I'm considering moving my home loan from ComBank to another bank due to ComBank's dodgy behaviour.
The problem is who else should I go to and are they all dodgy in some way or another.
In the past I've banked with non-Big 4 banks and they've been generally very good.
Anyone else considering this and what other options are out there that act in a more ethical way?
Yes, I've looked at ME Bank many times and they might be a better fit for me.
I don't have a mortgage, but for everyday banking I've always used a credit union and they're great - low or no fees, easy to talk to etc
Banks like politicians are all dodgy, only difference is only some are caught. Stay with who ever gives you the best rate/service.
ComBank yesterday reported a lot of other dodgy stuff too, hoping no one would notice in the glare of publicity over the money laundering.
Actions admitted to include:
* underpaying staff super for the last 8 years
* selling insurance policies that wouldn’t be paid out
* not cancelling insurance policies in deceased estates
* incorrect charges on disputed card transactions for 335,000 clients
Most illegal activities were systemic, over several years. They are hoping that the other crimes are ignored as everyone focuses on money-laundering, but the list is longer, see The ABC report
Here is another article relation to their insurance …
… This is one of many more, life insurance and the like ..
It definitely seems like that this company is rife about making as much money as they can, regardless of the consequences, losing customers, bad reviews,laws they break… etc.
Well … considering that they are so rich, they just pay the fine, compensations and the like and move on shafting others in my view!
http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/costs/cyclone-marcia-vi…
They are becoming so plastic, like many other providers of service and luckily enough just move on and don't look back.
You will realise the full brunt of the company if you have any issues. And good luck resolving them.
As a constant paying customer, … is all good! They are generating revenue.
Cheers
I loved Allan Kohler's comment on that in his finance report, "in for a penny, in for $35 million".
I too moved from Conbank due to their behaviour and way they treat people. In my view my mum got shafted from their poor financial advice. They have tried to wriggle out of compensating, even with their rubbish external review from a company where the review was conducted from and they allege that is not affiliated with them.
I would not walk away, but run! … and that's what i did. Pulled out all my money and ran to another bank.
Although others may claim that many others are dodgy, but we all know what prominent bank has made the limelight over the years of their alleged poor financial advice, insurance rejections for claims … etc.
They all can't be wrong!
When changing banks, factor apart from the obvious charges/interest rates, customer service reviews, distance from an ATM if you need money, do they have local branches in case of need.
A fantastic interest rate is great, but if you cannot talk to someone, or have to wait forever for service or have a very poor connection, cannot get something resolved in a respectable time frame is it worth the savings?
Cheers
Good to know that others have considered and done this. Thanks for the tips on what to look for. Me like many people put a lot effort into getting a loan in the first place and then we focus on other things. I didn't choose ComBank, I got shifted to them when my inital provider was bought by them. But it is now my choice if I stay or not.
Why even ask? If you have a problem then change. There are dozens of banking and credit union alternatives - I see nothing offered by CommBank that isn't the same or better elsewhere.
Fair question. The reason I ask is that I want to know from others who have expertise in this area if shifting makes any difference. No point going from one bank to another that also does dodgy stuff.
I swapped to ME for a lot of the same reasons, and so far they've been really good. They're responsive when new ethics issues come up and there's a good balance between the online/mobile tech benefits of a big bank and the service of a credit union etc. Plus you can use any ATM, their savings rates are pretty good and they've never called me trying to sell insurance or whatever (compared to ANZ who still call me years after closing my accounts).
thanks for passing on your experience.
Banks are in the business of making money.
Please note : We are all likely shareholders either directly or indirectly.
I think all businesses are.
That's true and we want them to make money. I don't want them to profit from ripping off people with dodgy investment advice, money laundering, and by denying valid claims.
That's why I don't buy any insurances offered by my bank and get independent financial advice (from books, advisors and Ozbargain!)
Ozbargain community is great and has sharpened my ability to save money and make better financial decisions. Not a finance person, so the OzB info is great!
Yep you should. You'll feel better and there are better banks.
ComBank's dodgy behaviour.
A company this big will always have issues - It's just a matter of whether someone is willing to dig into their operations. The "issues" across the different companies will be the same, but on varying levels.
This whole thing to do with not reporting the transactions to Austrac only came about as an indirect part of a police investigation into a money laundering scheme.
Right now, I'm certain that this incident has triggered all the other banks to scramble a review on their processes and procedures related to this so that they can either cover their backsides or at least come up with some sort of explanation.
If you're going to move because of your conscience for the sole reason that issues have been uncovered, then move. Not knowing about issues in another company doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
(From what I've written, it might sound like I'm associated with CBA, but I'm not - having worked in all the major banks over a number of years previously and knowing how things work internally, I'm just being realistic with expectations)
I guess that's my worry "bobbified" just because others haven't been found out doesn't mean they are not up to something. Of course it also doesn't mean they are guilty of illegal behavior either.
To be fair, the companies do try to comply with the regulations (I might exempt the insurance arms from my comments) but there are always going to be items that are missed especially since we're dealing with the human elements of a business.
There's a few things that have been uncovered recently about CBA (from a post earlier in this forum) but if you look at most highly publicised - the financial reporting of the "suspicious transactions", that simply could've resulted from a single team's screw-up. Yes, it was about 53,000 transactions and it sounds like a large number, but in the scheme of things, it's actually quite miniscule.
I personally think that these types of things are only a serious issue (if I'm a customer) in a large company where there was intent to engage in bad behaviour.
It was 53k threshold transaction reports, and a few hundred? suspicious matter reports.
Yes - 53,000 or so transactions that should have been reported to AUSTRAC. This was over a period of over 2 years and all those transactions had come through the ATMs.
There were no issues with the other transactions from other sources such as over-the-counter or electronic transfers.
In addition, the problem was discovered in 2015 and fixed. CBA reported the issue to AUSTRAC at the time.
So this particular issue was caused through a single problem with the ATM and doesn't highlight a systematic issue in their reporting of transactions as a whole.
Not trying to defend CBA or anything because something like that could happen to any company.
Your action won't make a difference.
Even when crisis strikes & everyone default on their loans while Conbank going under,
Government will bail them out, leaving the peasants hanging dry without homes.
Yes it will.
This is not the only bank in this country that we're dependent on.
You can vote with your money. Why not? You work hard for it.
The good ol CEO has got the boot and move on … You think he's retiring? Hmm .. looks good on his resume .. rather than termination.
It's already working.
Dunno dump them, just dump them, they are crooked!
cool, but then what other Bank?
Not a bank. Banks are profit-selling businesses, go with a credit union, building society, mutual or community bank.
Surely you've heard of Bendigo Bank, IMB, Newcastle Permanent etc.
I changed to ING i'm pre happy with them.
Just kept my CC with CBA though as their app is pre convenient
I came across this post Serious Help Needed: Is This a Good Bank?, which refers to Bank Vic.
I searched for them and this caught my eye About us
We are Victorian based, just like our members who have now grown to 100,000. While we are big enough to matter, with $1.5 billion in assets, we are still small enough to care about the financial wellbeing of each and every one of our members. We can proudly say that we have never foreclosed on a home loan.
Definitely consider member owned Credit Unions and banks Customer Owned Banks
big + 1 for considering customer owned banks.
They have been massively popular with our clients. Our top 10 list of customer owned banks include:
FYI All of these institutions are on our accredited lender list at Naritas. So if you have any questions about them, please feel free to ask.
Hope this helps.
Great list, thank you. I've got some more research to do.
Thats incredible, i thought there was a strict limit on number of bank licences,
do they all shared a single government bank licence to operate or do customer banks have exemption?
Thats incredible, i thought there was a strict limit on number of bank licences,
There is definitely a strictly enforced set of requirements (namely the Banking Act) that governs the use of the terminology 'Bank' (ADI). Furthermore, an institution has to meet strict regulatory requirements (stress hurdles/reporting standards) to be covered by the Commonwealth Financial Claims Scheme. As such, there is somewhat of a cartel that has been granted in this space (the pros and cons of which people have debated for many years).
do they all shared a single government bank licence to operate or do customer banks have exemption?
These institutions are each granted their own licensing. 'Small' banks (a small bank can still be a massive organisation, but is small in the context of pillar banks) may have some exemptions in terms of stress test hurdles they need to meet as compared to pillar banks (CBA, ANZ, Westpac Group, NAB & Macquarie).
As such, if you had well over $250,000 sitting in your offset account ($250,000 being the limit of the FCS) there may be justification to consider using a pillar bank to hold that money. That said, most people we speak with are comfortable with the level of protection granted by the FCS and oversight extended to any institution that is governed by the Banking Act (which includes 'small' banks, building societies, mutuals & credit unions).
You can contrast this with non-banks that do not have the same level of oversight and whose offset customers are not protected by the FCS.
Hope this helps.
excellent, thanks.
CBA have been really good to me, I wouldn't switch because others have had problems. If you read the fine print you should be fine.
Fair enough. I just don't feel right about supporting an organisation that on the face of it strays into illegal activity, even after being repeatedly being made aware of it. For me the "I haven't been ripped off/hurt/damaged/effected so they are okay" reasoning doesn't really sit right. But each to their own.
Honestly, I hope you are not supporting the government then
good point :-) unlike a business I can't walk away from the government unless I leave the country :-(
That's great that you haven't experienced any issues … yet.
You must be a paying and (never claiming) very extremely highly-valued revenue generating customer. They must be very proud of you.
If the fine print was (apart from extremely microscopic and grey) extremely sound, then why are they going through all this negative publicity, backlash, compensating and the like?
I mean if the fine print was so sound, then a claimant wouldn't have a leg to stand on if it was breached.
This doesn't seem to be the case. Especially with myriad issues noted above.
Ok I take my statement back. The c^nts at CBA charged me my annual fee for my card 8 months in and refused to acknowledge their error. I'm switching my banking away from them.
All I can say is that you have seen the light!….. congratulations in advance for your switch! Btw Bankwest & Aussie is also affiliated with ConBank
Except to take advantage of offers like free credit cards with points bonuses, I haven't used a bank for almost 20 years - credit union instead. Mostly the same features as a bank.
I cannot understand why people that routinely badmouth banks - that's like 90% of people - keep using them??
Me 3. I'm thinking about moving to St George to get that sweet 50$ Screen Play offer…
OP you should now know they are no longer Commonwealth Bank
They are CommBank
They have made a habit of taking Wealth away so they accidentally took it away from their name
yes, Shaun Micallef on MAD AS HELL made this comment, VF and sad. Comedy = tragedy + time …
Also if you change the o to a u and the B to a W you get C#mm#ank.
You think they need to change their name again to reflect what they actually do 😀?
If thier behaviour hasnt affected you then dont change. Besides it hasnt been proven yet
They will come out the other side of this just fine and probably claim the cost of fines back on tax
A local bank to me (not one of the big four), in a rural town ,in QLD got caught money laundering for the local bikies
The manager conveniently managed to drop dead of a heart attack ,then head office bulldozed the bank to the foundation.
And people think their not mercenaries
You should be right if your paying for your house in cash
Fines are not tax deductible.
I'm sure they'll find some way to pay then
Perhaps buying their own Pacific Nation and doing all their money laundering out of the Australian government's jurisdiction
Welcome to
com bank island
co mbank
comb ank isl
I went looking for which bank you were found, and found this article, where it was mentioned that CommBank was the first of the big 4 to deal with money laundering in that issue
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/big-banks-crack-do…
i haven't seen what commbank did this time that triggered this desire to jump ship but if you're going to leave every company that does things 100% focused on the profit margin and nothing else then you'll be in for some big life changes
that said we should all be leaving companies who do this all the time maybe one day it will change things, but we don't because we need to best price
Clearly, the Comm Bank senior management have no corporate nor social ethics. The $ comes before all else. Profit is the golden calf. Screw the law; screw the customer. Is money laundering strike three or four for this CEO?
Until they start jailing these morally bankrupt senior managers (yes, the buck stops right at the top), nothing is going to change. And guess what? They are never going to get jailed. So nothing is going to change.
If some non-white-collar dick from the bottom end of town did something half as corrupt, they'd be in jail. No bail. No question. Unfortunately, that's the way our world turns. Always been that way.
All my money is in a credit union. Great personal service; they know me by name; don't need to show any ID on the rare occasions I go into my local branch to make a transaction; and fees less than the banks. Too easy.
No senior executive is going to jail.
Jail in Australia is for the poor, stupid or badly connected. ConBank is too smart for that - they donate liberally to both sides of politics.
This is protection money.
Different toilet.
Same shit.
are we supporting terrorism if we bank with cba
Bank of Credit and Commerce International is by far the best in the world.
Switch to another bank OP.
Ditch them.
I've had the opposite experience actually. Smaller lenders have been difficult to deal with, and of the big four I've found CommBank to have the better service and tech tools overall.
Just switch mate if you're not happy. Don't reward crappy service.
I hear its easisr to desposit money with them, or to buy their insurance products. :)
haha, yes and they'll make you rich with their awesome investment advice ;-)
LOL. Mate they are a bank. They are in it to make money for their shareholders and execs with their fat bonuses, nothing more nothing less. All banks are the same - that is all they care about. If you believe any bank is different, then their marketing team has got you.
Thats like saying all banks are crooks. May as well say all listed companies with shareholders are crooks. May as well extend that to any for profit company. May as well… you get my point.
Well i left them ages because they demonstrated to me they prioritise profit over anything else.
I made a transaction, in which they stuffed up and costed me a fee of $75. Which is like not much, but when i call them about it, i just get the cold transfer to another area, or hung up on. This is just a basic example of how they ring up such high profits. You have to be a victim of their insurance scams to be worse off being with a bank that puts $$$ over anything else.
So why stay with them? For those who say they are all the same, thats like saying everyone makes mistakes. True it may be, but some are worse than others, and its no coincedence that one name keeps getting a bad rap over the other 20 odd other institutions out there.
Unfortunately, many stay in a particular bank due to their interdepencies, other factors such as accounts that Centrelink will deposit their Pension … etc.
Can you imagine calling Centrelink and informing them that you have changed Banks and to update their database reflecting this?
I mean, going by the latest media with all their IT issues, they will make a mistake and then they will come with the debt collector to claw all back the money due to their IT glitch/mistakes!
Ahh .. the world of automation…. & cost cutting … DIY everything and still pay more lol
Can you imagine calling Centrelink
No.
Just do it on-line Update your payment destination with your Centrelink online account
Yes thank you. I am very aware of all the online processes and DIY tasks which is now becoming commonplace.
However after the media exposing Centrelink earlier this year with their automated alleged clawing back money from recipients which they didn't owe, heartache involved etc … the question I would like ask people is that …… "Would you trust the system"????
Even if you DIY … would you trust a system that has failed so many and your income depends on it???
Would you suck it up and stick to a rubbish bank but not risk having an income jeopardised that any amendment can cause failure and grief for recourse due to an unreliable system failure???? .. even if it is a simple change of an account.
Have you gone through any grief to fix an issue regardless of the company your dealing with due to an IT glitch down their end considering it was not your fault? That's Automation for you! Great in one way and miserable in another aspect.
Would you receive any "respectable" customer service… which these days are diminishing very very quickly???
I believe you have to charge your phone and wait for 2 hours to talk to someone .. try explaining this to a 77 yo!
They'd rather get thrashed from a rubbish bank then go through the heartache of recourse due to any changes and efforts.
Not worth the effort
yea, no doubt you are spot on here.
If you are internet savy, it shouldnt be too hard, but even then many are too lazy. So i get ya, but this is why OP should move, like i have. If you can, and you are not too "lazy"( for a lack of a better word). DO IT!. Its in your best interest as it is the right thing to do IMO
I just go for whoever offers the best deal, but if you're looking for something more ethically slanted perhaps try a provider like ME Bank (owned by industry super funds and unions) or a credit union. There's no guarantee that they're any better than the Big Four but they're a better bet than switching between the big players and their (likely) identical portfolios