Dishonour? A letter to St. George Bank
(emailed via their website) Dear St. George Bank,
A few days ago I was charged a Direct Debit dishonour fee of $45.
I’ll spare you the circumstances as to why my account had insufficient funds to pay my rent, but suffice to say, when I’m on holidays over Christmas/New Year, and one of my clients is unexpectedly and uncharacteristically two weeks late in paying my monthly invoice, checking my bank account is not high on my list of things to do.
I am not pleading leniency here, I understand there are 1001 reasons of widely varying legitimacy as to why customers may have insufficient funds to cover an automatic withdrawal, and ultimately the responsibility is mine to ensure I have sufficient funds. My complaint here is the magnitude of the charge.
From my preliminary searches, it seems most (possibly all) Australian banks have a similar charge for direct debit dishonour.
I absolutely cannot conceive how it costs the two financial institutions involved so much to process a defaulted direct debit. How can two financial institution’s computers talking to each other, resulting in a notification letter posted to me possibly cost $45?
I have been a St. Geroge Bank (& Building Society) customer for longer than I can remember, probably more than 25 years, since I was 10 years old or younger. Your records would be more accurate than my memory.
But I’ve had enough. In me you’ve now created a vocal and passionate critic of this scheme that reeks of collusion. Even the word “dishonour” is a misnomer - the greater dishonourable parties here appear to be Australian banks.
I am now about to embark on a research project to identify a financial institution with substantially lower fees, and if I find one, I WILL close all three of my St. Geroge accounts.
“What is the outcome that you want?”
1- Disclosure of the true costs to Australian banks for each direct debit dishonour, information that has been kept secret from Australian consumers.
2- In the likely event dishonour fees are substantially (likely exhorbitantly) in excess of true costs, a dramatic lowering of such fees.
I welcome any response St. George would care to make to my complaint.
Yours sincerely,
Anthony May.
Anthony,
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