Australians are furious at two of the major banks for taking too long to process their wages, leaving many struggling during one of the most expensive times of year.
The money was as much as four days late in some cases right after the Christmas period.
On Friday afternoon, some customers from NAB and ING breathed a sigh of relief after receiving their pay checks.
While waiting for the pay package to be deposited into customers’ accounts, there were reports on social media of parents struggling to feed their kids while others were unable to ring the bank to find out what was happening as they had fallen behind phone payments.
News.com.au spoke to several customers who incurred late fees and who had to delay paying their mortgage as they waited for their wage, unsure of how long it would take for the glitch to be fixed.
Karen Bewlex, 33, from Adelaide, has copped a $10 Afterpay late fee and incurred a $20 penalty from her internet provider because she lacked the funds to pay up due to ING’s delay.
She was owed $1500 for her weekly pay run as well as $200 for reimbursements for business expenses, meant to be given to her on Wednesday morning. But the money only arrived on Friday afternoon.
“I paid my rent late, I had Afterpay payments, and I paid my internet late,” she told news.com.au.
ING and NAB said the issue has been resolved, blaming it on a “glitch”, and have apologised for the inconvenience it caused customers.
Ms Bewlex is also fuming because she is meant to be on annual leave but had to spend hours on calls to banks to sort out the issue as she is the payroll officer at her workplace with 75 employees.
“I had staff coming to me asking why they hadn’t been paid,” she said.
She soon learned that it was only staff who banked with ING that were waiting for their cash to arrive.
But when she rang up ING, she said their response to the crisis was “very unhelpful, very rude, very dismissive”. They claimed it wasn’t their fault, she said.
According to Ms Bewlex, the bank said the issue lay with her company’s payroll officer. She promptly pointed out that this was her role and that she had passed on all the correct documents for the pay run to go through smoothly.
“They said to check with your payroll manager, I said ‘I am the payroll manager’.”
Luckily, on Friday afternoon, the much-awaited money came through, right before she went on a trip to Melbourne.
Ms Bewlex has lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman about the lost time and money she suffered from the “frustrating” experience with ING.
Another ING customer called Hope* was in a similar situation, waiting for $4500 to arrive in her bank account but with no idea when it would come.
Hope, 36, from Brisbane, said her fortnightly payment came four days late.
It was meant to arrive on Monday but she gave ING two days of leeway because of the public holidays. However, when it still wasn’t there on the Wednesday, she grew concerned.
“The issue is the lack of communication. ING haven’t done that, there was no communication that was consistent. Which obviously isn’t great this time of year,” she told news.com.au.
Hope pushed back her mortgage repayments and a Telstra bill that was due as she had no idea when the $4500 would appear in her account.
After the ordeal, Hope says she has left ING.
“Personally I’ve also told my employer to change where my funds go in the future,” she said.
“I will be leaving ING. Another bank will be receiving my salary moving forward.”
Yet another ING customer, mum-of-three Shaye Evans, also slammed the bank for the stressful situation as she waited for a $1200 weekly pay check to be deposited into her account.
“It’s just not good enough,” she said.
“My issue was that they (ING) took no responsibility. I’m also meant to be on holidays and I don’t want to be dealing with this.”
Luckily Ms Evans’ boss paid her again through a different bank after hearing of the debacle, as the Hunter Valley mum was about to go on holiday and needed the cash.
As for NAB, the situation didn’t appear much better, with their Facebook page bombarded with comments from frustrated customers.
“Hey, my staff haven’t received their pay yesterday, still no sign of it this afternoon yet it came out of my account by 5am yesterday morning as usual,” one person wrote.
Another NAB customer said: “Why am I still waiting for wages processes on Tuesday? For payments that are received the same day they are made and now for a payment processed on a public holiday and two days later I am still waiting?? How?”
NAB wrote on social media to their customers: “We are aware of some customers who made payments to other banks that have been delayed.
“All delayed payments up to and including 28 December have now been processed by NAB, however there may be some payments still being processed by other banks.
“We are working to process all transactions as soon as possible. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience.”
News.com.au contacted NAB for additional comment.
In a statement online, ING said the issue arose because of technical problems at another banking institution.
This “resulted in us and other institutions not receiving the payments”, they wrote.
“All incoming payments sent to us have been processed at our end. However, it appears there is a glitch in the payment chain which means some payments have not been sent from other institutions.”
An ING spokesperson told news.com.au, “We advise any customers seeking compensation to raise it with their employer’s payroll provider so it can been addressed by the institution that experienced the technical issue, which caused the delayed payments”.
*Name withheld over privacy concerns
alex.turner-cohen@news.com.au
For more latest Economy News Click Here