Commonwealth Bank issues warning as scammers attempt to take advantage of its $50 free cash refund

Commonwealth Bank issues an urgent warning as scammers attempt to take advantage of its $50 free cash refund

  • Commonwealth Bank paid some customers $50 compensation after outage 
  • Banks says customers should be wary of scammers trying to cash in on refund
  •  They warned users not to give out personal details over the telephone  

Commonwealth Bank has issued a warning to customers about potential scammers trying to cash in on their ‘apology $50 payment’. 

The bank’s system failed on October 17 leaving some customers unable to receive wages or make any payments.  

The following day the bank announced it would deposit $50 cash into every one of its customers’ accounts as an ‘apology’ 

But now its has warned of possible scammers trying to contact customers for personal banking details. 

Commonwealth Bank has encouraging its customers to be vigilant over the $50 ‘apology payment’ with a risk of scammers trying to take advantage

On Tuesday night, Commonwealth paid out 150,000 customers who were directly affected at a total cost of $7.5million.

The money appeared in their banks with the reference ‘sorry from CBA’.

On Thursday the Commonwealth Bank reiterated it would not be contacting any customers regarding the payment and if they did receive a call do not give out details. 

‘It is important to note that we will not be contacting any customers seeking to obtain their account details in order to process this payment,’ the statement read.

‘If a customer is approached for their account details they should not provide this and the customer should let us know by phoning our call centre or visiting us in branch.’

The announcement also stated all $50 payments should have been made by the close of business Thursday and to contact the bank directly if it wasn’t the case. 

On Tuesday night, Commonwealth paid out 150,000 customers who were directly affected at a total cost of $7.5million

On Tuesday night, Commonwealth paid out 150,000 customers who were directly affected at a total cost of $7.5million

‘We apologise to everyone who has been affected by the delay in payments and we are very sorry for the inconvenience it has caused,’ the statement concluded. 

When the outage happened customers were left both outraged and temporarily out of pocket. 

Outraged workers said they were unable to pay for petrol and food due to the outage. 

Some CBA customers told the bank they did not receive their pay as a result of the system failure.

‘We’re still without the wages we were due to be paid on Thursday which means we don’t have the money to cover direct debits and other things we’re supposed to be paying,’ one person wrote on the bank’s Facebook page.

‘Late fees are going to start piling up so then we’ll have another fight to get that reimbursed.’

However Commonwealth Bank did address the issue of late fees directly in its statement.  

‘We are now refunding fees and charges associated with the network issue on Thursday and the payments delay, for our customers who were impacted by this issue.’

'We are now refunding fees and charges associated with the network issue on Thursday and the payments delay, for our customers who were impacted by this issue,' a statement read

‘We are now refunding fees and charges associated with the network issue on Thursday and the payments delay, for our customers who were impacted by this issue,’ a statement read

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