‘Made families go into hardship’
BJ Hemana told the Herald she had to borrow money from her children to pay for food and petrol as the processing problem had left her out of pocket until her next payday on Thursday.
“It really sucks as I have three growing children aged between 12 and 15 that eat a lot,” she said.
“It’s going to take a while before we get back in the safe zone financially.”
She claimed this was the third time processing problems with Westpac had caused her financial stress.
She told the Herald the bank’s apology wasn’t good enough, saying Westpac didn’t adequately communicate what had happened and better repayment options should have been made available.
“Why couldn’t Westpac just take so much a week back instead of taking money in one lump sum? Why didn’t Westpac let customers know what had happened? Financially they have made a lot of families go into hardship for 2023.”
‘If you have to buy groceries, you’ll be in trouble’
Rensia van Wyk woke up this morning to find her account had an overdraft of almost $300 “even though I work carefully with my money,” she told the Herald.
“You really, especially these days with money being so tight, you really have to budget for everything but you certainly don’t budget for something like this,” van Wyk said.
“If you have to buy groceries, you’ll be in trouble. Luckily I won’t face this problem as I have a bit saved I can use, but it’s suddenly a lot of money to be owing.”
‘I don’t know how to pay for food’
Another customer showed the Herald a nearly $810 overdraft on their account.
“I don’t know how to pay for food, as whatever funds coming in will be soaked up by this $800.
“An apology is not going to put food on the table for our four children.”
Many other customers told the Herald about missing or delayed transactions on top of the sudden debt, with most in similar financial hardship due to the error.
In a post on its Facebook page, Westpac said all affected payments should now be showing and any overdraft fees and interest incurred as a result of the mistake would be automatically waived.
“Due to a technology issue, some MasterCard credit and debit card payments made on December 23rd/24th were not processed correctly.
“Affected payments were processed last night and should now be visible in accounts.
“We apologise for any confusion.”
Massey University banking expert Claire Matthews said the biggest issue centred on the lack of communication from Westpac given it had two weeks to alert customers.
“The biggest thing is that people haven’t been aware there’s an issue. Even if you’re keeping a basic track on your accounts you’re not going to notice every transaction going through.”
While they may not have been able to contact every affected customer the bank could have put out a press release on Friday to alert customers that there had been a problem so that people were given an opportunity to address the situation, she said.
Westpac issued another apology late on Saturday, saying: “We apologise to all affected customers, particularly where this issue has created unexpected financial challenges”.
Matthews said the situation would have been a shock to many.
“If you’re managing on the breadline then suddenly finding yourself in overdraft for a couple of hundred dollars can be quite devastating and cause major problems.”
