- Banks urged to hand over information
- Will face proceedings unless they respond
- Info on $7bn class action over penalty fees
- Fraud: Scammers target potential claimants
FOUR banks face legal action for not providing information vital to litigants seeking to recover more than $7 billion in allegedly unfair bank fees.
Commonwealth Bank and its subsidiary BankWest, ANZ and the Bank of Queensland are on notice to comply with lawyers Maurice Blackburn's May 31 written request by late Friday or face action in the Federal Court, the firm's principal, Andrew Watson said.
"We intend to institute proceedings promptly unless we get satisfactory responses by the end of the week," he said, declining to comment on the firm's motivation.
CBA said it had undertaken to provide Maurice Blackburn with the information this week and would do so.
ANZ said it had been "actively co-operating with Maurice Blackburn and continued to do so and we are disappointed with their comments".
BankWest declined to comment, and comment was sought from BoQ.
Maurice Blackburn has targeted 12 banks on behalf of litigation funder IMF Australia and its subsidiary Financial Redress for charging what they claim are excessive punitive fees on transaction and credit card accounts from 2004.
Most banks have complied with the requests made under 1015D of the Corporations Act and Banking Code for historical product disclosure statements applying to transaction accounts and contracts relating to banking services, Mr Watson said.
Maurice Blackburn aimed to launch the first of several class actions against individual banks in six weeks but was assessing which actions should be pursued against specific banks, he said.
The other proposed defendants in the class actions are Bank of South Australia, Bendigo Bank, Citi, HSBC, National Australia Bank, Suncorp, Westpac and its subsidiary St George.
New registrations of claimants are running at 250 a day, with 142,000 claimants already registered in respect of 183,500 separate bank accounts.
Frauds targeting claimants
However, frauds have targeted potential claimants, prompting the Australian Bankers Association to warn of complaints last week from customers of three major or second-tier lenders.
The ABA said the frauds told customers they were entitled to a $2500 fee refund under the proposed class action and then asked for their credit card numbers, internet banking details, or for $150 payments through Western Union to accounts in India.
ABA chief executive Stephen Munchenberg said IMF and Financial Redress had a responsibility to warn consumers about such scams given the frauds were using the possible class action in their calls to customers.
Financial Redress managing director James Middleweek said the company had placed a scam alert on its website on May 31 and wrote directly to all registered claimants on June 1, over the frauds.
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