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Rural ANZ customers caught by over-draw penalty
27 Sep 2002
The ANZ Bank has been forced to apologise for regularly charging $29.50 "honour fees" to customers who unknowingly over-draw their accounts.
ANZ says the problem affected those in remote communities, such as the Northern Territory, who don't have access to ANZ ATMs. However, InfoChoice has found the problem has been experienced by a wide range of ANZ customers. When using EFTPOS or non-ANZ ATMS for withdrawals, customers are not informed of their account balances so are unaware when they go into the red, triggering a $29.50 penalty fee each time, even if over-drawing by a few dollars. Customers who have been hit told The Australian this only applies to ANZ - "with all other banks you can't overdraw on savings accounts, the machines won't allow it".
The bank's official line is that allowing accounts to be overdrawn results from a "technical error" however ANZ customer service staff have told customers the practice is a informal overdraught facility for "valued customers".
InfoChoice advises customers to keep track of their balances, which is now easy via telephone and internet banking, to avoid being caught out by overdraw fees such as these. This problem also underlines the importance of checking statements each month for what fees are being charged.
The ANZ will repay the honour fees withdrawn from accounts and says the problem has been corrected. The bank stated that "only a few thousand" of its three million customers have been affected, most of them in remote communities.
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