ANZ most complained about bank

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

ANZ is the most complained about bank. Image: Getty

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Business news Banking

By MSN NZ Money staff

ANZ champions its convenient banking.

But it seems customer service has been overlooked with Banking Ombudsman figures showing ANZ generated twice as many complaints and inquiries as the next nearest bank, according to the New Zealand Herald.

The Ombudsman's office has released its annual report for the year to June showing that it dealt with 640 inquiries, complaints and disputes involving ANZ in the period.

Taking out second place was Westpac with 388 cases.

In third spot was the ANZ's sister organisation the National Bank with 244 cases.

Ombudsman Deborah Battell said complaints rose 99 percent than the previous year for the bank and facilitated more than $7 million in compensation to bank customers.

Complaints about the two frozen ING investment funds sold through ANZ's branch network boosted the number of investment-related cases, while there was also an escalation in complaints about mortgage break fees, she said.

Battell said complaints has increased overall and were not as straight forward as usual.

"Although we managed to increase the number of cases resolved in the last year we were forced to start up a waiting list," she said.

"At year end, 123 disputes were on this list, with the list continuing to climb."

What complaints do you have with your bank? Have your say below.

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User comments

I tried to withdraw 100NZ$ from an ANZ ATM, got only 80NZ$, but was debited 100NZ$ off my current account. I went directly into the bank to voice the problem but was told to contact my bank. Not only will I never use ANZ ATM, but never will I consider being a client of ANZ.

I have had a recent experience where re-paying a balance of investment home loan 8 which was on a fixed rate for a remainder of 7 months. I rang the phone direct service to get an amount on what the break-fee would be. Two weeks later at the time of settlement, another figure of a $1,000.00 was given to my solicitor . When this figure was challenged, the excuse was the calculation of early repayment fees differ depending on the interest rate at the time and other factors which need to be taken into consideration such as if your loan had gone through some re-structuring. My solicitor asked for the formula on how the early repayment fee was calculated. The formula was never produced but the early repayment was significantly reduced down by about $770.00. The lame excuse for the variation in early repayment charges was a "data entry error".

ANZ is interesting in making money from New Zealanders and investing offshore. Their focus is not to re-invest in New Zealand due to its smaller population. They have seen the light to invest in major countries with billion population e.g. China and India. Now to set up branches there and lend money, of course, they need your money to do that. Is it fair? Absolutely not. Companies should be required to re-invest certain percentage of their revenue back into the country they make money from. Wake up government.

Have never been a customer of ANZ before... but my Westpac card once got swallowed in a BNZ ATM the moment I put it in. When I went to the nearest branch to get a replacement, they tried to make me pay $25 for a new one!

Charging $20 when your account goes into overdraft. I never asked for an overdraft facility and have requested that if there is no money in the account, then dont put the payment through. ASB advise they can do that - but they will charge a $20-$25 dishonour fee!! I have spoken to two people at the bank re this and none of them suggested setting up a text alert- I found it on their website. The bank will text you when your account gets down to a limit you advise or when it goes into overdraft - cost .20c for text. But hey why would they tell you that when they can make $20 - $25 from you going over the limit. The banks that still charge this fee are scamming a fortune from those who can least afford it.

I am the agent on my mother's ANZ account and have been for 6 years. She has gone into a Private Hospital and I decided to pay her bills by Internet. Set it up at bank and by phone put down several companies, ie Akl City Council, Metrowater, Telecom etc to pay. 2 weeks later I tried to add Mercury Energy. Was told I needed to go to branch as I wasn't on computer as designated person. What ?? I had already added the others prior !!! Off I go to the branch. There I was told I would need to have a whole new access number and password so they could then attach my mother to this new set up. " Why can't you attach me to her access number and password"? which I may mention I had set up in this very bank 3 weeks prior.? None of the people in the branch could answer that question - unbelievable. So I went home and just pretended to be my mother on the phone and mercury was added no questions. How stupid is that, how inconvenient ?? Customer Service...phffffff

We certainly had problems with the ANZ with Credit Cards - they had stuffed up majorly and it was always the fault of another of their departments. No one would take responsibility and sort it out.

The time frame in which people get ACC should be reduced.

We requested ANZ allow us to break out loan fees in order to take out another $150,000 to do renovations and we told by them we would still have to pay mortgage break fees even though we would potentially be borrowing more money. I thought this was very unfair.

I am not surprised that ANZ are top of the banking flops! My Fiance and I move our mortgage to ANZ 18months ago and we have had nothgin but problems. Firstly the direct payment was set up on the wrong dates- having verified and watched the banker write them down, then we had the wrong payments taken ouot. To top it all off we then had several problems further to meetings aimed at solving the first problems. All of this was blamed on another department! The advertising is great, however the service is not so. The bank prides itslef on speaking your language- not so. I am of asian origin and speak english as my frst language so i feel i am qualified to make the following point. There are too many employees dealing with precious financial situations who have not grasped the customers requests through a language problem. This led to myself and my Fiance undergoing some rather 'stressful' times as a result of our bank not providing the service that we required and expected.