Category Archives: Economic Downturn

ANZ bank reacts slowly to December payments glitch

Leave a reply

The following information was sourced from an Australian ANZ customer.

WARNING: Anyone who holds any ANZ credit cards with automatic payment set up.

Review your December statement very carefully. Apparently ANZ had a problem with automatic payments in December which has impacted multiple customers.
The only hint my source received was a “late payment fee” on a card that is setup for automatic payment within the ANZ system.

ANZ are apparently aware of the problem, but don’t appear to be interested in fixing it proactively, only when customers point it out to them for their particular accounts.

At the time of writing, there is nothing on the front page of the ANZ site to suggest they are communicating the December glitch to customers or the public via their site.

Send this information to any ANZ customers you might know, we need to put pressure on big banks who’ve all made profits during the economic downturn at the expense of the general public and small businesses. If they are charging late payment fees for faults in their own systems, then this is just another way they profit from our inaction.

Keep the bastards honest.

UPDATE: My source further reveals the following:

The call centre operator in credit card solutions said that they were able to resolve the problem quickly because they (ANZ) are aware of the problem as it impacted a number of other customers as well.

My source:

1 – Saw unexpected “late payment fee” (auto payment was up to 40+ iterations on monthly cycle, so it has been there a long time…)

2 – Phoned bank to ask (a) why the payment was not processed, and (b) why the fee should be paid if they did nothing different, ie: the auto-payment is not the responsibility of ANZ customers.

3 – Got put through to credit card solutions after initial complaint about scenario

4 – Credit card solutions person was very helpful and advised on how to correct the problem. Apparently the problem impacts OLD / long-standing auto-payments.

5 – Got put back to telephone banking staff to setup a new auto-payment.

6 – Noticed that the new auto-payment has (a) different structure for ID from old one, and (b) has different terminology to old one. New payment IDs are much longer and alphanumeric versus simple 4-digit numeric. Old description read as balance due whereas new description says “FULL balance”, which may or may not be the same dollar figure… still waiting to see what happens in January…

So, the short answers are;

1. yes, they confirmed that the problem was with the old auto-payments

2. yes, they advised that more than just my source’s account was impacted

You have the right to have your money spent for you…

Leave a reply

by guestblogger “Beardy”

—

I can’t help but wonder whether the US tax payer would have voted for a rescue package for “the largest industrial company (and fourth-largest overall) to seek bankruptcy protection in the history of American business” ?

So the US government (ie: the US tax payer) will own 60% of GM after the deal completes. As for Canadians buying into this, it seems “odd” even factoring in the close economic/industrial ties between the 2 countries.

The rescue of GM in the United States is being led by an unlikely coalition of the U.S. and Canadian governments and the company’s employees and creditors.

So as Chrysler emerges from a major restructuring and sell-off (mostly to Fiat) and GM are entering a major fire sale. Toyota has made the first loss in 70 years… BMW, Mercedes, VW, Ford, Peugeot, Saab, Fiat, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Kia ALL posted losses… Volvo, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maserati, Jaguar, Rover have all gone the way of the dodo and been absorbed by bigger corporations. The only major standouts are Audi and Hyundai which posted a (reduced) profits in the first quarter of 2009 !??!?

GM’s Australian operations in the Holden division look to survive the blood-letting in their US parent (for now).

The obvious question to ask is, with all the flow-on effects of losses in so many large industrial corporations, how long will the effects of this economic crisis be felt… 10 years, 20 years, more ?   If you think that is extreme, consider the following:

  1. US financial sector in chaos (still) despite USD$ billions being pumped into propping them up by the Fed (US govt federal reserve).
  2. Major global corporations being bailed out with massive loans of USD$ billions to aid restructuring.
  3. Governments from Australia, America, Japan, Britain, Germany, Italy, India, Russia, etc. have all ploughed billions of money into their economies to soften the hit on their local industries and populaces.
  4. ALL the above money is being borrowed… from somewhere….

Basic economics says if you borrow money, it always comes with strings and/or interest…. eventually you have to pay the piper. With such large percentages of GDP being leveraged into these “stimulus packages” and bail-outs, how far into our future have we mortgaged ourselves through the decisions of our governments ?  Note that it does not matter whether the current parties in power are left-wing (extreme=Communist) or right-wing (extreme=Fascist), the decisions have been the same. That only goes to prove that no matter what your political persuasion, your pet politicians are mortgaging your future…. So how does it feel to be deeper in debt without having spent any money yourself ?

“Europe jobs at risk as GM files for bankruptcy”
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/06/01/gm.europe/index.html

“Holden ‘strong’ despite GM bankruptcy”
http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/holden-strong-despite-gm-bankruptcy-20090602-btc3.html

-Beardy