The Banking Ombudsman has ordered the BNZ to pay two scam victims nearly $300,000 for following their payment instructions.
The Ombudsman slammed the Bank for “missing crucial red flag” signs of the fraud. This is insanity.
It is not the Bank’s role to monitor its account holders’ expenditure decisions. Their function is elementary, specifically to act as a depository for clients’ funds and, irrelevant in this case, to act as a money-lender.
50% of marriages fail, in many if not most cases incurring emotional and financial hardship.
Should the BNZ pass judgment on clients’ marriage plans and for example, in the case of the tiny percentage still going through Church weddings, attend and sometimes shout out “stop. Can’t you see she’s on the verge of obesity”. If not, why not?
Should they monitor all their customers spending and periodically intervene, such as planting staff in dress-shops and crying out “stop, that colour doesn’t suit you,” and so on.
Don’t dismiss that as silly. It’s absolutely no different in principle to the scam scenario.
I’m unaware of the legal framework re the Banking Ombudsman, specifically whether a bank can challenge its decisions in court. If they can I’d love to see them do so on this outrage, as it’s plain wrong in ascribing non-banking functions to banks.
By dint of owning the most prime CBD office buildings (19) my company owns the most retail shops in the Wellington CBD, specifically 69. If a prospective lessee wants to rent a vacant one say as a restaurant, are we obliged to point out that the average life of a new restaurant is New Zealand is 18 months? A similar story can be said for all proposed commercial ventures.
If I recollect correctly the Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier opposed the formation of the Banking Ombudsman as diluting the effect of the title, but his advice was ignored.
His decisions receive constant approving publicity for their wisdom and fairness. It’s hard to imagine him running with this idiotic banking decision.
All of this reflects the unhealthy contemporary behaviour of people not accepting responsibility for their own mistakes and instead seeking a scape-goat.
8 Comments
So true !!!
I have read several cases of people that have been scammed via “investments” of some sort, same stories about people that joined dating sites getting emotionally involved (on line) and then, well money was transferred etc. These are all personal decisions (like smoking) that neither the banks nor the dating agencies should carry any responsibility for in my way of thinking…..
Great to see you back, Bob!
Wonderbar I love it “personal responsibility” exactly well said.
How can highly stupid people like that have such high limits on their ability to transfer funds? My payment limit used to be $1000 or something and I had to jump through hoops to get it raised to six figures I could make property transactions. Well, maybe it was numerous small transactions rather that one big one…
But any decent society should try to protect its most vulnerable. If the banks can see that some elderly pensioner is suddenly sending large amounts of money abroad, then surely it is reasonable to expect the bank to call the customer in for a chat.
Classic Jones 👍
Dear Toyota
Today I used the steering wheel and drove the car in to a ditch. This is clearly your fault as the car went exactly where I pointed it. Can I please have a new car at your expense?
Puts banks in a damned-if-they-do-damned-if-they-don’t situation and one scarcely needs wonder what the ombudsman would say if the roles in the banking situation described above by SRJ were reversed. Bank loses money in scam, helps itself to 300k of random depositor funds.