# Banks & Broker fees and charges ripoffs



## Uncle Festivus (8 January 2008)

I am currently in dispute of a 'penalty' fee incurred for not having enough money in my account to cover a recent share trade with Comsec ie a direct debit failure fee. I also got slugged a 'penalty' fee from the Commbank side as well, so all up a $86 slap on the wrist for my crime. Apart from the fact that I deposited the funds on the same day it was due after I realised what had happened. But too late, the 'dynamic duo' were quick to extract their pound of flesh for the error.

To their credit, a phone call to Commbank elicited a retraction of the fee, after some assurances that I accepted that I was naughty and wouldn't do it again.

The Comsec side is looking to be a bit more protracted, as they appear to be adamant that the fee will stand.

The back down by Commbank was, I assume, necessitated by the fact that it is unlawful to impose a penalty such as it was, as they are only able to recover costs involved.

Has anybody else had success in having penalties reimbursed, or at least reduced? Today Tonight routinely run stories about people winning such disputes with banks, but how do people go with getting brokers to cancel these penalties? Any success stories?


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## numbercruncher (8 January 2008)

Ive had the same thing happen with Commsec, it was their fault as the computer system didnt update making it appear I had more money than I actually did, so when settlement arrived Insufficent funds where in that account, the fee was like $80 from memory and was refunded.


Years ago when with the NAB I purchsed something using eftpos and went like $1 over my balance and they charged me a $30 fee lol, and refused to refund it, needless to say our banking relationship ceased for eternity that day!


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## Bill M (8 January 2008)

I use Comsec broker with a linked CDIA account to it. I made a trade on a day and simply forgot to place the money in the CDIA account. It cost me a $54 broker fee and a $35 bank fee for insufficient funds, but it was all my fault.

I do have a question, yesterday I sold some stock and the proceeds will be 25K. I also bought some stock and the payment will be 15K (all on the same day). That will leave me with a CDIA balance of 10K in the end. Will the Comsec system work it all out on T3 without me having to put in 15K for my purchase? I just don't want to be charged again, thanks.


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## ROE (8 January 2008)

Bill M said:


> I use Comsec broker with a linked CDIA account to it. I made a trade on a day and simply forgot to place the money in the CDIA account. It cost me a $54 broker fee and a $35 bank fee for insufficient funds, but it was all my fault.
> 
> I do have a question, yesterday I sold some stock and the proceeds will be 25K. I also bought some stock and the payment will be 15K (all on the same day). That will leave me with a CDIA balance of 10K in the end. Will the Comsec system work it all out on T3 without me having to put in 15K for my purchase? I just don't want to be charged again, thanks.




Yeah the system is smart enough to know that if you buy and sell on the same day they will take/deposit the difference come T3, so you should be safe
otherwise don't pay the fine and dispute and threaten to leave


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## Bill M (8 January 2008)

Thanks ROE.


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## KIWIKARLOS (8 January 2008)

A few months back my broker etrade/st george put a hold on funds in my account in excess of my executed and pending buys. It was thousands over and I couldn't get any money out of my account.

I called them they said that many customers had the same problem and that I was in a queue and it could be 48 hours. I said it was unacceptable because I would basically be broke for days and couldn't even afford a bus fare. I kept asking to speak to the people in charge and finally after going through 3 or 4 people I got a bloke who helped me out and fixed it as a priority in 6 hours

Not happy as compensation they gave me two free trades....

They are hopeless everytime there is heaps of trading traffic (usually the big down days ) the system can't handle it and its virtually impossible to place buy/sells view market depth or profiles. If I wasn't just a rookie trader I would go somewhere else. 

And then theres the dodgy $3800 internet bill from telstra 
Don't get me started on those clowns


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## cordelia (8 January 2008)

last week my bank charged me a .25c electronic transfer fee which left 39.75 in an account I rarely use but has a cheque book facility. I had written a cheque for forty dollars about two months ago. When the cheque was presented the bank honoured it but because it overdrew the account by .25c the bank charged me $45. They wrote me a letter to inform me of this and I can only guess at how much it would have cost to produce the letter but they had it covered with my $45. That's why the big banks will never go broke...they have every angle covered. Imagine how much they are raking in with fees! I am in the process of reorganising all my accounts to reduce fees.


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## Uncle Festivus (8 January 2008)

cordelia said:


> last week my bank charged me a .25c electronic transfer fee which left 39.75 in an account I rarely use but has a cheque book facility. I had written a cheque for forty dollars about two months ago. When the cheque was presented the bank honoured it but because it overdrew the account by .25c the bank charged me $45. They wrote me a letter to inform me of this and I can only guess at how much it would have cost to produce the letter but they had it covered with my $45. That's why the big banks will never go broke...they have every angle covered. Imagine how much they are raking in with fees! I am in the process of reorganising all my accounts to reduce fees.




This is why I think we should all ring these organisations and promptly tell them to cancel these penalty fees. They are not legally entitled to charge these fees, at least not that they would want to test it in court. 

You'll be surprised at how easily they roll over & re credit you with the fee. Threaten to take your business elsewhere ie close the account.


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## professor_frink (8 January 2008)

Uncle Festivus said:


> This is why I think we should all ring these organisations and promptly tell them to cancel these penalty fees. They are not legally entitled to charge these fees, at least not that they would want to test it in court.
> 
> You'll be surprised at how easily they roll over & re credit you with the fee. *Threaten to take your business elsewhere ie close the account.*




most of the time you don't even have to do that UF. If you explain what has happened to one of the staff members in your local branch, they are generally pretty reasonable about it, and will often fix the fee up on the spot.

Generally, this is up to the manager's discretion, so if you walk in there and start abusing the staff over something that has been executed automatically by a computer, you probably won't get very far

That's all based on the CBA. Never dealt with other banks, so don't know what they are like.


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## BSD (8 January 2008)

Rules are rules and banks are not charities. 

Don't overdraw and you wont have a problem - regardless of your account making no money for the bank.

If my business was a bank, I would be quite happy to have 'customers' who are outraged by a $40 fee on a $35 account follow-up their threats to go elsewhere.

Why should a bank risk an overdrawn account for free?

Who cares if a $40 account goes elsewhere?

Maybe they are telling you something!

[DISCLOSURE: As a destitute student I was deeply troubled when hit with such fees on overdrawn accounts resulting from bank fees]


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## numbercruncher (8 January 2008)

lol BSD

Its just a scam, in the old days if your eftpos didnt have sufficent funds it simply wouldnt go through, now a days go over by 1 cent and itll cost you $40, only happened to me once , must of been not long after they changed it.

Oh btw banks atm are very keen to keep their customers and deposit's thanks to the credit crunch.

This is the CEO of ANZ  last month .....



> Mr Smith says he would like ANZ to boost domestic deposits to reduce the reliance on market funding.




http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/18/2121707.htm

Seems savers as opposed to those commoners, the borrowers, are in demand atm, use it to your advantage


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## BSD (8 January 2008)

numbercruncher said:


> Seems savers as opposed to those commoners, the borrowers, are in demand atm, use it to your advantage




Of course it is a rip-off. 

But I maintain that a 'depositer' or 'saver' who overdraws on an eftpos withdrawal or a bank fee is not exactly the target market for banks desperately seeking 'profitable' deposits.

Seek an alternative all you want - but f%ck the 'old days' of passbooks and restrictive everything.


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## Bill M (8 January 2008)

BSD said:


> Of course it is a rip-off.
> 
> But I maintain that a 'depositer' or 'saver' who overdraws on an eftpos withdrawal or a bank fee is not exactly the target market for banks desperately seeking 'profitable' deposits.
> 
> *Seek an alternative all you want - but f%ck the 'old days' of passbooks and restrictive everything*.



As an older bloke I couldn't agree with you more. ATM's, internet banking and online broking is the best thing since sliced bread. Arrhhh the old days, ring up Joseph Palmer and Sons and ask what's the buy and sell on Coles, put in the order. You never knew until you called em back if you got em. The new way is way way better, who would have ever thought STP from your home PC.


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## Uncle Festivus (9 January 2008)

professor_frink said:


> most of the time you don't even have to do that UF. If you explain what has happened to one of the staff members in your local branch, they are generally pretty reasonable about it, and will often fix the fee up on the spot.
> 
> Generally, this is up to the manager's discretion, so if you walk in there and start abusing the staff over something that has been executed automatically by a computer, you probably won't get very far
> 
> That's all based on the CBA. Never dealt with other banks, so don't know what they are like.




No, no abusing as it was all very civil actually, especially with the Commbank as they could see what they could potentially lose. I explained the same to Comsec but they didn't want to know about it. What they didn't know at the time but have since emailed to them in a complaint was that I was thinking of doing more business with them. Fat chance now! All for the sake of $54. 



BSD said:


> Rules are rules and banks are not charities.
> 
> Don't overdraw and you wont have a problem - regardless of your account making no money for the bank.
> 
> ...




Not exactly a $40 acct. I have been a customer for 15 years or so, first time this has happened. I can assure you if Comsec doesn't come to the party & I withdraw my business from both, I would hope Commbank will be asking Comsec some questions.

The fact remains, such penalties are illegal. They can only recover their costs.


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## cordelia (9 January 2008)

as i previously explained...the $40 account was an account I rarely use...an oversight on my part I agree and $45 means squat to me in reality but to many people struggling its a great deal of money. As someone mentioned before ..it used to be that you couldn;t go over your limit but now it seems you can and they charge you ridiculous amounts to do so....I love Internet banking and I rarely go to an atm or branch so I am not pining for "the good old days" but I don't like being ripped off. I have been banking with this paricular bank for nearly 20 years and I have a considerable amount of money invested through them. 

The power of banks lies in the fact that they take small amounts of money from many people. If they took $45000 out of my account I would do something about it but quite frankly I haven;t got the time to run around trying to recoup $45 when I earn much more than that in an hour. So like many others I just write it off.....times that by a million, every day of the year......and banks are doing ok.....Its a classic...small profits but many of them....

To me $45 is still $45 and as my grandfather used to say" if you look after the pennies the pounds will look after themselves.


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## Uncle Festivus (9 January 2008)

It's a matter of principle for me. It is also a measure of society that we allow this to happen to those who can least afford it, let alone fight them to get it back ie the banks couldn't care less for these low income 'churners'. If everyone objected everytime they did it, and take up the time of their employees dealing with the complaints, they would stop.


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## cordelia (9 January 2008)

well said...revolutions happen when the "little people" get together and make a stand


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## ROE (9 January 2008)

BSD said:


> Rules are rules and banks are not charities.
> 
> Don't overdraw and you wont have a problem - regardless of your account making no money for the bank.
> 
> ...




You obviously dont know how to run a business, sometimes it better to keep a customer happy even if you not making money out of them.

They will freely do free advertising for you and down the track when they are a lot wealthier they may stay in business with you and return many times over. 

You cant judge someone by having 30 or 40 bucks in the account and assume they are poor or does not have money.

There are many reasons why someone has such a low deposit on a certain account and they could have millions more in another account.


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## bvbfan (9 January 2008)

ComSuc/ CommBank are wanks...Having worked for them and seeing that their systems caused fees to be charged due to debits happening before credits.

ComSuc charged me fail fees when they couldnt even produce margin requirement details. They refunded it but then proceeded to try to blame me.

Not a problem if there system would allow margin requirements to be checked but inside PT it has only worked occasionally.

Also their systems had issues with options and not being able to close out positons and enter a new one. Ended up having to do it on the phone and got slapped phone brokerage fees.
Idiot CSR knew I couldn't do it online and when I tried to get the refund still no response after 5months.

I'd switch in a second but IB cause me worries with all the paper work I'd have to do. 

If someone else can do a cheap ETO platform I'm gone.


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## Uncle Festivus (5 May 2008)

Looks like Citibank are finally coming to grips with the higher cost of funds and making it harder for us to have interest free periods. Either that or they are just scumbags like the rest of them. 
Always thought it was very generous of credit card companies in the first place - free credit!



> Citibank has announced it will reduce the  number of interest-free days for credit card customers who usually clear their  bill each month.
> A change to Citibank’s terms and conditions  states, "If you pay the Closing Balance by the Payment Due Date for 10 out of 12  consecutive months, your maximum interest free period may be reduced to 44 days.  This means that the number of days in which you must make your repayments will  be reduced from 25 days to 14 days."
> The change means that statements will be sent out ten days later than before,  and customers will have fewer days after that to pay their bill. ‘Payment due’  dates will stay the same, so customers who pay by direct debit and Autopay won’t  need to alter their direct debit dates.



http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticl...ibank+to+penalise+cardholders+who+pay+on+time


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## njc.corp (5 May 2008)

Seems-like this thread is base on commbank-i used to be a customer-

that god i lefted- best thing i did for me and my business-

like someone mention in this thread-anyone tried  going to the actual bank and speaking to someone their-

i feel that get's better results-and it gets sorted out quicker-

i had one small problem with anz while the bank manager cleared stated that they forgot to activate my account-

honest mistake-which the  phone operator did not want to understand-

straight to the bank and it was all fixed-

Now-since we all know the banks make a small profit on fee's-how much do they make off the fee's before it get's refunded-

i mean getting a refund off the bank is good but they make u wait-so what are they doing with that money in the mean time?

Thanks

Nick--


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