St George Internal Transfer between Your Own Accounts

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St.George Bank

• 

  MS Paint on 02/12/2023 - 12:35

  +6

  Just change banks. Too easy.

  /thread

• 

  Sye on 02/12/2023 - 12:58

  Reverse free money hack

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  payless69 on 02/12/2023 - 13:15

  Lol, Westpac, once the prime business bank, are they employing Gerry's rejects now?

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  JimmyF on 02/12/2023 - 15:02

  +1

  At the end of the month when interest is paid out, St George performs daylight robbery on the Sunday transfer and pays out no interest for a whole day on either the send or receive account.

  Oh god another one doing something in the 11th hour.

  Then transfer your money any other day of the week then BUT Sunday.

  • • 

      JimmyF on 02/12/2023 - 23:30

      +1

      So when you have to go to the toilet on a Sunday, do you hold it up until Monday

      My toilet flushes every day of the week just fine. No need to wait.

      when you have to do things on the day

      So do it….. But then you miss out on a day's interest. So what?….. 2 cents?

      If you are not interested or know it all, just move on.

      and I posted saying transfer on any of the other 6 days that don't have this 'feature' you don't like.

      I can see why you have banned elsewhere now ;)

• 

  bluesky on 03/12/2023 - 23:50

  pays out no interest for a whole day on either the send or receive account

  I am with Bank of Melbourne – which I believe is the same bank as St George, with just different branding for different states. In fact they offer the same deposit accounts and most likely run on the same system.

  What you mentioned – that all Sunday internal transfers do not receive interest on either accounts – is not my experience, fortunately.

  Take for example, 01/10/23 Sunday. I made an internal transfer from account A to account B. The record date of the transaction is 02/10/23 Monday. At the end of month, account B receives the interest for the date 01/10/23 - for funds transferred to it from account A. I have verified this.

  Which is fine since one of the accounts is receiving the interest. It being account B is also intuitively correct.

  • 

    Ave Maria on 04/12/2023 - 22:23

    That could be the case as you transferred funds on a Sunday that was also the 1st of the month, in wich case St George applies completely different rules (that are unique to St George). I avoid transfers on a non business day near the end/start of the month. In my case the transfer (large) was in the middle of the month & I have verified that the interest lost (not a small amount) is real. I would say you got lucky. Anyways lesson learned, so I will avoid doing transfers (internal) on any Sunday. The strange thing is that if it was an external transfer via OSCO to/from another bank there would be no issue (as St George then records the correct effective date as a separate entry). Check your Sunday transactions to see if you have a different effective date on the one that received interest correctly (i.e. posed on the 2nd but effective date is the 1st).

    • 

      bluesky on 05/12/2023 - 02:27

      Check your Sunday transactions to see if you have a different effective date on the one that received interest correctly (i.e. posed on the 2nd but effective date is the 1st).

      For this internal transfer, both accounts show the effective date as 1st and posted date, 2nd.

      If you did not receive interest on either of the accounts, and can clearly show it - then it is definitely the bank's error. You should raise this with them, and ask for the interest back. I did this once when another bank miscalculated my interest by quite a bit. I raised it with them, and asked for the interest shortfall to be recredited, which they did.

      • 

        Ave Maria on 04/01/2024 - 17:42

        I have raised the issue with them providing detailed calculations in a spreasheet. Due to the holiday season and despite asking to be contacted via email (no calls), they called twice (I do not answer as caller id is easily falsified, but folowed up with an email as the customer manager already contacted me that way quoting the complaint ref number but then failed to reply back even though I provided details using a spreasheet) and then send me a letter closing the complaint without stating the outcome.

        Here is what happened (details) and why this should be taken seriously by the bank

        On the 19th, after I realised that St George introduced the $250K cap, I split my savings into multiple Insentive accounts.
        I made transfers from account (1) to (2), (3), (4) so all will receive the max interest.

        Accounts (1),(2),(3) had interest calculated as if the transfer occured on the 19th but (4) that had a large transfer used the 20th for interest calculations.
        All transfers where instant, the descriptions in (1), (2), (3) state the correct date & time = 19th around 10am, but the description for (4) was falsified to say the 20th (correct time). All transactions where posted on the 20th due to the overnight processing & all took place within minutes of each other.

        I just send an email back to the customer manager that dealt with the complaint, giving St George a second chance to set this right as I realy do not want to report this to the AFCA. The difference is a small amount ($26.00). My concern is that there is inconsistency in their system that seems to be random. I would have no problem if they used the 20th for all calculations but to use the 19th for the sending & 2 of the receiving & only use the 20th for one of the receiving accounts, falsifying the audit information (date & time) on one account, as well is something I cannot let them get away with.

        Another issue I found with St George is that they are penny pinching, I have 4 accounts with them & they shortchange each one by 1-2 cents no matter what rounding method I use. So it can only be $1 for the entire year. Big deal right? Multiply that by the number of accounts they hold (apparently 9 Million customers with at least 1 account) & then it is not a trivial amount -:). I monitored my December interest, after the November interest issue, to realise they are doing that. Otherwise as probably everyone else would never notice. I check my interest on savings accounts with other banks and they never miss a penny (cent).

        • 

          bluesky on 05/01/2024 - 00:11

          @Ave Maria: Thanks for the detailed info.

          If you don’t mind sharing, let's just focus on the Acct 1 -> Acct 4 transfer :
          (a) does both Acct 1 and Acct 4 record the exact same time and date for the transfer from Acct 1 to Acct 4, i.e., 20th? Or
          (b) does Acct 1 record 19th, and Acct 4 record 20th for this same transfer?

          If (b), you are very justified to pursue for reinstatement of the interest, since this is an atomic operation, they won’t be able to justify that an internal transfer can have 2 dates. And I think this is your issue, yes?

          If (a), at least I can offer a plausible explanation. I have noticed quite a few times irrespective of whether it was weekend or not, my inbound transactions close to the end of the day (say after 11pm) would have the posted date, and sometimes even the effective date, shown as the next day. It is possible your transfer from Acct 1 to Acct 4 might have just crossed this boundary (perhaps 10pm thereabouts is the boundary), and hence transaction was dated as 20th.

          If you don’t mind sharing exactly the date and time shown on both Acct (1) and Acct (4) for the transfer from Acct 1 to Acct 4, just to confirm.

          Even if (a) is true and their explanation is what I have said above, you would still be justified to request the interest back, if no where in their material does it mention that transfers after a certain hour is treated as the next day's transfers. (Unlike, for example, the case where they have clearly specified how interest is calculated when end month falls on a Sunday.) I would simply say I wasn't aware their system treats transfer this way, and could they even on a goodwill basis, reinstate the interest.

          … I have 4 accounts with them & they shortchange each one by 1-2 cents no matter what rounding method I use. …

          Yes, I notice this too – always 1c less on the interest, but mostly correct on the bonus interest. I am willing to ignore this, so long as the rate offered is worth my while. I know of another bank that does this too – 2c less consistently every month.

        • 

          bluesky on 05/01/2024 - 13:46

          @Ave Maria: Assuming (a) where the transaction is dated 20th in both accounts, if you missed the interest in Acct 4, as long as the equivalent interest is in Acct 1, it is okay. Only if this is not the case, then it is a problem. I assume you have checked this.

          • 

            Ave Maria on 06/01/2024 - 01:00

            @bluesky: All accounts had the transfer done instantly on the 19th. All got a posting date on the 20th.
            Interest in question is missing from both accounts as the 19th was used for calculations on (1) & the 20th on (4), even though the 19th was used for (2) & (3). Simply insane.

            Here is a look at the description on (1) & falsified description on (4) - the date in the description was used for interest calcs instead of the posting date (no separate effective date is visible) - showing all transfers for comparison so the point (issue) is clear

            (1) Internet Withdrawal 19Nov10:11 To (4)
            (1) Internet Withdrawal 19Nov10:13 To (4)
            (1) Internet Withdrawal 19Nov10:15 To (2)
            (1) Internet Withdrawal 19Nov10:19 To (3)

            (4) Internet Deposit 20Nov10:11 From (1)
            (4) Internet Deposit 20Nov10:13 From (1)
            (2) Internet Deposit 19Nov10:15 From (1)
            (3) Internet Deposit 19Nov10:19 From (1)

            All times are AM (in the morning - so no late night dramas involved)

            My only guess is that as the transfer was to a new account (4) - St. George somehow "fiddled" the dates & misscalculated (but shoud not)

            And yes my reaction when I noticed was exactly that WTF !!!! (still wating for the reply - if they still fail to see the issue my only option is to report them to the AFCA (but I rather not). They have been really stupid about it so far, lets hope they realise that it is not in their best interest to do so.

            • 

              bluesky on 06/01/2024 - 17:29

              @Ave Maria: Based on your description, I feel confident that you will get the interest back. Once the person who is handling your case can see clearly what is going on. Show them that neither Account 1 nor Account 4 received the interest, whichever day they want to assume the transfer happens (19th or 20th).

              However, I do not believe there was any intentional “fiddling” or falsification. More likely it is a system bug – and yeah, software and systems are not perfect. Which is why I too, keep a close eye, so when such occurrences happen, and it is signifcant enough, I will chase up.

              … if they still fail to see the issue my only option is to report them to the AFCA (but I rather not). They have been really stupid about it so far, lets hope they realise that it is not in their best interest to do so.

              Perhaps this will help. Try to take an amicable approach, and avoid a combative approach, or threaten AFCA. Afterall, your goal is just to recover the interest. I would call, (since you have already written), have the case reopen, citing no resolution, and continue from there. I always find that when an issue gets complicated, or not straight-forward, calling always gets things resolve a lot faster. Generally-speaking, customer service people are reasonable, they are there trying to help – and the trick is to get them on your side. And they usually are – when they see that the fault lies with their side or system. You may not reach the right person in the first instance, but eventually you will get to a person who is qualified to review your case.