Banking Royal Commission: CBA urged problem gambler to lift his credit card limit

The CBA kept pushing credit card limit increases onto a man with a gambling problem, the royal commission has heard.

CBA executive general manager of retail products Clive Van Horen leaving Federal court after giving evidence at the Banking Royal Commission. (David Geraghty/The Australian)

The CBA kept pushing credit card limit increases onto a man with a gambling problem despite his pleas for help, the financial services royal commission has heard.

Giving evidence this afternoon, roofer David Harris, who is originally from England, said his credit card debt eventually ballooned to $31,000.

CBA (CBA) today admitted that it should never have offered Mr Harris a final credit offer of $8,000 — the maximum increase the bank offers — after he told its officers he had a gambling problem.

“That information was not in any way passed through” to CBA’s credit area, the head of the bank’s executive general manager of retail products, Clive Van Horen, told the commission.

An emotional Mr Harris told the commission he is now on a hardship plan with the bank, which he still owes $23,400.

He said that after he fell behind on payments he tried to get the bank to stop lending him money.

“I tried to reach out for help and I didn’t get any, I got the opposite, I got more credit increases,” he said.

“I tried telling them I had a problem.”

Mr Harris said he came to Australia in 2013 on a working holiday visa and got sponsorship to stay here and work under the 457 visa scheme later that year. He is currently applying for permanent residency.

He said he had been a roofer since leaving school at age 16, 14 years ago.

In November or December 2014 he applied for his first ever credit card, with a $10,000 limit, because he planned to go home to England for Christmas before taking a trip to Thailand in January 2015 “to get my teeth done”.

He said that at the time he earned about $70,000 a year.

During the trip he loaded the credit card up to about $6,000 a year, he said — and then, once he got back to Australia, he began gambling using the card.

He said he would transfer money from the card to his bank account and use that money to gamble with betting companies.

Mr Harris would “max it out”, then work overtime to pay down the debt, sometimes working six or seven days a week and on at least one occasion 40 days in a row, “and then do it all again”, he said.

He said he applied for and was granted two additional CBA credit cards, with limits of $7,000 and $8,000.

His three cards were consolidated into one card with a limit of $27,100 in April 2016, he said.

In October that year, he called the bank to sort out a problem with changing his address on his bank statements — and was offered another credit increase, “to which I replied no”, he said.

He says he told them: “I am a gambler, I have a gambling problem.”

“I don’t understand why they keep offering me more money.”

Just 10 days later, the bank sent him a letter offering him a credit increase to $32,000.

And four weeks later, he received another offer, for $31,500.

He told the commission he didn’t accept this offer until January.

“I maxed it out within the first month,” he said.

His boss loaned him $31,000 to pay out the bank, and even accompanied him into the branch to make sure he closed the account.

However, Mr Harris said branch staff told him the account needed to be closed over the phone while CBA call centre staff told him it needed to be done in the branch.

He cut up the card, but within three months had returned to gambling on credit.

“I applied for a new credit card, which I maxed out again in a short period,” he said.

After two complaints, he agreed to a payment plan under which the bank knocked $10,000 off the amount he owed and agreed to pay the debt down at $100 a month.

But despite that, Mr Harris told the commission the CBA continued to chase the debt.

“I’m still receiving letters now,” he said.