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posted by martyb on Monday July 20 2020, @11:04PM   Printer-friendly

Abusive partners have found new and ‘nasty’ ways to target their victims:

It’s a bizarre and “nasty” new form of psychological abuse and thousands of Australians are doing it every day.

Commonwealth Bank has said it uncovered at least 8000 separate individuals sending threatening and abusive messages to people via its apps and online banking systems.

In one instance, CBA’s general manager of customer vulnerability Catherine Fitzpatrick told news.com.au, a single person sent their victim hundreds of abusive messages, one every few seconds, over a two-hour period.

[...] Ms Fitzpatrick spoke to news.com.au at the launch of a new initiative launched by CommBank that aims to support people impacted by domestic and family violence, including financial abuse.

[...] As part of CBA’s research prior to the program’s launch it found a number of its customers were being harassed by people during the process of sending them low value online payments, often as low as one cent.

[...] Most of us move money around online, say if we owe a mate some cash or to pay a bill. When you do, you usually have to write a description of what the transaction is that goes onto the statement of the person receiving the money.

“I might write ‘love mum’ if I’m sending something to my children, but these people will send abusive messages,” said Ms Fitzpatrick.

[...] Aside from the pain of receiving the message itself, some victims may, for example, need to rent a house and be forced to show a letting agency their bank statements meaning a complete stranger will see the messages.

“Its technology assisted abuse and it can be a precursor to financial abuse,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.

What laws does Australia have concerning threats and intimidation? In what other countries could this happen?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 20 2020, @11:49PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 20 2020, @11:49PM (#1024324)

    Yup. Like paying a $2,000 alimony check by writing 200,000 cheques, for 1¢ each, with a nasty note in each comment field.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Monday July 20 2020, @11:54PM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday July 20 2020, @11:54PM (#1024328) Journal

    So it is different, but there is no point in being incredulous that an equivalent "memo" field exists for electronic payments.

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    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Tuesday July 21 2020, @02:06AM (1 child)

      by Kell (292) on Tuesday July 21 2020, @02:06AM (#1024401)

      Thing is, the memo field is sometimes necessary - I use it to tell my real estate agent that it's me paying for my rent, and not some other rando's rent. It's a damn-fool strategy to abuse it, though, because if -anyone- keeps good records of transactions it's banks. Take the payment transcripts to the judge and use them to get a restraining order that includes abusive messaging.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2020, @09:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2020, @09:05PM (#1024745)

        better check up on how CHECK-21 works w.r.t physical checks...

        its better to fk with someone by giving them a two-party check instead, where the one person its meant to go to really doesn't want to interact with the other party.

        common in divorce.

        you worried your soon to be ex might be using the cash but failing to disclose to the court, and then claiming you never sent it?? at the very least write that check out to the ex and their attorney...

  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 21 2020, @03:05PM (1 child)

    by Freeman (732) on Tuesday July 21 2020, @03:05PM (#1024594) Journal

    Assuming, you got your checks for $0.05 apiece, that would be some seriously expensive payment method. Then, you'd need to factor in the amount of time you'd need to write them all. Which might be able to be negated somewhat by increasing your cost by printing them somehow. That would take a seriously twisted and warped mind. At which point, they'd likely just garnish your wages, instead.

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    • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday July 21 2020, @06:06PM

      by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 21 2020, @06:06PM (#1024688)

      In some parts of the world (e.g. UK), free banking is the norm. No charges for debit card transactions, deposits, withdrawals, or cheque books on personal accounts. The banks make their profit in interest rates instead.

      This would be a perfectly viable strategy here, except for the fact that I only get 50 cheques per book.