Bankwest Reviews 

Nothing more than a useless bank.Irresponsibly decided to close all of their east coast of Australia branches and still expect people to bank with them.Did they consider a lot of older people may not have or know how to use a computer? Tell everyone how can you obtain a cheque if you need one? Moved to a bank you can be served over the counter.Cancelled my last two accounts with them.After sitting on the phone for 40 minutes customer service (if you can call it that!) could only do half the job so another 42 minutes wait,total time on the phone 82 minutes.Absolutely disgraceful.Maybe they should consider moving even further west and preferably into the middle of the Indian Ocean.

I am absolutely disgusted by the wait time on the phone help line. Hours and hours and not even a recall service. Revolting service!

I’m based in QLD and have been with Bankwest for 2yrs.
There’s on only one branch here on the Gold Coast but I do everything online so no fuss there. I’ve had a great experience with them, good interest rate on my home loan and I can email my account manager and get a response back normally with 2 days if I need anything.

I dont know why I still bank with this bank. Recently the app dropped out while i was making a transaction so didnt show that it had gone through. I put the transaction through again but it actually doubled up. Even though I contacted the bank straight away and they acknowledged their fault, they couldnt do anything about it.

Worst mistake I made was getting a home loan through these people. Every day dealings with them speaks inly ti their greed and lack of care for their "customers".

Trying to transfer $5k out of my account that had only been in there for 1/2 an hour. They are now holding it and saying it will take 3 days.

I was with another bank and they had no issues with amounts 7 times that. Several transactions were completed within a couple of minutes.

Don't even try to talk to them about this or homeloan rates above what they advertise. Full of corporate mumbo-jumbo and crap. How they aren't held accountable is beyond me

It sad to say that dealing with BankWest is the worst experience I have ever had . They make whole loan process difficult and stressful . My opinion look elsewhere .

Your direct debit system is a joke ill be closing my account on monday there not enuff money to oay a bill you still whats in account an hold it for a day then return it

Very bad service, spent 5 hours of my life to transfer money from redeemed points to my new account. And even then not the whole sum was transferred but 15%less!!!!! That’s really outrageous.

I would like to highly recommend Chris Hunter at ocean keys branch. He was so helpful and so understanding when we were unsure of anything. Chris took the time to explain until we understood and he got us the result we wanted . We moved our mortgage over to Bankwest and so grateful to Chris . Such a nice young man .

Separated and had to separate the two house loans , Bankwest would not follow the court order, wanted $8000 upfront before settlement had to get lawyer involved and very poor communication. Plus wait two hours on phone to talk to someone then get attitude.
Bank manager for the section I was dealing with wont reply to emails.10 years ago much better service gone down hill

I had my credit card suspended as Bankwest thought that a transaction i was making was a scam , It turned out different .However they said that i should get a new card in the mail in4 to 7 days , That was over a week ago , still waiting , then I tried to contact customer service , BAD mistake there is no such thing . Waiting and waiting and still waiting .
unable to get just a simple answer , when Am I getting my new card. That's all !!!!. and dont bother with the APP , IT JUST DONT WORK still waiting for an SMS Code to be sent to my phone . Never happened . One star is way too good a rating.

This bank is just terrible
I was with Westpac for over 20 years and had minimal issues considering the size of the bank
I moved to Bankwest last year for a new mortgage
Since then I have had absolutely nothing but headaches dealing with them
Their service is absolutely dismal
Phones don’t get answered for forever, their app is not very user friendly, their staff are some what incompetent
And trying to find out information on services is like pulling out teeth without pain relief

Do yourself a favour and stay clear, it’s honestly not worth the headache

Absolutely amazing bank! Shocked to see so many negatives!

I can say they have been the best bank to date as I have banked with all the big Banks. We have had multiple transactions from new accounts to loans and home loans.

They are straight onto everything and anything we need they are onto, their follow up is outstanding! David (branch manager) & Nansy - Elizabeth St, Melbourne branch & Clint (mobile lending manager) - Collins St, Melbourne.

Communication has been fantastic. They even went above and beyond knowing we are Tasmanian based and we do not have a branch in our state, they made all the process simple. DocuSign is a blessing as we use in our agency.

BankWest now have all our business! Best home loan rates as well as their service to clients - A1.

Thanks again to everyone there that have made our banking journey streamline.

I have had an account with Bankwest for several years. I wanted to transfer my money out, but the site won't let me saying I have to be identified. I called the number given online and the staff don't know how to do it. They have made me jump through hoops including get documentation verified personally at the post office. I still can't access my money and they don't even acknowledge my emails and telephone calls. I'm going to have to escalate to AFCA which is so time consuming and bothersome. This is by far the worst bank I've ever had. KEEP AWAY!

Your banking system is most terrible, meaningless system I have ever met. You don't care about your customers, irresponsible, un responsive and your services are awful, your staffs are rude and uncaring.

In week 13 of lockdown in Sydney, my small business has been affected and I’m having to pivot left and right and change up my business and try and get on top of outgoings, while also innovating everything to be online (I know this is a bulk of businesses). While I do this I have changed the way I’m banking and keeping my money in another account to my main on, so I can pay rent and buy groceries and ensure I can survive, so the money doesn’t get taken up unexpectedly by auto-debits. (Yes time are that tough.) BANKWEST HOWEVER TAKES $10 EVERY TIME THE ACCOUNT GOES INTO MINUS ***EVEN IF IT IS FOR 1hr***

THEN THE ACCOUNT DOES GO INTO OVERDRAFT I RECTIFY IT WITH SOMETIMES 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 hours THE SAME DAY AND SOMETIMES A FEW VERY VERY SHORT HOURS. THIS DOESNT MATTER. BankWest happily admit the $10 fee is by an automated computer and happens immediately. ZERO UNDERSTANDING FOR CASE TO CASE DETAILS, ZERO UNDERSTANDING FOR PANDEMICS AND THE IMPACT ON THEIR CLIENTS AND SMALL BUSINESSES THAT NEED HELP RIGHT NOW. ZERO UNDERSTANDING OF GREY AREAS.

I have banked with BankWest since 2009, now 2021 - 12 years and they don’t care, they keep taking these $10 fees out. It’s daylight robbery. It’s not a small fee. And 99% of time I rectify the account very quickly.

GET THIS TOO: BankWest send a text message saying “we’re trying to debit from your account please deposit money by x time, so we can process the payment.” I HAVE DEPOSITED THE MONEY EVERY TIME, ON TIME AND YET I STILL GET THE FEE EVERY TIME.

******If you can automate a text message and the processing of payments by a certain time than you can change the time that a dishonour fee comes out giving people a grace period until that time. YOU CHOSE NOT TO. YOU CHOSE TO TAKE THE FEE FROM LOYAL CLIENTS IMMEDIATELY. IT IS A CHOICE!!!!!!!! I’m not suggesting that there should be no dishonour fee. I understand if people do the wrong thing there needs to be a charge. But the system FUNDAMENTALLY DOESN’T WORK RIGHT NOW AND YOU DONT CARE TO CHANGE IT!!!! If you give me a time via text to get the money in and I do get the money in by that time than there should no be a fee involved because I’ve done what you want and need.

YOU ARE LOOSING A VERY LOYAL CLIENT OF 12 years, with three accounts with BankWest because IVE HAD ENOUGH.

You don’t care and you don’t see any humanness or grey area to help your clients. You have automated computers and book of rules running the show, which shows you’re a company with no heart.

Enough is enough. Taking my business elsewhere.

Refuse for you to access your own money if you try to transfer out more than $20k within a month.
App/online banking experience is terrible.

BankWest's More Rewards Programme (MRP) is a rip-off as it is a lot cheaper to buy merchandise elsewhere.
Examples:

(a) The Breville Bread Maker retails at $179.95 but the MRP charges 26,670 points + $248.92 or 88,900 points, this makes the item far more expensive.

(b) Samsung Sound Bar HWE450 retails at $349.00 but the MRP charges 50,8250 points + $474.32 or 169,400 points.
Basically, the MRP is not worth a pinch of goat's manure and one is better off buying its merchandise at discount stores and using a better credit card with a decent rewards programme.

This was the worst customer experience I’ve ever received in my life. Like someone said before “if you care about your mental health do not come to Bankwest”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I applied for a home loan with Bankwest and they rejected it. The guy that was handling our application name Le-on lim was terrible!!! When I first went to meet him he provided us with information we gave him all our details and lodge the application. The application took a long time. Le-on was near impossible to get a hold of. He was always busy and never picked up his phone. They only way to reach him is if he reached out to you and wanted a document. He never gave us updates on our application I was the one always calling Bankwest and finding out updates about our application. The night before the application was due he sent us an email! He didn’t even have the decency to call to say that more documents was needed....why would you wait to tell us this the night before finance due date???? When the due date came for our finance he said more time was needed....lies! When I called the next business day they told me that the application was denied on finance due date! To make it worst....Le-on went on annual leave without telling us anything on the day our finance was due so we could not get a hold of him. He never communicated to us he was going on annual leave, he never told us our file would be handled by someone else. He just went away our file was handed over to someone and when I called the person to get updates on our application he didn’t even know anything about our application he said to call him back in about 3 hours. So when I did call back he said the application was in fact denied but he couldn’t give me a reason as why the application was denied. No one ever reached out to me to follow up. I’ve gone with commonwealth now best experience ever. STAY AWAY FROM BANKWEST

I've had a Bankwest Zero Platinum MasterCard for quite a few years and have become really frustrated with the way it works when overseas.

I originally got the card mainly because of the no foreign transaction fees and no annual fee. I buy a lot of digital products, software and services online from the US, UK and other European countries. In addition, I travel a lot and so this is an advantage when combined with the no annual fee and complimentary overseas travel insurance.

The one thing that has become a major problem in the last few years is when I have traveled for many months at a time. The inability to set an overseas mobile phone number to receive SMS messages has become a massive pain in the backside and nobody at Bankwest cares.

Not only is SMS insecure (due to the risk of SIM swap attacks), but there is no alternative such as being able to use Authy or similar software-based 2FA codes. It is also not possible to use hardware-based RSA-style tokens either.

When I try to buy things online whilst overseas, I now get SMS messages to authorize transactions. These are useless because I do not use my Australian SIM card when overseas for long durations due to the cost. It costs $5 to roam with Vodafone Australia for one day. That means receiving one SMS is $5 a pop. This is simply not an option. On some occasions, I’ve had to use my card through my PayPal account. But then I get stung with punitive PayPal exchange rates instead of the zero foreign transaction fees on a native credit card transaction.

On top of that, whenever I need to call the bank to resolve or get around this SMS issue, their call centres only operate during Australian business hours. This is not convenient when I am in Europe, where I am currently stuck due to the COVID lockdowns.

The Bankwest Zero Platinum MasterCard is an international credit card that requires the cardholder to teleport to Australia in order to buy things online, or to resolve a customer service issue where things cannot be dealt with using Secure Messaging.

Bankwest never offer to call me on my temporary overseas mobile number during UK hours and nor do they offer any solutions to the SMS problem.

After complaining to them about this issue for years, I finally made the decision to write about these problems here in case anyone at Bankwest is listening.