Commonwealth Bank customer rages as his bank account balances disappear
- Chris Burdon complained his account balances disappeared
- It took two hours with customer service to fix the issue
A Commonwealth Bank customer has vented his frustration at having to navigate customer service for two hours when his account balances disappeared.
Chris Burdon, who helps run family business Nonesuch Distillery at Dodges Ferry east of Hobart in Tasmania, shared a video to social media on Thursday detailing his issue.
‘So today I’ve logged into the CommBank app to pay a couple of bills, nothing out of the ordinary there, except once I get on it’s a bit weird, two of my accounts have vanished into thin air,’ Mr Burdon said.
Tasmanian Chris Burdon recently complained his account balances on his CommBank app vanished and he spent two hours trying to get it fixed
CommBank like all financial institutions has to collect data under government Know Your Customer requirements
‘I’ve spent the next half an hour trying to figure out what I’ve done to make it so I can’t see these accounts and where the thousands of dollars that’s in them has disappeared to.’
Mr Burdon said he was unable to work out what happened so he then called CommBank customer service but had to wait 45 minutes in the queue before he was able to speak to someone
‘I finally got through to the first person I spoke to this morning, who sent me to the second, who sent me to the third, who sent me to the fourth, then the fifth and it wasn’t until the sixth department that I could actually get some help,’ he said.
‘And do you want to know what that problem was ladies and gentlemen? I had been flagged by CommBank for a KYC assessment.’
Under Australian anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing law financial institutions must apply Know Your Customer procedures to all their clients.
The purpose of collecting the information is to satisfy financial institutions that an account holder is who they say they are.
‘CommBank will send out a notification telling you that you need to get in touch and update your details but I got no such notification,’ Mr Burdon said.
‘Because I got no notification, I didn’t respond and that means they put a stop on my account and deleted my access to it – including spending, receiving or even seeing my money.’
‘So not only have I spent two hours trying to fix this problem, I also sit here wondering: Can I have any confidence when the bank wants to do one of these assessments again, they won’t take away access to my money?’
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Commonwealth Bank for comment.
Mr Burdon was recently given a customer service award for his business Nonesuch Distillery
