Tell Claudienne bats for financial ombudsman
SINCE 2020 six National Commercial Bank (NCB) customers have sent complaints to the Tell Claudienne column alleging that money was stolen from their accounts via automated bank machines (ABMS). To these complaints the e-mail response from NCB has been more or less as follows:
“We acknowledge your complaint dated...
You have disputed transactions reflected on your account, which were completed at an ABM. After careful examination of the disputed transaction(s) we have concluded that the transaction(s) were done with the use of your genuine card and PIN. Consequently, NCB cannot consider itself liable in this matter and as such, we are not in a position to refund the monies to your account.
For further redress, we recommend that you report the matter to the police with whom NCB will cooperate fully in their investigations, including providing photographs, as soon as they become available.
We sincerely regret that, based on the circumstances of the matter, we are not able to provide further support in recovering your funds.”
However, although
NCB has urged aggrieved customers to report theft from their accounts to the police and has promised to cooperate and provide the police with videos showing individuals in the ABM at the time of the theft, that has not necessarily been the reality.
One of the complainants got a timesheet from NCB listing three transactions done on the account in Negril, Westmoreland, on September 30, 2020, at 5:14 pm, 5:15 pm and 5:16 pm. At the time the Negril transactions on the Midas card took place, the said NCB account holder was alleged to be at a fast food location on Constant Spring Road in St Andrew.
“Based on Google maps the fastest route between these 2 locations is 3 hours 41 minutes. It is humanly impossible for someone to use my card at 5:16 pm in Negril, Westmoreland and take 14 minutes to return the card in Kingston,” the complainant said.
After the complainant pointed out the flaws in the NCB “genuine pin” assertion, an NCB clarification to the customer stated :
“In reviewing the matter, we noted that we previously stated that your genuine card and pin were used to conduct the disputed transactions. We therefore wish to clarify that our basis for not making a refund is that taking all factors into account, we have not found evidence which supports the claim that your account was fraudulently compromised.”
In e-mails and a Zoom meeting with the NCB managing director, Tell Claudienne has argued the need for the bank to have an independent investigator to address customers’ grouses.
“Taking into account the ‘limited role’ the Code of Conduct (2016) allows the Bank of Jamaica to play in customer/bank disputes, NCB, the largest bank in Jamaica, can currently be regarded as the sole arbiter of its customers’ complaints,” Tell Claudienne said.
After the Zoom meeting with the NCB managing director on December 21, 2021, NCB sent the column the following e-mail:
“Re: Customer Complaints Coming out of the meeting held with the CEO and the undersigned, a further review of the complaints referred to you by the following customers was conducted as promised: 1) MH
2) SH
3) SM
4) CT
5) NS
6) SB
We have not received or seen any subsequent details that would change the positions that have already been communicated. Checks also reveal that our Fraud Prevention Unit has cooperated with the police investigations undertaken to date.”
Tell Claudienne, in e-mails and conversations with the Bank of Jamaica, the Consumer Affairs Commission, the Jamaica Bankers Association, and an advisor to the Minister of finance, has also called their attention to the plight of bank account holders in the absence of a government agency in Jamaica currently to address grouses people have with the banks.
“Research done by the Tell Claudienne column shows that dissatisfied bank customers in