Westpac's loss is St Georges gain

[BrumbyJack]

Did anyone esle have trouble with Westpac on Friday?????

The system went down and when it came back up, I no longer had access, it was no longer accepting 7 digit PIN's, only 6.

After waiting on hold for an hour, I luckily get a very helpful guy, who tells me that it hasn't accepted 7 digit pins for a few years..... but I tell him I've used the same one since 2000!!!!! must have been a glich in the system that their upgrade on Friday finally picked up. Helpful guy, but the bank policy stinks.

Anyway somewhere prior to all this crap they had deleted my son's bank account, without notifying us, due to inactivity they said it had gone overdrawn with bank fees like, hello.... it's a student account, they DONT HAVE BANK FEES!!!!!!!!!!!!

St George however were extremely helpful and sorted everything out over the phone, opening a new account for my son so he now has his OWN card and internet banking, not relying on being linked to mine etc.

A big thumbs down to Westpac, you've lost 3 customers out of this

 

[johnny]

NAB aint any better. I had to replace an ATM card recently, the first one (Which was some how sent to my parents address, which live 40mins drive from me) that came through (on a Friday afternoon) decided not to work at 3am Saturday morning. Thank you to Carlin for lending me some $$$ to get home at least. The next card that took almost two weeks to arrive, again on a Friday, decided to stop working as I tried to pay for a cab. Told me I had the wrong pin number. Funnily I was holding the pin that they sent me whilst I was placing it in.....they had the wrong farking number, not me!

Of course, all I got was "Sorry about that, we'll send you a new one". They were wondering why I was soooo pissed off. This is only the last issue, there has been a long list of probs with NAB.

They all suck, it's only by degrees.

 

[BrumbyJack]

They all suck, it's only by degrees.

Very true....

I think Building Societies and Credit Unions are the lesser of the evils though.

I've heard a lot of good things about the Bendigo Bank, but there isn't any near me.


Thank goodness Commonealth just removed their scheduling fees... it cost me a fortune while it was in place and I was looking to go elsewhere, but hadn't had a day off work to do anything about it!!!! (most banks are in Cooma).

 

[Cúl-Báire]

Stories like this make me really glad that I am with Bendigo Bank, and a Credit Union. I too have had issues with other banks. But this far my time with Bendigo Bank and FCCS Credit Union have been pretty good- and the staff have always been very helpful.

By comparison, I am with Wespac / BT for my super- and I am considering changing as simply put they don't provide enough information on their statements, when ever you want to change something you need to fill out countless forms, and they are generally a hassle to deal with.

 

[Robb]

Am with commonwealth bank.

Have never had a problem with them - Am classified as a full time student (I work full time, but am also still studying full time) so i do not pay any fee's on EFTPOS, or ATM withdrawls or anything like that. Have applied for a personal loan and a credit card online and never had a problem with forms, allways been easy to deal with.

 

[lotec]

Anyway somewhere prior to all this crap they had deleted my son's bank account, without notifying us, due to inactivity they said it had gone overdrawn with bank fees like, hello.... it's a student account, they DONT HAVE BANK FEES!!!!!!!!!!!!

westpack did this to me too, when i was like 5, i lost a whole $15 over it, which was all the money in the world back then! dad marched me into the bank when he found out, went straight to the managers office, and made the manager explain to me why they steal from children and apologize to me! was extremly awkward at the time, being about 5 and the manager like 50 but when i look back on it now its a good laugh

 

[RCOH]

St George however were extremely helpful

Don't get used to it, it is the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Dozer]

I'm a St George banker and that is the best choice for me and my family. I have been stuffed around with credit unions big time over the most triveal of things. St George have so much to offer and they were the first ones to tell me that their banking is tailored for young people with some real goals. I do our work banking every day and I visit up to six banks each trip. All of them have friendly service but the time it takes and the numbers (rates, fee's etc) on their posters usually don't compare to that of St George.
I've always been of the opinion that a bank should do what you ask, when you ask. If they have any small print bullshit that they tell you about after any referring conversations, I'll tell them to stick it in their bum. Afterall, it is your money, not theirs. I expect a bank to do what I want with my money because they have the privelige of looking after my investments.

 

[danv]

I cannot reccomend credit unions enough. I am with Members and Education Credit union and they are awesome. No fees for anything except eftpos transactions (only 4 or so free per month) and card decline (from wrong pin or not enough funds). AND 5.4% interest rate for a savings account with more than 5grand in it. That's about the same as ING (but they don't have a 5g minimum. ING have no minimum balance.) Plus MECU have a really good internet banking system. And if you really need (say for large transactions) they have one or two actual branches you can go to sort shit out (or get out large wads of cash if so desire.).

BUT MECU also have a VISA debit card option. This is basically exactly the same as a credit card, you can use it on the internet, when buying stuff you press credit, but you don't get a bill each month. It automatically debits your account straight away (usually shows up after 2 days max). So it works like a debit card, but but has no fees (for you), and you can transact as much as you want. Basically all the positives of a debit card and all the positives of Credit card (except actually getting credit for money that you don't have, and who really wants that?).

The only thing you have to watch is that because it takes 2 days or so to come through, sometimes you can go into the red. This is how it happens: you have $100 in your account, buy something with VISA for $100, and then in the 2 days it takes for it to come through, you transfer $100 to another account. But once it goes into the red you don't get any more credit and you can't spend anymore money. I don't know what interest gets charged if you do happen to go in to the red, because i have never been in the red more than a few days (and i didn't get charged anything).

Anyway i'm not a spruiker for them but www.mecu.com.au
And if you don't have 5g to get the high interest, then I recommend getting an ING direct account for savings (same interest rate) and then a credit union like MECU for an access / day to day transaction account. I can't recommend this system highly enough. (I also have an ING savings account because I like to spread myself around...)
Of course you need to have a handle on internet banking for all of this to work.

Credit unions are run by and for the people who use them, and not really anbody else. Basically there are less people with their finger in the pie, no billion dollar profits that don't go to account holders, no million dollar retirement payouts etc. There are less people to ditribute profits to, and so more profits get distributed more equally back to members (account holders).

edit-
I just thought i'd add to that, i've done alot of personal banking and transactions, and i've never had a problem with anything. And am usually pretty strict about checking the details of my (internet) statements. But I can't comment on their customer service in that capacity.
I've only dealt with customer service over stuff like getting new cards (been through lots with forgotten pins, lost cards, deciding to get different type of cards etc.) and taking out large cash balances, and some other things. They have always been very helpful in that respect.

 

[Drizz]

Got a call the other day from ANZ who I have a credit card with, it goes something like this:

ANZ: Hi Mr XYZ, as a valued customer of our VISA card, I like to offer you a deal on our saving accounts. For $5.00 per month, you can make unlimited EFTPOS, ATM and cheque withdrawals. Who are you currently banking with?

Me:Credit Union, they don't charge me any monthly fees;

ANZ: Is there any limit on the transaction you can make on your account;

Me:Yes! 40 ATM/EFTPOS/Cheque per month. They let me make withdraw on any ATMs;

Me:Can you offer me a better deal?

ANZ:No Mr. XYZ, you are on a very good deal.

Also to note you can do your banking at any Australian post for your credit union. I guess the trick is to find out which credit union is best suited to you.

 

[BrumbyJack]

BUT MECU also have a VISA debit card option. This is basically exactly the same as a credit card, you can use it on the internet, when buying stuff you press credit, but you don't get a bill each month. It automatically debits your account straight away (usually shows up after 2 days max). So it works like a debit card, but but has no fees (for you), and you can transact as much as you want. Basically all the positives of a debit card and all the positives of Credit card (except actually getting credit for money that you don't have, and who really wants that?).

Yep, I've got one of them with Snowy Mountains Credit Union.

If we had a branch in Jindy they would get 100% of my banking... but driving to Cooma for the odd banking thing is annoying.