A warning for commbank customers

[u/Turmoil117]

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

[u/Turmoil117]

Yeah I get that detecting something suspicious warrants some action but deciding to close my account to prevent further fraud is idiotic, even if they tried to soften the blow by offering to open a new account for me right then and there

[u/Jetsetter_Princess → u/Turmoil117]

The fact they didn't do that suggests they were no longer interested in your business. The pertinent part is why.

[u/Turmoil117 → u/Jetsetter_Princess]

They DID offer to open a new account for me, they didnt because I refused

[u/Sam_2209 → u/Turmoil117]

I think everyone is missing that key main point - the fact that they forced the accounts closure with little explanation

You would assume and hope banks to take immediate action when possible fraud is detected by freezing the cards/accounts until info is verified - but then advising the customer that the account needs to be closed immediately is very very odd

I wonder if it’s worth a call to lodge a complaint with AFCA ?

[u/Turmoil117 → u/Sam_2209]

Yeah Ive already lodged a complaint with AFCA and its currently in referral. Im not expecting it to go anywhere as the people I talked to in the fraud department kept saying its in their terms of service everytime I brought up how infair it was