Commonwealth Bank of Australia - Problems?

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My neighbour hasn't been able to draw his pension since last Friday. He's been checking his ATM card every day since and it comes up with 'error due to upgrade, sorry for inconvenience', or words to that effect. He told me he'd contacted his bank in Oz and an automated voice gave him his balance.

I'd read they were upgrading the connectivity here in Thailand, but had told him it had been for one day only, and don't remember when.

He's a tad worried. Anyone?

[David48]

CBA (NetBank) in Australia is working fine.

ATMs's and Branches (Wednesday) fine.

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CBA (NetBank) in Australia is working fine.

ATMs's and Branches (Wednesday) fine.

I've just told him I didn't see any problems with his bank a/c on this site, but had seen a crossover from magnetic strips to chips may be his problem (?) and suggested he contacted any local bank to confirm. Good advice? Or will I be avoiding his house for a few days

[TPI]

I had much the same problem. I moved money on Friday but it wasn't available untill tuesday afternoon, I put it down to the TMB (handles all money transfers into and out of the country) hanging on to the money for the short term money market!!

[monkey4u]

Make sure he has the latest card

Back in August Bankwest ( part of Com Bank ) changed over to micro chip cards

My old cards had to be replaced and they refused to send them o/s

Had to change my address to Aus then have them sent by my friend

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Make sure he has the latest card

Back in August Bankwest ( part of Com Bank ) changed over to micro chip cards

My old cards had to be replaced and they refused to send them o/s

Had to change my address to Aus then have them sent by my friend

Thanks for this. I did tell him I'd spotted Oz banks changing to chips. Would've thought they'd've let him know though. And I thought UK banks were bad.

[Tomtomtom69]

Beware of CBA Vietnam ATM problems.

Case in point 1:

I was in Ho Chi Minh back in July. Tried numerous CBA ATMs all around district 1. None of them worked. Went to the main branch and tried the right hand side ATM - didn't work. I was told there was some system downtime and not sure when the ATMs would work again, maybe not until the next day. However, I decided to wait for about 20 minutes and finally the ATMs came back to life.

Last Thursday - was back in Ho Chi Minh and went straight to the branch to withdraw some money. Tried the same damn right hand side ATM. Lo and behold it wouldn't dispense my money but charged me anyway (9 million dong or about AUD 536 + AUD 2 withdrawal fee) and the bank refused to open the ATM and give me my money. Had to make a disputed transaction report which will take about 3 weeks before I see my money again.

When I tried to make a withdrawal again using the OTHER ATM inside their branch, there was an error message saying that the amount withdrawn is higher than my daily limit, which is impossible as it wouldn't even be half of my daily limit, even after taking into account the first failed transaction. This was with my CBA debit Mastercard. The bank teller suggested trying a lower amount but I told her I want 9 million dong, not more, not less and considering that the first ATM didn't give me my money and they didn't want to give me 9 million manually, I wasn't going to listen to any of their pointless advice - I should have received my money the first time. So I'm not going to try a lesser amount as I don't want to pay a fee twice. I thought about giving up and being really pissed but in the end I tried my Mastercard credit card, which is also linked to my savings account. I tried 9 million dong again and then selected "savings". It worked, much to my relief. Anyway, no idea what the problem was but my feeling is it was a Commbank Vietnam ATM problem.

Commbank Vietnam - get your act together. For a major Australian bank to have so many problems with it's ATMs (albeit this is in Vietnam, but still) is highly embarrassing and absolutely ridiculous. I've never had any problems with other Vietnamese bank ATMs apart from the odd power failure (which had nothing to do with the banks themselves) so I can't understand why a bank from a highly developed country would have so many problems with it's ATM network. Commbank is supposed to be setting a standard ABOVE that of the local banks, but clearly it's a lot worse.

I can only imagine that there are many more ATM problems with Commbank in Vietnam that I haven't encountered yet, perhaps because they occur all the time and since I don't live in Vietnam (I only visit there from time to time) I am lucky not to be on the receiving end more often. But the fact that I had problems on 2 recent occasions, which reflect both of my most recent trips there says a lot about their incompetence.