More than 750,000 Australians will today receive notice from the Federal Court advising that they may be eligible to be part of Slater and Gordon’s consumer credit class action against Commonwealth Bank.
Slater and Gordon is representing hundreds of thousands of CommBank customers who were sold junk credit card and personal loan insurance that was of little or no value, and that many customers would never have been eligible to claim against.
The class action alleges that many people were led to believe that the insurance was compulsory or free, while others didn’t even know they had been sold it. The insurance was often sold to people with disabilities, people who were unemployed or people who were chronically ill and therefore likely ineligible to claim.
The Commonwealth Bank has admitted that these products were of little value, even though they were sold to hundreds of thousands of their customers.
While the Big Four bank said they would provide refunds as part of a remediation program, only a small portion of customers were compensated, despite ending the sale of these products in March 2018.
Slater and Gordon Practice Group Leader Andrew Paull said the class action gave a voice to those who were vulnerable and duped into buying worthless insurance. It would allow those customers to hold the bank to account for its wrongdoing.
Mr Paull said he hoped the class action would help customers get their money back, while keeping corporate giants honest.
“The reprehensible behaviour of the Big Banks which preyed on vulnerable people in the community needs to be called out, and the customers need to be compensated,” Mr Paull said.
“This move to return only a small portion of its customers premiums seems to have been a tokenistic effort to protect the bank’s brand, rather than a genuine attempt to make good its past wrongdoing.”
Customers may be eligible to join the CBA CCI class action if they were issued with a consumer credit insurance policy since 1 January 2010, have paid a premium and have not been paid back in full.
The class action is one of four class actions in the #GetYourInsuranceBack campaign. It was filed in the Federal Court in June 2020.
More than two million Australians have now received court-ordered notices advising they may be eligible to be part of a Get Your Insurance Back class action.
It comes as Slater and Gordon settled a similar class action in late 2019 that also alleged NAB customers had been mis-sold personal loan and credit card insurance, which saw 50,000 NAB customers compensated $49.5 million.
