CommBank urges patience after major glitch affects hundreds of customers

Australia’s biggest bank is urgently addressing a major issue that has left hundreds of customers panicking about their finances.

Commonwealth Bank has promised to reverse duplicate transactions and refund fees after a major glitch which has affected hundreds of customers.

Hundreds of customers were reporting a breakdown in services on Saturday morning after seeing transactions being duplicated.

In a statement, the bank apologised to customers who had transactions duplicated.

“The process to reverse these is underway and customers are now seeing the duplicate transactions disappear,” the statement said.

“This process should complete over the coming hours.”

A spokesperson said customers said any fees charged would be refunded and customers do not need to contact the bank to request a reversal of charges.

They apologised to customers for the “inconvenience” and urged anyone with financial difficulties, such as a temporary overdraft, to contact the bank.

A major glitch has hit banking giant Commonwealth Bank with customers complaining their money is being “stolen”. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

Customers were also encouraged to be wary of increased scam activity following the widespread glitch, including requests for banking information.

The bank said other banking services such as the CommBank app, NetBank services, credit and debit cards, ATMs and merchant terminals remained “fully available”.

It comes after social media was flooded with messages from outraged customers who reported duplicate transactions.

“Nah, CommBank you cannot be stealing my money on stray kids day,” one user said.

Another added: “Just take all my money with no apologies.

“How long will it take until this duplication problem is fixed.”

“CommBank need to take ownership for this widespread duplication glitch affecting hundreds of customers this mornings”, one person said.

“No assistance at all as contact numbers are all down and AI chatbot is not working.

A message received by customers concerning the outage.

“Heaps of us are in negative funds because of this”.

One customer complained they were stranded because of the glitch.

“Stuck at a servo, with my car keys and ID being withheld like a criminal and threatened to have police called on me and you couldn’t even notify your customers,” they said.

“Absolute disgrace! You’ve pushed my partner and I into a state of poverty, unable to get food and fuel.”

In response, a CommBank customer service agent replied: “I’d like to know more and help”.

Other customers reported being unable to speak to anyone at the bank and that the CommBank app assistant was also unavailable.

“You have overdrawn my account leaving me and my family stranded this weekend. I want answers,” one customer said.

Taking to Instagram, TV host Jacqui Falgate said she had been on hold with the bank for more than an hour.

“CommBank had a system update between midnight and 4am, and they have processed duplicate transactions from a few days ago,” she said.

“I have been on hold to them for over an hour now to speak to someone with no luck.

“They have sent my transactional account into debit and the only way I can access my money is if I transfer the debit account and pay the rears balance.

“I refuse to do that because getting it back from them will be a nightmare”.

Reports of the outage peaked at about 9.30am on Saturday according to website Down Detector.

More than 870 people reported issues with the bank’s services at that time, with reports falling dramatically by 10am.

It comes after Westpac and its subsidiaries grappled with multiple outages in recent days.

Millions of customers were affected by outages which blocked customers from its mobile app and online services for hours for four days from Monday.

Some customers reported online not being able to access their accounts for multiple days.

Originally published as CommBank urges patience after major glitch affects hundreds of customers