The following was in an email I recently received from a staff member of the CBA Customer Advocate, after I requested their help, which I allege is false -
RE: FirstChoice Wholesale Allocated Pension Account:
[ CBA Information Classification: Customer and Personal ]
With respect to your request that the Customer Advocate review this matter, I must
advise that the Office of the Customer Advocate no longer reviews individual complaints.
The role of CBA’s Customer Advocate is to help the bank provide fair and balanced
outcomes for our customers; we are focusing our efforts on:
· identifying opportunities to improve CBA’s products, services, systems and
processes, and
· helping CBA make better decisions through the use of data, insights and different
perspectives.
Further information about the Customer Advocate and our team can be found at
www.commbank.com.au/customeradvocate.
Have you filed a formal complaint by contacting Angela MacMillan’s team as shown on the page you referenced, and if so what was the outcome? If you have not, that should be your next step to get help/assistance at CBA.
Also referenced is AFCA, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
That is the new body you should be approaching if you are not satisfied with your bank’s response to your complaint.
On the page you referrenced it clearly lays out the role of the Customer Advocate, but further down the page it says:
"How to get help if you have a complaint.
1. Contact the Bank’s complaints team. This gives the Bank the chance to investigate the situation and put things right. You can contact the team on 1800 805 605 (8am - 6pm Sydney/Melbourne time) or through the Bank’s feedback page"
For clarity, the banking industry states a customer advocate has the following role to play.
An ombudsman is an official, usually appointed by the government, who investigates complaints (usually lodged by private citizens) against businesses, financial institutions, universities, government departments, or other public entities, and attempts to resolve the conflicts or concerns raised, either by mediation or by making recommendations.
The problem here is with them calling this dept an “advocate”. There are a number of advocacy services in the disability sector that are all independent & work on behalf of the disabled. Their role is completely different to what CBA’s Customer Advocate is doing. The banking sector’s definition of what an advocate does simply does not fit the description of an advocate as I understand it.
