For the sake of this conversation, we shall refer to this particular bank as "Eastpac".
So, early this year we started receiving robo calls to my home number supposedly from this particular bank of which we have not been a customer since 2013. They had my partner's name and the robot asked me if she was available, I was meant to press a number and go through some hoops to get more info about an important issue.
I ignored these calls for a few weeks thinking it was a scam. But then a few weeks ago we received a snail mail on bank letterhead telling us we owed several hundred dollars (on a card closed in 2013). We were asked in the letter to immediately pay $20 or else it would result in a debt default being recorded against us. They had card number and name correct but it still seemed very odd and wondered if it was a scam as we knew there was no money owing when we closed the account years ago.
Robocalls continued, and eventually we decided to contact bank directly about the letter instead of answering call. After getting a lot of runaround and explaining the story umpteen times to various employees after waiting a total of hours on hold it is discovered that the outstanding amount was a result of a fraudulent transaction being charged to the expired card late last year… remember this is 7 years after the account was closed.
Fraud department were seemingly initially unable to do anything about it as they couldn't figure out how to cancel the transaction on a closed account and asked us to contact another email address or visit a branch and waste yet more of our time (no branch in our town), no offer to get it sorted from their end. Eventually after some serious phone tennis it appeared that someone at the bank was able to help and said they had wiped the debt.
But we are still getting calls from the collection arm of the bank. So we rang bank again and got them to remove our phone number from their system. Within a few hours we got another robocall, and then again this morning. I answered and explained the story yet again, and asked them to remove my number from system yet again which they supposedly did. I do have the feeling my wife will start to get calls at her work now though as they have called there before.
Worried now that the debt is still somewhere in their system and might affect credit score so think we'll be asking for written confirmation from them rather than just a phone call.
Has anyone else fallen prey to this particular fraud loophole where your old expired card is being fraudulently charged many years after account has closed? Was your experience as frustratingly similar?
https://www.afca.org.au/
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