Bout freakin time…

frankly i doubt the technical veracity of the story they spun you. whether they do or don’t (still) use tapes (that need to be manually handled to access “old data”) doesn’t even make any sense.

when a withdrawal transaction occurs, ANY withdrawal transaction, your balance has to be checked to see if there’s sufficient funds for the requested amount. if it’s a teller in the bank, they’ll say “sorry sir, insufficient funds”; ATM: beep beep “sorry, insufficient funds”; online: click click, “sorry, insufficient funds”. none of these incur an charge for having insufficient funds for the transaction.

but a Direct Debit, one of the newer (relatively speaking) darling products of the banking industry because of the convenience brought to bank customers able to interact with other bank’s accounts, thus increasing $ throughput in/out of the account, thus increasing bank revenue: $45 fee for “insufficient funds”, a fee administered almost IMMEDIATELY it occurs – this can’t possibly have anything to do with needing to go back to tapes using manual handling – the transaction is denied and the fee levied ON THE SPOT in real-time, by computers.

IF there are any “real” costs incurred by my bank for a dishonoured DD, it’s because those costs have been deliberately designed into the process so that undisclosed markups can be charged on them. as St. George said to me in reply to my original complaint, they can’t/won’t disclose details of these charges because it’s “commercially sensitive information”. neat system, huh?

my initial searches didn’t reveal ANY mainstream banks whose dishonour fee was significantly lower ($25 might have been the cheapest, better for sure, but still ridiculous), reinforcing my perception that these cunts are ALL required to inter-operate with other banks in this manner, and thus can hide behind that excuse & reap from the rape.

however St. George being gobbled by Westpac (been there, done that, never again) is now enough to push the issue that this year I will be changing banks. the question remains: which one? here in Melbourne i’m thinking Bendigo might be the lesser of all evils.

The date i got charged this fee was 19 days before that date.
And they have no records of it.

I immediatley said:
“Wait so you don’t even have any records that this happened, and you are charging me?”

This is when she started talking about the tapes.

So guy’s if you feel like really getting your $45 back, sue them.
They have no proof, they said it themselves, they only keep 3 months of records.
Im sure any legal action would cause them to just remove the fee as they know without proof they have no legal case.

Just remember to burn all your paper records. ^_^

Basicly what they said was:

When you enter a direct debit scheme you contractually agree to that company that you WILL have the money there available.

And i asked well what does that have to do with $45? What do you do, send gold plated checks through email?

The lady then went on with a story that went like this:

“St George uses a system of “tapes” to keep records.” *At this moment i felt like i was in the 90′s*
“They keep going for a period of time and when a dishonour fee occurs they must send these “tapes” to somewhere to get them processed to move money to the direct debiter in which you have signed up for”

So basicly, there trying to say they use an out dated technology to process there money.

I don’t know about you guys but incurring a $45 bank fee on a STUDENT ACCOUNT seems a bit ridicoulous to me, but they began to tell me that the only difference is the normal $8 fee for account holding is not required on a student account.

So let’s sum this up:
St.George are out dated wankers who cannot upgrade to digital because they love bullhitting about fees.
And B:
They are giving STUDENTS enourmous sized tranaction fees which is the exact oposite of what those accounts are designed for.

Im going to be closing my bank account tomorrow when i pay this bullshit fee.
And am going to join a less bullshit bank.

Best Regards,
Out $45 for a 19cent difference.

Well done, mate! I recently underwent an experience with St. George scarily simialr to what you describe in your letter.

I feel the same frustration(s) you describe, what are we paying for? I can only assume that it is record profit margins year after year. I really feel that many of these larger corporations should be forced into adopting more transparent business models so that consumers can be made aware of what they are paying for. If a Carpenter handed you an invoice that said “Wall” with a price on it, wouldn’t you be entitled to request a more detailed explanation of the costs?

Anyway, I am starting to rant :p Would you mind if I took a copy of you above correspondence and used as a template for my own complaint? I turned up your page within about 1 minute of starting my (very firsts) search into what my dishonour fee was actually paying for. Your letter sums everything up so well…

Thanks for your time.

-John