Our investigation

The bank’s terms and conditions entitled it to make the manual payment in June, although it should have communicated what it did to Hattie and her husband. The bank acknowledged the errors it made to the loan term and refund amount, although its response to these matters was slow.

As part of the bank’s obligation to ensure it was lending responsibly, the bank ran a credit check. There was some poor communication between the bank and the couple’s broker, and the broker asked Hattie and her husband to pay the $70 fine that was showing on the credit check. Hattie paid the fine and later objected as she had wanted the opportunity to challenge the fine. The bank promised to discuss the poor communication with the broker.

We considered the bank took longer than was reasonable to deal with their complaint, and we could understand that Hattie had lost trust in the bank’s ability to handle their money and repayments without making errors. She felt the need to check transactions in a spreadsheet, causing her extra work and stress trying to balance figures.

The bank offered $3,110 for the stress and inconvenience it had caused. It also offered to restructure the couple’s lending and to waive the break fee and restructuring fee.

Outcome

The couple accepted the bank's compensation offer and are considering the restructuring offer.