THE ARROGANCE OF THE BANK OF MELBOURNE
Peter Nevile
I have previously had occasion to mention the asymmetrical position we find ourselves in as customers of the banks who effectively hold a privileged position in Australia tantamount to a monopoly.
On Friday last one of my staff attempted to pay an invoice from an account with the Bank of Melbourne. The account details were correct. However, the account name was incorrect. The banks take great pains to point out that we, as customers, are responsible to ensure that BSB numbers and Account numbers are correct, and that the banks take no responsibility about the name of the account. We attempted to make a payment with the correct BSB and Account number. Unfortunately, the exact name of the payee was not quite correct although it did contain the Customers
name. Nevertheless, the bank refused the transaction three times then abruptly and without any warning or communication, simply blocked the account.
We are of course available on mobile, telephone and email.. However to unblock our account the Bank of Melbourne only provides us with a telephone number. On calling that number we are told they are busy attending to other calls and that there will be a wait time of 40 minutes. I waited more than one hour and a half hours, being reassured that they would respond shortly at regular intervals. It appears we have a different understanding of the meaning of “service”
Frankly I find this arrogance and incompetence nothing short of breathtaking. The technology exists to send me a MFA code, to telephone, to email, to text to avoid me wasting an hour and a half of my professional time. I would like to think they would compensate me for their complete lack of service. There is also the option of an automated call back by the Bank when they have dealt with their high level of enquiries , which appears to be all the time. Instead, they continue to maintain the misrepresentation about providing a service.
This is asymmetrical arrogance at its worst. An organisation with monopolistic position taking an unnecessarily incompetent position to increase its profit at its customers expense when there are readily available solutions. I will circulate this to you our clients, to the bank and to other avenues of communication. I will let you know their response…do not hold your breathy!
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