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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?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Common Joe on Tuesday July 21 2020, @08:45AM
Based on two people I know who were harassed by their abusers after papers were filed in court (one going through a divorce and another who was raped), the courts and lawyers make it extremely hard to "prove" harassment like this -- even though a vegetable can clearly see from the evidence that it's harassment. On the rare chance that the abuser is punished, it's often a hand slap at most.
I'll add that although gender can play a role in who gets away with what, it's interesting that of the two people I have in mind, one is a guy and the other a gal. In my anecdotal examples, it seems that the court often likes to favor the abuser. On a broader scale, we can see harassment and abuse happening when large corporations screw the little guy.
It shouldn't be hard to prove, but it is. And it costs a lot of money.