Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

[coles525]

Group complaint? IF many of us here do indeed get the "final notice", could we all go in a group battle in regards to doing things legal, with BW not following the legal rules?

Ie: either keep as is, but make staff notices that some companies allow 1c minimum transactions, OR change the wording of rules to an actual minimum value which is fair (every $1 spend you get 5 points, bill is $57.63 so you recieve either 285 or 286 points. Rounded up or down to the nearest cent!).

 

[Cynicor]

Group complaint? IF many of us here do indeed get the "final notice", could we all go in a group battle in regards to doing things legal, with BW not following the legal rules?

Ie: either keep as is, but make staff notices that some companies allow 1c minimum transactions, OR change the wording of rules to an actual minimum value which is fair (every $1 spend you get 5 points, bill is $57.63 so you recieve either 285 or 286 points. Rounded up or down to the nearest cent!).

Your problem will be that they are following the legal rules. They have given your points, and closed the account (as long as notice periods etc are met). They have not said that your transactions are not allowed or abuse etc. They are just exercising their right to close your account for no reason and eventually will tighten the T+Cs to some sort of $ minimum I'm sure.

 

[benjy]

Bankwest are well within their rights to close accounts if they feel necessary, they do not need to give a reason. If they close mine then so be it, I had fun accumulating nearly 50,000 points over 6 months for simply paying Optus bills.

 

[neon_crossing]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop Rick93. I really hope I dont get one of those letters.

 

[Cephalopod]

Better off with the financial ombudsman for banking related issues. However they are generally useless and set up to favour the financial institutions. Their interest in points related issues is limited.

Not even close.

They side with the agreement you signed.

We will lose fighting this if they close accounts. 100%.

 

[Cephalopod]

Because Rick is going out of his way to exploit the 50 transaction cap.

You can't pull thousands of transactions a day on a single card and not have it flag.

That many would 100% flag for a fraud check. I doubt they are going to hit everyone just yet. It's a fine line between what we are doing and what he is doing. I'd almost say what he is doing falls within the fraud category.

I don't really know how their systems work but why would they go after the biggest offenders first rather than everyone at the same time? Surely they would know who all of us are and generate letters for everyone at the same time?

my wife actually received mail from them yesterday (only saw today) and my heart skipped a beat as we opened it today. Was an unrelated issue thankfully.

 

[Rick93]

Rubbish !!

Fraud ??

How is paying for goods purchased, considered to be "fraud" ?

There's no 'deception'; no 'unlawful gain'; no 'mis-representation'; no 'corruption' etc. involved at all.

Anyway, I was rather surprised to find, that even given the 'letter' and 'phone call' ... I could still use my card to make another several hundred transactions each day, over the past three days !! ( last eStatement was 53 pages long !! )

 

[Cynicor]

Rubbish !!

Fraud ??

How is paying for goods purchased, considered to be "fraud" ?

There's no 'deception'; no 'unlawful gain'; no 'mis-representation'; no 'corruption' etc. involved at all.

Anyway, I was rather surprised to find, that even given the 'letter' and 'phone call' ... I could still use my card to make another several hundred transactions each day, over the past three days !! ( last eStatement was 53 pages long !! )

I agree. No fraud here, and there is no 50 transaction limit in the T+Cs. These things go both ways- you can get all the points you manage to harvest but they can terminate you at any point with minimal notice.

 

[burmans]

Because Rick is going out of his way to exploit the 50 transaction cap.

You can't pull thousands of transactions a day on a single card and not have it flag.

That many would 100% flag for a fraud check. I doubt they are going to hit everyone just yet. It's a fine line between what we are doing and what he is doing. I'd almost say what he is doing falls within the fraud category.

Yeah I read this and thought it was an incredibly naive statement! Given this has gone on for so long and they haven't (yet) I'm not sure they fundamentally have a problem with the design of the product, its only the extremes they wish to shut this down, the answer to that is to shut down the extremes.

But would be very careful about throwing around terms like fraud given that has a specific legal meaning.

While he is clearly seeking to severely stretch the T&C's I for one dont think he is actually breaking them (and the letter from BW certainly makes no such suggestion), nor is this illegal. I think we can pretty confident that if BW did actually think this was fraud the letter would have arrived earlier and been somewhat more pointed.

On the question of FOS, I can confidently state that the view of most Financial Institutions is they are not favored by FOS in any manner whatsoever! Of course they do write the T&C's, so as long as the T&C's are supported by law the banks argument does normally have some weight but only on on a factual basis, but if you can actually make a factual argument that the banks has broken T&C's my experience is the banks will fold before even getting to FOS (the charges to them are not trivial).

 

[N860CR]

Not even close.

They side with the agreement you signed.

We will lose fighting this if they close accounts. 100%.

And as the rest of my post said... The main benefit of the FOS is that your complaint is escalated within the bank to a complaints person who is actually given some authority to apply something decent.

The FOS, when it comes to actually making a decision, are useless.

 

[psi999]

I am not sure Bankwest would have any interest in harming anyones credit history over this even if they legally could. It seems to me that Rick93 deliberately broke the spirit of this promotion and undertook to even break the unstated rule that it was capped at 50 transactions per day. For that reason they just want to get rid of him so he can go and annoy some other organisation not to destroy his career credit rating.

Basically this. Hopefully activity such as this hasn't wrecked it for the rest of us.... Was and still is a nice little earner.

My 2c / 10 points anyways

 

[Cephalopod]

But would be very careful about throwing around terms like fraud given that has a specific legal meaning.

Fraud actually has no legal definition.

It only requires that you obtain a benefit via deception or dishonesty.

Dishonesty has a very broad interpretation though. It is not limited to lying. The way dishonesty is normally determined is up to the jury - would a reasonable person consider that the acts were dishonest. Knowing a 50 limit is imposed and intentionally shop hopping to avoid it can easily be argued to be dishonest and I think many people would agree that it is.

 

[fersea]

I think you want to be a bit careful making a bloody nuisance of yourself in the current climate. Rick93 has been told by the supermarkets that he is not wanted, by BankWest he is not wanted yet he continues to make trouble for everyone.

All for the possibility of an upgrade on a flight that he may or may not get. Interesting the lengths people will go.

 

[burmans]

Fraud actually has no legal definition.

It only requires that you obtain a benefit via deception or dishonesty.

Dishonesty has a very broad interpretation though. It is not limited to lying. The way dishonesty is normally determined is up to the jury - would a reasonable person consider that the acts were dishonest. Knowing a 50 limit is imposed and intentionally shop hopping to avoid it can easily be argued to be dishonest and I think many people would agree that it is.

I do know what state you are in but in the state I am in this reads very much like a definition.

---

CRIMES ACT 1900 - SECT 192E

Fraud 192E Fraud

(1) A person who, by any deception, dishonestly:

(a) obtains property belonging to another, or​

(b) obtains any financial advantage or causes any financial disadvantage,​

is guilty of the offence of fraud.

Maximum penalty: Imprisonment for 10 years.​

(2) A person’s obtaining of property belonging to another may be dishonest even if the person is willing to pay for the property.​

(3) A person may be convicted of the offence of fraud involving all or any part of a general deficiency in money or other property even though the deficiency is made up of any number of particular sums of money or items of other property that were obtained over a period of time.​

(4) A conviction for the offence of fraud is an alternative verdict to a charge for the offence of larceny, or any offence that includes larceny, and a conviction for the offence of larceny, or any offence that includes larceny, is an alternative verdict to a charge for the offence of fraud.
​

 

[Cephalopod]

Just because you think it reads as a definition does not mean it is one.

It's a very non-descriptive term.

Basically that tells you that fraud occurs when someone obtains property or financial advantage by being deceptive or dishonest, dishonesty being undefined and extremely broad thus fraud having no real definition.

But if you want to play games, fine, in whatever state you are in (NSW I assume) what he did is almost definitely fraud as he is aware that Bankwest applies a 50 transaction cap and went out of his way to go above it. One segment of the definition of deception:

(b) conduct by a person that causes a computer, a machine or any electronic device to make a response that the person is not authorised to cause it to make.

I do know what state you are in but in the state I am in this reads very much like a definition.

---

CRIMES ACT 1900 - SECT 192E

Fraud 192E Fraud

(1) A person who, by any deception, dishonestly:

(a) obtains property belonging to another, or​

(b) obtains any financial advantage or causes any financial disadvantage,​

is guilty of the offence of fraud.

Maximum penalty: Imprisonment for 10 years.​

(2) A person’s obtaining of property belonging to another may be dishonest even if the person is willing to pay for the property.​

(3) A person may be convicted of the offence of fraud involving all or any part of a general deficiency in money or other property even though the deficiency is made up of any number of particular sums of money or items of other property that were obtained over a period of time.​

(4) A conviction for the offence of fraud is an alternative verdict to a charge for the offence of larceny, or any offence that includes larceny, and a conviction for the offence of larceny, or any offence that includes larceny, is an alternative verdict to a charge for the offence of fraud.
​

 

[thehound]

Remember that our perception being point chasers is skewed. The better test of appropriateness is what an average person on the street would say - and I think the average member of the public would say that 1100 transactions a day is gross abuse of the system.

 

[QF WP]

Yes, the reasonableness test would probably fail here - the vast majority of people wouldn't pay their accounts by multiple 1 cent transactions. Time and inclination would be severely lacking in most people, because they don't have the same love of FF points as us...

 

[Rick93]

Mmmmm ....

I would never have considered some of the 'points' ( there's THAT pun again !! ) thrown around here ...

I would have thought, that the 'average person' would also think, that if the merchant allows a customer to pay for the goods by whatever means ( financial services card ), and the financial services card provider also 'allows' ( at the point of sale - this pun keeps popping up ! ) ... then, what's the issue ??

If there were NO QFF points to be gained, and this was simply a matter of paying multiple one cent transactions .... I wonder would Bankwest still be wanting to close my account ??

So, my major points are ( oh, it keeps coming up ... ), that there is no '50' transactions per day written into the T&Cs.
When my card ( at odd times ), suddenly ALLOWS me to make well over 50 transactions per day, Bankwest have done nothing to prevent it.
Bankwest have known about my card activity for virtually all of my account life ( about 60 days ), yet have done NOTHING to limit the actual transactions made. That is, when I can actually make 'several hundred' per day, and Bankwest know this was being done, they didn't stop it ...

 

[Cephalopod]

You're ignoring that you know a 50 transaction limit exists (the law doesn't require this limit to be known to you in the terms and conditions) and that you know the only way to avoid it is to take advantage of offline pay pass.

It's all based on a reasonable person test. Would a reasonable person believe paying in 1c transactions at multiple locations to avoid the limitations put in place by the bank to be honest? No. They won't. Would they view it as deceptive? Yes. They will.

Give up. You will NOT win this with Bankwest and I hope you do not. I will not fight it if they try to close my account as well.

 

[Rick93]

Let me correct one of your misconceptions ...

The card will not allow multiple transactions ( greater than 50 ) at various locations - All the time.

My card seemed to have two modes:
Either it would only allow 50 transactions per day,
or, it would allow an unspecificed number of transactions per day.

Now, if it was a '50' day, then after the 50 transaction were made at the one Coles outlet, I could NOT go elsewhere. The 50 per day had been completed. In fact, I got transactions declined when trying to pay for fuel at a servo, if I'd already done my 50 at Coles !!

However, if it was a 'greater than 50' day, yes, I could go 'shopping' at multiple locations - and I did - BECAUSE, the card ( Bankwest ) allowed me to ( and so did Coles ).


***** It would seem, there are those of you on this Forum who will agree with me, and those who are disagreeing, and saying I'm 'guilty' of whatever.

I think I've made my point ( last time use this pun !! )

I'll see what happens with the Authorities ...