Faye complained that the first staff member had pressured her into disclosing sensitive medical information that was unnecessary for her loan application. The bank agreed the staff member had wrongfully insisted she disclose the information and apologised for her behaviour. Faye asked the bank whether the first staff member had passed the sensitive medical information to the second. The bank assured her this had not happened. When Faye reviewed the call recordings, she found this was not true. The second staff member had reviewed the medical procedure information and deemed it irrelevant.

Faye complained to us that the staff member had pressuring her into unnecessarily disclosing sensitive medical information, and also that the bank had mishandled her complaint.

Our investigation

We agreed that the bank had no reason to insist that Faye disclose the details of her medical procedure. For the purposes of applying for a personal loan, it was sufficient for Faye simply to say she was having a medical procedure. We also found the bank had given incorrect information in response to her question about whether the sensitive information had been passed between the two staff members.

We found that the pressure applied to Faye when she clearly did not wish to divulge it had upset and embarrassed her. The inaccurate response to her question damaged her trust in the bank and its handling of her privacy concerns. However, the disclosure of the sensitive information was limited to just the two staff members. The bank had also apologised to Faye on several occasions.

We recommended the bank pay compensation of $1,000 in recognition of the stress and inconvenience Faye suffered as a result of the bank's actions.

Outcome 

The bank agreed with our recommendation and the customer accepted this.