Hi all, we recently opened a Macquarie bank account to use overseas thanks to their zero transaction fees.
However, after we used the account (which I transferred part of my salary into to purchase an Apple gift card at a discounted rate for buying a new laptop) our online banking access was restricted.
Today, we called Macquarie bank and spoke to someone who said that the bank had taken it upon themselves to close the account. As we had a remaining balance, we enquired where that money had gone to which they stated it had been transferred to a “MLC superannuation account” and that this was an internal transaction (so therefore was done by the bank itself). That day the bank also closed the account.
We were then transferred to a higher up department as the initial person we spoke to couldn’t assist us in why the account was closed or how we can get our money back. The person stated that the account was closed as it was a “business decision” they then referred us to section 9 of the terms and conditions. We asked for the specific reason and the person on the phone stated they cannot discuss it and they do not have the time to do so. We also asked to speak to someone higher up to which we were told “I am pretty high up” by the customer service representative.
Interestingly, we did not receive any communication from the bank that our accounts were going to be closed. We only found out through trying to login to internet banking and seeing an error screen. Furthermore, I thought the general practice was for unclaimed money to be returned to the customer (or at least the customer be notified about it), instead it appears the money has been taken by the bank and transferred into an investment account at “MLC”.
We even offered to provide bank statements that show the complete flow of money (from wage earned from working full time -> Macquarie bank account to purchase the gift cards) however the person on the phone said they can’t help us as they “can’t discuss anything” due to the account being closed and therefore they cannot identify us. Macquarie also will not even provide us with bank statements from the account they have closed and taken our money from.
TLDR: Macquarie Bank closed our transaction account. States it was due to a “business decision” and won’t tell us specifically why. Informs us they have transferred our money internally to an investment firm, “MLC”.
Has anyone had a similar experience with Macquarie bank like this? If so, how did you get this resolved and your funds returned?
Thanks,
WYLSC
Step 1: Make a AFCA (Australian Financial Complaints Authority) for your case specifically. You may get assigned a case analyst after a month or so of back and forth between AFCA and Macquarie Bank.