Creeps give away money to harass recipients with abusive transaction descriptions on bank statements
- Reference: 1591255565
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/06/04/commonwealth_bank_bans_indecent_transaction_descriptions/
- Source link:
Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) revealed the practice today after finding over 8,000 customers had received such messages.
“After noticing disturbing messages in the account of a customer experiencing domestic and family violence, we conducted analysis to better understand the problem,” said Catherine Fitzpatrick, the bank’s general manager of community and customer vulnerability. “We were horrified by both the scale and the nature of what we found.”
“In a three month period, we identified more than 8,000 CBA customers who received multiple low-value deposits, often less than $1, with potentially abusive messages in the transaction descriptions – in effect using them as a messaging service. All genders were sending and receiving these messages, but the nature ranged from fairly innocuous ‘jokes’ using profanities to serious threats and clear references to domestic and family violence.”
The Bank allows transaction descriptions allow up to 18 characters, enough to say some nasty things in a single payment and to add up to something revolting with a few transactions.
The bank’s response is changes to its Acceptable Use Policy that state: “It is unacceptable to use our digital services to stalk, harass or intimidate any person and if we see this we may refuse transactions or close a perpetrator’s account entirely.”
“The use of bank transaction communications as a vehicle for threatening abuse gives a shocking insight into the lengths that violent partners will go to threaten, harass and abuse,” said Anna Bligh, CEO of the Australian Banking Association.
An Australian Senate Committee recently closed an inquiry into domestic violence three months early, without conducting hearings or producing a report. A new committee has been formed to again consider the issue. ®
Re: Three months early
Having lived in Oz for several years I feel I can give a qualified response (10 years since I was there) that there is a lot of abuse and domestic violence there. Around that time it was in the news a lot about the misogynistic attitude of male politicians.
Part of the problem I witnessed was that they still had attitudes found in the UK in the 60's. The 'Sheila' at home bringing up the kids and doing the chores whilst the 'man of the house' earns the money, then drinks most of it.
If politicians think that attitude is acceptable would it really be that surprising if the voters do?
I don't know if it is still as bad - hopefully not - but I would like to know why the investigation ended early, only for a new one to be set up.
One solution...
...would appear to be for the banks to have some kind of facility to act as a proxy/escrow service. So there is an account number that isn't identifiable to the vulnerable customer and the bank then forwards payments in and out of that account but show a different set of details to other parties.
I know there'd be issues to be worked out but I can't see any other way as, as we know with spam filters, there are ways to slip phrases past any automatic filter.
Horrible the lengths some people go to to maintain their abuse of others.
Re: One solution...
No need for that really. A report button would be enough. I mean a person with a bank account is highly identifiable - you cant open a bank without personal ID, addresses, etc. So the sender of the message is clearly identifiable to the bank. If something is reported, someone at the bank identifies if it breaks the law on harassment and then passes the details on to the police to sort out.
If the senders try to get around this by using some sort of intermediary service. A bank threatening to no longer accept said intermediary service's transactions will very quickly see that service cleaning up its own house, and stopping the harassment at that point.
This quite frankly should not be a problem the banks cant solve very quickly.
Re: One solution...
The whole point of these is so you can keep track of why the money is going in. If I'm paying my mate for some concert tickets, and petrol money, then he's passing some back as I got the beers in - its a lot easier to keep track of the meaning attached, than to maintain a seperate transaction tracker and then cross reference by amounts. Even if that transaction tracker is your head, the meaning of words is more useful than numbers in this case.
Perhaps a mechanism in place to report (or even block) these from specific accounts, rather than annonomise, wold work? Then I can send my mate money for "Fridays beers" (or his "boob job"), but a victim can have redacted messages, keep the money, and have physical evidence for the plod to back up a tricky to prove crime
Re: One solution...
I'm not sure why it was such an unpopular suggestion. I'd like to understand why the downvoters did so. Note: I am not taking it personally etc but I am genuinely curious why people seem to believe protecting victims of abuse shouldn't have options for all available protections to be looked at...if I missed something, I'd really appreciate the thoughts on what etc.
And... we're not talking about your mate down the pub, here, though. We're talking about a potentially very vulnerable person who has already been subject to abuse.
Steps are already taken to protect people in these situations from other forms of abuse. This would add another layer onto those protections, and prevent them from ever even seeing the abuse.
A report button is all well and good but it still means that the victim has to see the reference - that can be debilitating for them.
Nor am I suggesting that this is something needed in every single case, but as an additional layer of protections
Re: One solution...
The only reason I can see for down voting (which I didn't do as I agree with the underlying principle) is that the vulnerable person doesn't see the middle account. It is highly likely that the alleged abuser already has the persons real bank details.
I would suggest you idea holds if the vulnerable person is given a new account which mirrors the existing account so any activity is matched on both saving the person having to update bank details with others unnecessarily as payments continue to go in and out the original account.
The original account would then have a flag on it for any inappropriate references which could allow money to go through but block the sender details which are then referred to the police who would possibly have a case file that could be used to then chase the abuser down.
2 problems - Would the bank want to take on the extra complexity and costs first of all as there isn't any real benefit to them beyond a customer service aspect (shouldn't be underrated)
The second problem is the referral to the police where experience suggests it will fall flat on it's face.
I have a friend who separated and then divorced her husband. He has then failed to pay any maintenance for their son but continues to drive around where she lives, sit in the car park where she works (out of town shop) hours before the store opens,send abuse from and his new partner etc. etc.
The police have taken all the evidence promising action would be taken, including an arrest, warnings and possible court action for harassment then decided they couldn't do anything despite all the evidence and it would need to be a civil action. When another incident occurred the police comment was they didn't know how no action had been taken but couldn't find the ex-husband, then got an address and didn't take action. The cycle still continues.
Child maintenance charge my friend for guaranteeing payment of child support, they have investigated the ex husband and worked out he owes over £5,000 back payments. In 2 years they recovered exactly zero but when he does make the odd small payment they take their cut for 'handling it'.
If the authorities took proper action then the banks might review it and decide there is a basis for putting in protections as there would be action at the end of it, otherwise why spend the money / investment in systems when nothing else will be done to stop the alleged perpetrator continuing what they are doing?
Hit the crims with an ASBO...
Find the cockwombles that made the harrassing posts and slap them with an ASBO for stalking, harrassment, and any other charge you can make stick.
Bet the fuckers won't do it again once the consequences of their lark comes back to bite them in the arse and donkey-kick them in the fork.
Re: Hit the crims with an ASBO...
ASBOs ceased to be in 2014, they were a stupid idea from Tony Blair as there were already and are still, plenty of mechanisms to deal with the behaviours that came within the scope of an ASBO.
Besides, domestic violence and abuse should have specific laws and trained officers to deal with it, something I know is the case in some jurisdictions.
BPay Osko
BPay Osko, an NPP based product, allows a lot longer descriptions than 18 chars.
Three months early
That doesn't say anything good about the Australian government's attitude toward domestic violence, I can't imagine it doesn't exist in Oz and pretending it doesn't will not make it go away.
Domestic violence is one of those crimes that is often under reported for a host of reasons, any government or police force that fails to stay up to date with it is seriously failing in their duty.