Bank gave credit card to convicted criminal: Senate inquiry
LAST year Les Banton got a credit card — unremarkable, until you know his history with banks. Once you do, you’ll understand why his evidence to a Senate inquiry starting today will be it is too easy to get your hands on plastic.
Mr Banton was jailed in 2008 after pleading guilty to 91 charges of fraud, mostly against financial institutions.
He would stay in five-star hotels, the bills paid for with stolen credit cards.
Before turning to crime, Mr Banton was a bankrupt.
He got out of prison in 2010 and, soon after, got off ice.
When he decided to take a holiday to Hong Kong, he visited a bank to apply for a Visa debit card so that he wasn’t solely reliant on carrying cash while overseas.
But, rather than give him a debit card, the bank upsold the disability support pensioner (DSP) into a credit card.
“I shouldn’t have been given one,” he said yesterday.
Mr Banton, of Botany, is now studying community service two days a week and four days a week is on placement at the Exodus Foundation — Reverend Bill Crews’ offshoot of the Ashfield Uniting Church Mission.
He receives the DSP because he has emphysema.
Mr Banton said too many of those who come to the Exodus Foundation have had their situations worsened by credit card debt.
“The banks have to take more responsibility,” Mr Banton said.
Labor senator and credit card inquiry chairman Sam Dastyari said: “Lee’s story shows responsible lending arrangements for the farce they often are. He should be acknowledged for being prepared to speak up on this issue.”
Choice CEO Alan Kirkland will tell the Sydney hearing there must be reform to make it easier to compare, switch and cancel credit cards.
“Consumers with an average credit card balance would need to spend a lifetime paying off
their cards at the monthly minimum rate — and this is on low rate cards,” Mr Kirkland said yesterday. “Your sentence is extended dramatically if you happen to have a high-fee rewards card.”
An investigation by Choice has found banks also try to trap customers in debt by making it difficult to close an account.
Mr Kirkland said ANZ will only cancel the credit card when the account holder has returned it cut diagonally in half, including through any chip, or has taken “all reasonable steps” to return it to ANZ.
Mr Kirkland said it was unclear if ANZ would cancel a card returned cut vertically or horizontally.
“There is no reason why the process of cancelling a card should not include an online option,” he said.
Liberal Party senator and inquiry deputy chairman Sean Edwards said credit card debt accruing
interest had nearly doubled in the past decade.
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