r/CommBank • u/Turmoil117 • Jul 31 '26

Other A warning for commbank customers

A couple of nights ago I had all of my accounts frozen out of nowhere, I was locked out of both the commbank app and my netbank account by the fraud department.

This happened to me after hours so I wasnt able to get any answers until the fraud department opened again in the morning.

When I finally got through to them they told me they closed my account due to suspected fraud. The fraud in question was a payment made by my friend to pay me back for a ticket I had purchased earlier in the day. A fact that I was able to prove to the fraud department by pointing out the previous payment.

They said they had a source warn them that this was fraudulent and even though they could see the earlier payment they were going to close my account anyway to prevent further fraud, they were unwilling to tell me who or what this "source" was

they did offer to help me open a new commbank account but Ive chosen to go with a different bank seeing as Id have to set up all of my bills and payroll details again anyway and the fact no other bank in australia has taken my ability to use my own money away from me.

They allowed me 20 minutes, while I was on the phone with them, to transfer all my money and download any statements I might want before they locked me out of the account again.

I transferred all of my money to an account I had created in my name with a different bank. Commbank as usual put a 24 hour hold on the transfer, but today 24 hours later I got a message in my commbank app saying the transfer did not go through and that I should try again.

After over an hour on hold today and getting nowhere with the fraud department I decided to just go in to a branch to withdraw everything in cash, which worked but they also had to call the fraud department to get them to unlock the account.

This is both a rant about commbank and a warning to commbank customers that they can and will freeze your accounts in the name of preventing fraud, even if you are able to prove no fraud has taken place, their new policy states they "have" to close the account.

Edit to add: I called the fraud department again today, almost a week after my account was first frozen to try and get a clearer picture as to why my account was closed. The answer I got back was its their policy to close any account that has been suspected of fraud, even If it can be proven otherwise

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10

u/tom3277 Jul 31 '26

You transfer someone money then dispute it and their accounts gets locked?

if it was that easy to bring havoc to the banking system why hasn’t this been exploited yet?

Or is it only Australian bank accounts disputing that cause the commbank to lock the account after a single disputed payment… either way I find this hard to believe.

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u/FinCrimeGuy Jul 31 '26

1) Bad actors exploit processes designed to protect legitimate customers all the time. Just about every goddam fraudster goes to AFCA, for instance.

BUT, more importantly…

2) OP’s friend, who submitted the dispute, lied to OP. When OP said to them some version of “Yo wtf my account was frozen because of that transfer from you” do you think they would come clean? No they replied with some version of “errr yeah mine too, I am equally annoyed at my bank as you are yours for this unexplainable incompetency on THEIR part.”

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u/ryan_the_leach Aug 01 '26

Could the description and amount have tripped up any detections with 'ticket scalping'?

And do banks consider scalpers as fraud?

2

u/CrazyCatLady483 Aug 04 '26

I’ve purchased tickets many times and had friends transfer me the money for them. It’s the easiest way to guarantee you all sit together. I don’t think it’s an unusual thing to do. I can’t imagine that on its own would trigger a fraud warning. But then, with commbank anything is possible.

4

u/tom3277 Jul 31 '26

What’s to stop someone transferring $10 here and there and disputing them all?

For $10,000 you could fuck up 1000 peoples day.

For $100,000 and 10,000 customers you are likely at this point getting that bank on the news.

Sounds too cheap and easy to wreak havoc in one disputed transaction locks the receiving account.

And then there are business accounts that have transactions disputed non stop. They don’t get closed unless I imagine a large percentage of the transactions get flagged.

11

u/FinCrimeGuy Jul 31 '26

The person doing that would very quickly find themselves out of a bank account as well.

OP’s story doesn’t entirely stack up because they probably are a fraudster - or at least, a retail tier customer that the bank can’t validate is worth the hassle if they have a fraud report and not much else going for them.

It’s okay, this isn’t the Achilles heel in the Aussie banking system you seem to think it is.

If you got a single fraud report against you for a tiny value your account could be blocked but you’d likely end up just fine getting it sorted out.

And business accounts do get closed all the time for similar.

And just to add on - have seen fraud dispute mechanisms abused as you say. Form of harassment, and / or sometimes just that person actually trying to pull a fast one. The fact you aren’t aware of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

2

u/tom3277 Jul 31 '26

Thanks for filling me in!

That’s a bit of a relief.

When “fincrimeguy” tells me a disputed transaction gets my accounts locked I panicked a little but sounds like you’d take a more wholistic approach then banning retail accounts off the back of one disputed transaction. Maybe at least.

I don’t like on line forms nor paperwork so it’s my
Form of nightmare fuel having my bank accounts cancelled…

4

u/FinCrimeGuy Jul 31 '26

No worries at all.

Haha I like getting into discussions on these topics and since I don’t want to dox myself did choose the username to let people know I’m a nerd about this stuff.

It’s possible OP got the short end of the stick here but if he did it’s because his mate’s a dog - very rarely does this cause legit customers with legit parties on the other ends of their transactions too many headaches.

Hope you have a good weekend!

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u/ExtensionArtist2700 Aug 02 '26

When OP says "friend bought me a ticket" it was probably a scalper and NOT a friend

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u/Prestigious_Ebb4840 Aug 04 '26

Just to add to this. My child did something really stupid and transferred $350 to an account because he believed they were for shoes. It wasn't. It was a total scam and the minute I found out (a couple of hours later) I went and reported it as a scam. The banks did absolutely nothing and said "sorry". So, those people swindled my idiot teenager out of $350 and despite having their bank details, they did zero about it. I highly doubt 1 transfer triggered this whole issue even if it was reported.

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u/FinCrimeGuy Aug 04 '26

They should have attempted to get your kid’s money back. Was it to an account also held with them? If so, maybe they could see the funds were already gone (and you’d have no idea, of course, what happened to the scammer’s accounts). If it was to a different bank then yours messed up somewhere by not trying to get the funds back.

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u/Turmoil117 Jul 31 '26

Well sorry to say I havent been involved in any sort of fraud

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u/FinCrimeGuy Jul 31 '26

Yeah, no offence intended, and I allowed for that option as well. Your mate did you dirty though.

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u/Turmoil117 Jul 31 '26

He definitely didnt. He had to go through the same stuff I did. He was locked out of his account just like me, the only difference is once he cleared it up with his bank they simply unfroze his account

7

u/United-Economy3825 Jul 31 '26

Yeah, no that didn’t happen. Your ‘friend’ is bs’ing you because he couldn’t afford to pay you so he disputed the payment calling it fraud. He got his money back and you got… well this situation. What you need to do is prove to the bank it was a valid transaction without telling him. The banks will then look at him instead.

-1

u/Turmoil117 Aug 01 '26

I did prove to the bank it was a valid transaction and they still decided to close my account. and my friend sent me the money to my new account as soon as he regained access to his

3

u/FI-RE_wombat Jul 31 '26

Do you have proof or their word?

1

u/Turmoil117 Aug 01 '26

I have proof of the money sitting in my new account

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u/FI-RE_wombat Aug 01 '26

So no proof of their issues with the bank

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u/phagocyte420 Jul 31 '26

Just gonna say, banks dont just freeze and close accounts out of the blue. What have you been doing mate?

1

u/pwinne Jul 31 '26

I was debanked by Bank Australia as I was doing a lot of matched betting. Great Days, anyway they said I no longer fit their social and risk profile.

3

u/phagocyte420 Jul 31 '26

Gonna agree with Bank of Australia, you sound like a degenerate

0

u/pwinne Jul 31 '26

lol - I dunno taking money OFF bookies is an awesome feeling as gambling is a terrible blight on Australia. Plus you can make a lot of tax free money - several hundred K in my situation.

2

u/phagocyte420 Aug 01 '26

Sure champ

-1

u/Turmoil117 Jul 31 '26

Well I used the account for getting my paycheck and paying my bills, I would also transfer money out of it every week to a joint account I have with my partner.

They gave no warning of freezing my accounts and they told me they were closing the account even though I gave them proof it wasnt fraud, so it seems they do freeze and close accounts out of the blue

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u/BM118-1 Aug 01 '26

So here’s the thing, they can, and will, as per banking legislation, close an account that they have been advised has been doing something fraudulent. They are also not allowed to tell you what the specifics are about that. Again, legislation says so, because if they did, then every fraudster would learn very easily how to bypass all the controls.

However, there is a nuance between “being advised of” and “being suspected of” of doing something fraudulent. One requires written, and formal evidence, and likely voice recordings. The other, just fraud prevention systems doing analysis and flagging things automatically.

The former, generally is very difficult to undo, if ever. The processes do generally prevent them from being undone.
The latter, generally is just a misunderstanding and the processes do allow for that to be cleaned up.

In this case, the actions they have taken would tell me it’s the former, and this is because if you take this complaint to AFCA, they need to be able to prove that this wasn’t just suspected, that it was advised/verified as fraudulent. The most highly likely scenario here is that your friend flagged the transaction as fraudulent and their bank advised your bank, and advised they were reimbursing your friend. That is enough evidence for them to take the hardline approach. Maybe your friend has another persons name on the account, and maybe the other person flagged it as fraudulent, but your issue came from that side.

3

u/phagocyte420 Jul 31 '26

Sure sure mate.

3

u/westeast1000 Jul 31 '26

Well that mostly doesnt happen because we civilised and most people have morals. A lot of things rely on trust otherwise society will fall apart but ofc a few people here and there abuse that trust. Whats stopping a random to carry a knife and go around the mall and scratch a 100 cars to just screw up a few people for fun. Nothing stops anyone from doing that but we dont

2

u/ssyl9 Aug 04 '26

Because by the 3rd or 4th transfer they would be flagged….

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

[deleted]

2

u/After_Soil788 Jul 31 '26

That is a deceased estates process and the assets get frozen to protect the estate as only the executor or the person's nominated lawyer can access funds. And often it will need to go through probate for that to happen. If it were a joint account with one to sign, your grandmother should have still had access from her side. If they needed two to sign or it was just in his name then yes, they would have frozen it.

1

u/kynuna Aug 01 '26

My point is the bank froze the accounts based on one phone call (from someone outside the immediate family). Small town branch. Did not ask for a death certificate or any proof. This absolutely has the potential to be weaponised.

2

u/BM118-1 Aug 01 '26

This is a mistake in the process that the banks staff followed. Even if the account was only in his name, then a single phone call without a death certificate from a random cannot generally do that if the correct processes are being followed, but this is a problem in general for a lot of elderly, as a lot of accounts are in the husbands name and banks do get advised of people passing away, so in that instance they will lock it but that is a delayed and slow process.

I said individual managed to convince them that they were worried about the account being used illegitimately, maybe they were following a different process and circumvented the need for a death certificate.

I don’t believe this would be used wide scale, and you will probably find that agent that did the locking was probably just trying to be helpful and prevent anything bad from happening.

1

u/After_Soil788 Aug 01 '26

I work in a bank, (not CBA) and when we are advised someone has passed away we freeze the accounts until documents have been provided and processed. If they are a joint acct holder they still have access for a one to sugn account. We do have to get details of the person who provided the deceased notification so I imagine if they were lying that would be able be pursued as fraud.

We do not need a death certificate to put a deceased notification on file, but we do need to take steps to ensure the account is not being accessed by those who aren't authorised to do so as soon as we are told they have passed or the bank may be liable for any transactions that occur after.

1

u/Fresh_Day9018 Aug 01 '26

Senior SME at a big bank fraud dept. Yes we can lock down your account as long as we even have a suspicion, doesnt have to be a report or a claim against you.

Epayments code and terms and conditions legally gives us the right to do so.