzzled, she had clearly never heard of him, but was interested in pursuing her 'courtesy call', the purpose of which was to sell me a Commonwealth mortgage.
What more can one expect from an organisation which plainly and unapologetically states in its questions-and-answers leaflet that it will take up to 2 months, yes, that's two MONTHS, for a change-of-address notification to take effect? And it was the Commonwealth who, when a hacking incident affected a number of online accounts recently, including that of my friend Suzanne, (nothing at all to do with any lapse of security on her part), simply froze all her accounts and assets for over three weeks until they sorted it out, leaving her dependent on loans from friends and family to pay all her bills. No apology, no compensation.
Banks in Australia made record profits last year. Of course they did. And if anyone can recommend an Australian bank that isn't as bad as all the others, please tell me.
I have never in my life had such appalling problems with banks than since I have lived in Australia. Not only was there the shock of having to pay for everyday banking services (in the UK if your account is in credit this is not usual), but the double indignation that even then they still stuff up the services you are paying for. Plus, standard practice here is to be charged even more than ordinary banking fees for the huge luxury of having a chequebook (which means you have to pay stamp duty not only on cheques, but also on every EFTPOS transaction as apparently, the banks' systems cannot distinguish between the two - yeah, right). And as for anything more complicated, like resolving why H's interest-bearing account had had no interest paid to it, forget it. I had to make three visits to the bank, including one to take in original statements as they couldn't see further back than 3 months on their computer screens, chase them by telephone half a dozen times, and then when they finally admitted they were wrong, a miscellaneous credit appeared in his account with not so much as an explanation, still less an apology, or anything in writing. At one stage the person who was dealing with it simply disappeared on holiday, without having handed over anything to anyone else. I asked who was dealing with her ongoing business, a concept clearly alien to the branch. 'I suppose I could go and look through her tray...' one of her colleagues eventually suggested when it became clear that I was not prepared to wait another 3 weeks until she returned from Mauritius. That little debacle was with ANZ, who worryingly have won the best bank in Australia award.
Commonwealth are no better. Having spent an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to resolve a mess concerning our new mortgage with them, which included them debiting tens of thousands of dollars wrongly and then bombarding us with threatening letters and further charges, I finally received a phone call last week admitting that the situation was entirely their fault and promising that the affected accounts would have all transactions reversed by the end of last week.
First thing this morning I looked at the account on the internet, and surprise surprise, only one account had been corrected. I left a short message on the mobile answer service of Andrew S, the person who called me last week, in which I asked him to call me urgently. Two hours later I get a call from 'Irene at Commonwealth'. I enquired whether she was calling on behalf of Andrew S. Plainly puzzled, she had clearly never heard of him, but was interested in pursuing her 'courtesy call', the purpose of which was to sell me a Commonwealth mortgage.
What more can one expect from an organisation which plainly and unapologetically states in its questions-and-answers leaflet that it will take up to 2 months, yes, that's two MONTHS, for a change-of-address notification to take effect? And it was the Commonwealth who, when a hacking incident affected a number of online accounts recently, including that of my friend Suzanne, (nothing at all to do with any lapse of security on her part), simply froze all her accounts and assets for over three weeks until they sorted it out, leaving her dependent on loans from friends and family to pay all her bills. No apology, no compensation.
Banks in Australia made record profits last year. Of course they did. And if anyone can recommend an Australian bank that isn't as bad as all the others, please tell me.
posted by MotherFluker @ 10:17 pm
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