Grandmother Joan Thomas claims the State Bank of Victoria lost or stole almost $1 million from her

Grandmother Joan Thomas claims the State Bank of Victoria lost or stole almost $1 million from her before it was taken over by the Commonwealth Bank in 1990 and is still battling to get it.

Grandmother Joan Thomas was pinning her hopes on the bank royal commission recouping the $908,238 she claims her bank lost or stole.

Those hopes were dashed: she didn’t even get a reply.

It didn’t surprise Ms Thomas, 81. She and husband Rod, 86, say they have spent 30 years battling banks, and expect disappointment.

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They had invested the money with the then State Bank’s Heidelberg branch, only to be told in 1989 by phone that the money was gone.

Joan and Rod Thomas claim the former State Bank of Victoria lost or stole almost $1 million from them and they are still fighting to get it back.

Ms Thomas claimed the bank manager, a personal friend, had warned her husband the bank was in financial trouble and there was “much corruption” going on inside it.

The couple say they have since tried many times to find out what happened. “I have fought like anything. I have never stopped. The recent banking royal commission was just our latest attempt to get answers,” Ms Thomas said.

The Herald Sun has seen papers showing that in 1989 the Thomases had $400,000 in one State Bank account and $508,238 in another.

Joan Thomas claims her bank lost almost $1 million of her money more than 30 years ago and she is still chasing it.

“We didn’t take the money out, and the bank say they can’t tell us whether anybody else did because they only keep banking records for seven years,” Ms Thomas said.

The Commonwealth Bank took over the State Bank of Victoria in 1990.

The CBA wrote to the Thomas family in January to say the bank had no record of any accounts held by them.

A CBA spokesman said: “Our records indicate this individual has never held a CBA term deposit or 24-hour account. This individual’s case has been thoroughly investigated a number of times and each investigation has found no record of either the term deposit or 24-hour account.”

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