Bank sold $650 debt after woman failed to pay fees for account she didn't want
22 July 2016
Liaam Mannix
Patricia Howard said she only found out the Commonwealth Bank had set up an account in her name when it began to ruin her life. Her first hint came when her credit card was cancelled. Then she found she had a black mark on her credit rating.
She really began to panic when a debt collector started pursing her for $650 in bank fees she had apparently accrued – plus a few other thousand in utilities she had never heard of. But when she called the CBA to try and fix the problem – and get the debt collector off her back they wouldn’t talk to her.
Her story illustrates the dangers of banks selling debts on to collection firms: when questions are raised over the veracity of those debts, debt collectors often don't want to hear it, and the bank says it's no longer its problem. “The Commonwealth Bank is telling me they can't talk to me or do anything about the debt because it's been sold to Panthera [the debt collector] and Panthera are saying the Commonwealth Bank won't provide them with details," Ms Howard said.
In February 2012 Ms Howard, a former Fairfax business journalist now working as a private financial planner, walked into a Commonwealth Bank branch to ask about business accounts. She was shopping around – and ended up going for a competing account with NAB, who she still banks with. But somehow an account was established in Ms Howard's name – by mistake, she says, although her signature was on a CBA form. “I did go a long way down the track of opening a bank account with them, and it would seem that I signed documentation to that effect," she said. “They say I did and I don't have any reason to disagree with them.
“What I'm absolutely confident of and what CBA also agreed with is that I never transacted on that account, and in my mind I never opened that account. “As far as I was concerned it was just a dead account." A CBA spokesman would not comment directly on the case, citing customer privacy, but told Fairfax "when customers open any account with the Commonwealth Bank we always verify their identity to ensure we are dealing with the right person. Fairfax understands the set-up process for a new bank account requires a customer's signature, and is reasonably comprehensive.
The account set up in Ms Howard's name also appears to have included the wrong address details, meaning the bank couldn't contact her, and statements sent to her address were going unopened. Either that or Ms Howard threw the statements away unopened, because she had no reason to believe they were anything more than marketing material. “The CBA have said they sent paperwork for me," she said. “I'm a financial planner, I get inundated with paperwork from all the institutions." After all, as far as she knew, she did not have an account with CBA.
Ms Howard says she never used the account. Despite that, CBA still slugged her with more than $650 in fees before closing the account because of inactivity, she said. In April 2016 her debt to the bank was sold to Panthera Finance. Fairfax has previously reported on serious concerns financial counsellors have over Panthera's practices. The agency declined to comment specifically on her case. Panthera also acquired $1587 in debts to two energy companies that it said she owed. Fairfax has seen emails showing those debts would also later prove to be wrong and were withdrawn by the energy companies.
When Panthera called her mobile and told her about the debt, Ms Howard was shocked. She never knew she had a debt to CBA – and now she was getting repeated calls on her mobile. When she first called CBA about it, the person she spoke to was apologetic but unhelpful. The debt had been sold to Panthera, and was out of CBA's hands. “She said she could see online that I had signed an 'application form' but that she could also see that the account had never been used. She then said she couldn't speak to me as the debt had been sold.”
By this stage, Ms Howard was at her wits' end. She contacted the Consumer Action Law Centre and the media, but she did not hold out much hope. “Given the blight they had put on my credit record, I'm thinking its easier to pay them off than fight this but it is all very wrong.
It was only when Fairfax Media became involved in Ms Howard's case that she received a resolution, someone from CBA calling to say the bank was going to buy back the debt. She now has to convince credit reporting company VEDA to remove the black mark from her credit report. She tells me that the original debt was wrong, that it should never have been incurred because even though the account was opened in my name it was never transacted on and she has assured me that she will ensure that the debt is taken back from Panthera and that the black mark on my VEDA credit rating is removed.
Ms Howard is tired, exhausted and angry. All of this is taking hours if not days of my life – I think debt collection agencies must be able to verify debts before they can lodge damaging references on your credit ratings. But of course debt collectors like Panthera are not interested in whether the debt is real or not.”