Yahoo Finance CommBank’s grave warning after $50 bonus
When the Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced it was depositing $50 payments into Australians’ accounts as a ‘sorry’ for last week’s stuff up, millions of users took to their apps to see if they received the payment.
Around 100,000 Australians will receive the $50 payments, titled “Sorry from CBA”. Australians receiving the payment were mainly those who couldn’t access their money over the weekend.
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According to crash detection service DownDetector, customers across Australia began experiencing outages around 12:15pm on Thursday.
Now, the major bank is concerned about the security risk these payments pose to Australians who didn’t receive the payments.
Speaking to Yahoo Finance, a CommBank spokesperson said the payments will be automatic, and that Australians don’t need to provide any account details to access the $50 payment.
If anyone is contacted by someone purportedly by the bank either over the email, over the phone, or in person, they should steer clear and avoid giving away any details.
“We don’t contact people in that way,” the spokesperson said. “We are not contacting people to get those account details.”
The bank also took to Facebook to warn Australians of the scam risk.
“Going into this evening, it is important to know that we will not contact you to obtain your account details in order to process this payment or refund. If you are approached for your account details you should not provide this, and instead please phone our call centre or visit us in branch,” the bank said.
“If you have any issues or questions regarding your payments you should contact our call centre on 132221 or visit us in branch so we can assist you.”
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