smurtaza

Hi,

Can an Australian Bank stop your transaction saving account if it have zero balance?
The account is not being displayed on internet banking?And is not accessible.The account balance is not even displayed?What are the agencies who may help me?

Thanks,

Fiona&malc

im not 100% sure, but i think they can close your account if it has a zero balance and hasnt been used for a certain amount of time.

ABCDiamond

Ring the bank and ask them. Which bank ?

smurtaza

Witch Bank CommonWealth Bank

copa

If the account is really old it will be sent here:
http://www.asic.gov.au/fido/fido.nsf...F?openDocument

You can search all the old forgotten accounts here.. some of them have a large amount of money in them.

JohnAndNetta

Yes they can. They did it to us. We had a streamline account (cheque account) and a cash management account. We only used the streamline once so by the time we arrived in Oz this particular account had been closed. One thing I've noticed with CBA is that they don't seem to advise you about anything in advance. We had all sorts of problems with withholding tax refunds and at the last count there were something like 26 transactions on my account, trying to sort the mess out - with absolutely no explantion. At one stage the bank had inadvertently taken out nearly 3000 dollars with no explanation. I am seeing the bank manager tomorrow. Have to say I am very unimpressed with CBA. Will probably move our funds elsewhere.

Netta

phoenixinoz

Not sure if this affects you Netta...or anyone else on here for that matter, but if you forget to inform the bank of your Tax File Number or indeed if you chose not to provide it [it's not compulsary]......then the the bank are legally bound to withhold 48.5% Tax on any interest you've earned on your accounts

This happens to a lot of people and it usually only comes to light at the end of the year when interest is paid and is not as high as expected

The good news is you can eventually claim what's owed in the next Tax year

To the OP & in terms of closing accounts: Sometimes a bank will do this to save the account holder paying fees for something they are not using. They should tell you though

JohnAndNetta

Hi PheonixinOz,

Thanks for the info......but......the story so far......

We gave the bank our TFN just as soon as we obtained it, so that we could reclaim all the non-resident withholding tax (10 %) and also stop the bank from removing tfn withholding tax (48.5%) which they had been accidentally taking away from us. Unfortunately the back office got it completely wrong and initially gave us too much - they were doing manual credits at the same time as automated credits - then they performed contras against the credits and managed to take away nearly $3000 from our account. 5 months later and they still haven't worked it out properly, they still owe us $63, which they claim we can only get back in our tax return. Strange, since we didn't have any money in our account in the previous tax year!!

Its really simple maths but they appear to be struggling. The branch manager took our file home last week and has at least concurred that they owe us $63. God give me strength when I meet him tomorrow. I think I'll lend him a calculator.

phoenixinoz

Lol....ah well...at least you can laugh about it

If it's any consolation it seems all the banks are much of a muchness so you can be rest assured yours will be no less crap than any of the others

Good luck with sorting your out.