Commonwealth Bank of Australia glitch: Double-charged customers not refunded as promised

Customers of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, who complained about the bank malfunctioning by charging double for purchases on credit and debit cards, have not been refunded their money even though the bank promised on Wednesday to reverse the transactions overnight.

"We expect to reverse these transactions overnight, and we will refund any Commonwealth Bank fees or charges incurred," the bank posted online. While some customers reported that the money had been credited back to their accounts overnight, others said that CBA has laid additional charges on their statements.

Customers who were using the CBA app to make payments were informed of a possibility of duplicate transactions on their statements. However, multiple credit and debit card transactions were duplicated, which the angry customers took to the Bank’s Facebook page to protest.

They complained about how repeated statements of the same transaction started showing up overnight and some customers even complained about being unable to make further transactions as their card had already reached credit limits.

"Instead of removing duplicate transactions, I've now been charged an extra time for 3 separate transactions instead!!!! Fix this ASAP,” one of the customers complained. A woman named Alex wrote that she had been double charged AU$2700 for airfare while she was travelling alone in Europe.

A student also said that he was double charged when he paid his AU$16,000 tuition fees. Many have also posted about how their overdrawn cards had been refused at supermarkets and petrol stations.

Although a CBA spokesperson confirmed that the bank has prioritised the issue and has begun working on the errors, customers kept on complaining that they hadn’t have any new information from CBA. In response, the spokesperson said while CBA has returned credit card customers their money, it is working on Thursday to return the debit card customers their share.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. Both the duplicated and refunded transactions will appear. We will also be refunding any Commonwealth Bank fees or charges incurred," the spokesperson said.

The news of the glitch came around just after CBA posted a full-year cash profit of $9.14 billion , up five percent, the largest profit by an Australian bank ever.

One of the men who faced the same problem noted the timing of the announcement and said, "I wonder if part of your $9.14 billion cash-profit was because of all these double charges? I'm glad the extra $200 you borrowed from me could help boost your stats (not)!”

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