Did anyone else just get $50 of credit transferred into their account with the description ‘Sorry from CommBank’? I hope it wasn’t just me because yay, free money on a Friday afternoon.
I mean of course, money never comes free and we’ve suffered through two outages in the last week with the CommBank app, but still. Listen up corporations, this is how you successfully apologise to your customers.
For a moment I thought it could be too good to be true, but then I got a confirmation email from CommBank, with the subject ‘Laura, please accept our sincere apologies.’ It read:
“We’re aware you were unable to use the CommBank app/NetBank on 17 and 23 June due to outages. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience and we have deposited $50 into your account.”
YAAAS CommBank, I forgive you.
After having to get my friend to cover my dinner bill and my boyfriend to transfer me money for my hair appointment in the last week, I’ve had my fair share of embarrassment at the cash register for a while. CommBank are usually pretty good, but when things like this happen, it feels so jarring because we rely on our phones and the internet for just about everything.
Even though it always pops up with a ‘sorry for any inconvenience’ message, you don’t ever feel as though they’re actually sorry. But I have to be honest, $50 on a Friday afternoon at the exact hour for an early knock-off/happy hour bev is pretty clever.
People on Twitter agree with me:
https://twitter.com/milf_lover_0182/status/1408272748250505216
https://twitter.com/xowhorre/status/1408286854680440837
https://twitter.com/alikimaiWTS/status/1408291819348135937
https://twitter.com/jamesdominko/status/1408281861076389893
In a statement, a CBA spokesperson told The Latch;
“We have made a $50 goodwill payment to customers who were significantly impacted by recent technology outages in the last week.
“We’re very sorry about this and to apologise we have made a goodwill gesture payment into customer accounts who have been significantly impacted. No action is required to receive the payment.
“We encourage customers to remain vigilant. If customers receive suspicious messages including requests for their account details, they should not provide information or click any links. Customers should contact us to report this.”
I think this means that perhaps not everyone will receive a $50 payment, although it’s hard to determine how ‘significant impact’ is measured. If you haven’t yet received a payment, it may still be on its way.
CommBank did this exact thing in 2019, as an apology for their bank app outages.
Who knew we’d be so forgiving when our after work drinks are covered?
Read more stories from The Latch and subscribe to our email newsletter.
