A discussion on the ethics and legality of scripting 1 cent transactions!

[trixydoza]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

You don't do that for fun do you? You don't do it to save money either?

And of course banks' T&Cs generally say that "fun" or "saving money" is a way out.

What a load of utter nonsense.

 

[dfcatch]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

By the same token the customer is not committing fraud because the bank paying lots of payment processing fees because some bank johnny failed to do their job properly.

Perhaps get over the 600000 point example. Lets get back to someone who has made say 15x $0.02 payments = 75 points. Or lets get back to someone who has 1 card on 1 account and makes sure to do 50 small transactions per day. According to you that is fraud because it costs the bank money, even if I make those payments manually. That seems to be an unreasonable position to take.



It's not hard currency. IIRC the banks were pretty keen on abolishing 1 cent coins as hard currency.



Or a pallet load of cat food...



This is actually a very important, on topic discussion relevant to this account. Look at the title "Bankwest Transaction Account [general discussion]". This discussion serves as a very timely and useful reminder of the risks of making one specific use of the account, which has been discussed for 50 pages or more. It also serves to outline the potential view that the provider of the product takes of their customers - regardless of the particular qualifications/position of Nutcase.

I might personally believe that 50 pages on $0.01 payments is clogged airspace re the account in general, versus a specific use of the account. But I don't tell people to STFU!.

Of course, I also believe that some of the recent posts are quite abusive and lowers the general tone of AFF. But that's just me, clearly.

Oh Medhead - you're not discussing the account at all.

You're philosophizing about what theoretical people in management positions may, or may not, possibly, potentially decide to do etc etc etc.

You're not at all discussing the account.

PLEASE get back on topic.

THAT MEANS - 0.01cent transactions. It means BONUSES and associated requirements, it means sign-up procedures, it means ACTUAL experiences that folks have had with the bank.

 

[Nutcase]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

Dear Nutcase, you've received numerous carefully thought-out critiques and given little but glib semi-literate mumblings by way of response.

You do now seem to have slithered away from the "fraud" claim to the "abuse" side of things, but could you perhaps try to keep your language and tone at the level of a professional lawyer and (cough) banker?

Ad hominem is not something that I will engage with. Once you do this, you're attacking me personally and Im done with trying to engage with you so I will now just tell you and leave it at that..

My position on fraud stands. It is my educated opinion based on the fact at least one member here was using an electronic method to manipulate a billers website with over 100,000 transactions of $0.01. This would be the position that I would be taking if it was my decision in dealing with this at the Bank.

My opinion is that the Bank will initially use the "Abuse" clause and shut down the accounts of the outliers (who stand out like the proverbial given how few of these accounts are in the market) and claw back the points. They will then escalate this to the internal fraud team for their opinion and action.

 

[medhead]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

You know that is not the same.

There is nothing with buying 50 apples in a day? or 50 coffees, or 50 bread rolls? But if you paid for each one of those purchases with 50 x 1c transactions then there is something wrong. You don't do that for fun do you? You don't do it to save money either?

Apologies we are going further off track here.

Buying 50 low cost items in separate transactions, like 50 apples, is exactly the same thing.

Oh Medhead - you're not discussing the account at all.

You're philosophizing about what theoretical people in management positions may, or may not, possibly, potentially decide to do etc etc etc.

You're not at all discussing the account.

PLEASE get back on topic.

THAT MEANS - 0.01cent transactions. It means BONUSES and associated requirements, it means sign-up procedures, it means ACTUAL experiences that folks have had with the bank.

Sorry buddy but the topic of this thread is not how to make [-]"0.01cent"[/-] $0.01 transactions. But since you think it is, discussing the possible consequences for the account owner from making such transactions IS part of the topic. So I am, in fact, discussing the account.

If we accept your view that discussing how to make multiple payments is on topic. Lets remember that making multiple payments could be done from any type of account, and is not in any way unique to this particular account.

 

[dfcatch]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

Buying 50 low cost items in separate transactions, like 50 apples, is exactly the same thing.



Sorry buddy but the topic of this thread is not how to make [-]"0.01cent"[/-] $0.01 transactions. But since you think it is, discussing the possible consequences for the account owner from making such transactions IS part of the topic. So I am, in fact, discussing the account.

If we accept your view that discussing how to make multiple payments is on topic. Lets remember that making multiple payments could be done from any type of account, and is not in any way unique to this particular account.

Come on mate - fair sick of the South Australian sausage.

Quote ALL the topics I quoted. Of which 0.01 cent transactions were but one.

But I'll bite.

It's SIMPLE.

BW has decided to limit transactions to 50 per card per day.

It's up to individual merchants to decide what minimum amounts to accept.

Pretty simple really.

 

[medhead]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

It is my educated opinion based on the fact at least one member here was using an electronic method to manipulate a billers website with over 100,000 transactions of $0.01.

So you're a lawyer, banker and IT website programmer now?
Unfortunately, your educated opinion fails the reasonable man test - automating the filling in an online form should not be considered manipulation of a website by the man of the clapham omnibus.

 

[Nutcase]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

Buying 50 low cost items in separate transactions, like 50 apples, is exactly the same thing.

Indeed you are correct.

However to get back on track, 50 individual items purchased at a Supermarket is not the same as deliberatley making 100,000 or more tiny transactions through a billers website using a Macro as well as other means such as multiple cards.

I think of it like speeding in a car. 10kms over is a fine and a loss of demerit points. 100kms over and youre in court talking to a judge.

 

[Nutcase]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

So you're a lawyer, banker and IT website programmer now

IT website programmer? I prefer the title "Payments system SME"

 

[medhead]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

I disagree with that one item, that's why I didn't mention the others in your list. How to make $0.01 transactions is nothing unique or particular to this account. 50 pages on writing macros, payment processing times, etc., etc., etc. is not the topic of this thread according to the title. It has nothing to do with BW limiting transactions on the account. But if you want to make that the topic then discussing the potential consequence of making those payments must also be part of the topic.

You complain about philosophising. But airing the arguments might well help someone if the bank takes action.

Come on mate - fair sick of the South Australian sausage.

Quote ALL the topics I quoted. Of which 0.01 cent transactions were but one.

But I'll bite.

It's SIMPLE.

BW has decided to limit transactions to 50 per card per day.

It's up to individual merchants to decide what minimum amounts to accept.

Pretty simple really.

 

[medhead]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

Indeed you are correct.

However to get back on track, 50 individual items purchased at a Supermarket is not the same as deliberatley making 100,000 or more tiny transactions through a billers website using a Macro as well as other means such as multiple cards.

I think of it like speeding in a car. 10kms over is a fine and a loss of demerit points. 100kms over and youre in court talking to a judge.

It's actually the same thing. Your fundamental position is that people are committing fraud because the bank is losing money on small transactions. It is very easy to go to a supermarket and buy 50 low cost items that would also lose the bank money on the payment fees. You object to $0.01 transactions, what about $0.05, or $0.10? I reject JohnK's position that there is something wrong with 50 small transactions per day and I reject your view that it would be fraud. Remember the gain of 5 points is per transaction unrelated to the value of the transaction.

The speeding analogy doesn't even fit.

IT website programmer? I prefer the title "Payments system SME"

So your education on website programming and function used to form an opinion about manipulation is zero?

 

[Youfah Mizzum]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

This thread has been most enlightening!

Seeing as I opened this account late last year, all the discussion is relevant. As an non-participant of this thread (aside from this one post) I kinda think Nutcase has one valid point.
Certainly there is no fraud going on with the $0.01 macro activity. I think we all agree on that.

I can however see that it could very well be an abuse of the card. And reading the clause posted yesterday, either fraud or abuse will halt the flow of points. Fraud, no. Abuse, maybe yes.

Just my 2 bobs worth.

 

[Nutcase]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

It's actually the same thing. Your fundamental position is that people are committing fraud because the bank is losing money on small transactions. It is very easy to go to a supermarket and buy 50 low cost items that would also lose the bank money on the payment fees. You object to $0.01 transactions, what about $0.05, or $0.10? I reject JohnK's position that there is something wrong with 50 small transactions per day and I reject your view that it would be fraud. Remember the gain of 5 points is per transaction unrelated to the value of the transaction.

The speeding analogy doesn't even fit.



So your education on website programming and function used to form an opinion about manipulation is zero?

"In my opinion"

"Payments System SME"

Yes, the bank is losing money on this product and as a shareholder I would not be happy about that. The OP is also disrupting the payments system by pumping hundreds of thousand of minute transactions through and thus increasing the cost to all of us by abusing it.

This is actually a very serious issue. It has shown a flaw in BWA systems as well for not picking up these very high transaction volumes which should have been flagged when it started.

The issue here is not only the amount of the transaction, Its the repetitive and deliberate abuse of the card and the account which is the problem. As I have already said, The individual aspects of fraud in and of them selves can be innocuous, its not until they are combined that you end up a messy situation.

The ends don't justify the means.

At the end of the day, we can all agree that the account and the card has been abused given that some members of the forum have pumped though this account the equivalent of an Institutional customers annual transaction volume and the Bank has a clause which allows them to not pay points on these transactions and potentially claw them back.

Is it fraud? I think so. Its up to the Bank to decided if it thinks so and if it does, what does it do about it?

 

[medhead]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

"In my educated opinion"

Fixed that for you. Wouldn't want you to misquote yourself.

"Payments System SME"

Yes, the bank is losing money on this product and as a shareholder I would not be happy about that. The OP is also disrupting the payments system by pumping hundreds of thousand of minute transactions through and thus increasing the cost to all of us by abusing it.

This is actually a very serious issue. It has shown a flaw in BWA systems as well for not picking up these very high transaction volumes which should have been flagged when it started.

The issue here is not only the amount of the transaction, Its the repetitive and deliberate abuse of the card and the account which is the problem. As I have already said, The individual aspects of fraud in and of them selves can be innocuous, its not until they are combined that you end up a messy situation.

The ends don't justify the means.

At the end of the day, we can all agree that the account and the card has been abused given that some members of the forum have pumped though this account the equivalent of an Institutional customers annual transaction volume and the Bank has a clause which allows them to not pay points on these transactions and potentially claw them back.

Is it fraud? I think so. Its up to the Bank to decided if it thinks so and if it does, what does it do about it?

That's all very interesting, but you're still not addressing my question. Where does the line get drawn? This account provides an incentive for people to do multiple transactions, up to 50 per day. Those transactions are most efficient at earning for low value transactions. Remember this account is marketed as a way to earn points. What is the value of a transaction that isn't abuse? You certainly can't set that only at a point where the bank is making money. I can just as easily go and buy 50 individual Jubes a day, at a cost around 2 to 5 cents each. It's still 50 low value payments. If the issue is all about the payment system and volume of transactions then according to you walking into a suprmarket and buying something is abuse and fraud.

That's unreasonable.

I used to enjoy reading this thread, but with all the arguing going on, it's not so appealing any more.
Maybe it's time for someone to start another thread ?Bankwest Transaction account [Transactional Discussion Only - No legal or ethical discussion]

The potential consequences would be an integral part of that thread. Like it or not.

Also not sure if it is clear from my above comments, but I think it would be pretty important to work out a minimum transaction value that might be acceptable.

 

[Nutcase]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

I used to enjoy reading this thread, but with all the arguing going on, it's not so appealing any more.
Maybe it's time for someone to start another thread ?Bankwest Transaction account [Transactional Discussion Only - No legal or ethical discussion]

I have to agree. Its a bit of a guilty pleasure for me to be honest however its clear that anything I say is shot down and ridiculed. The justification of some of the postings is remarkable. At the end of the day, BWA will act and how that shakes out is their decision. The people posting can take it up with BWA who will be a lot less interested in engaging given that they are judge, jury and executioner.

I need to move on.

 

[medhead]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

[-]I'll take the final word.[/-][SUP]*[/SUP] I'm sorry if you feel that quoting you is ridicule.

I note that in Australia we have a well developed legal system that means Bankwest are not judge, jury and executioner.

I have to agree. Its a bit of a guilty pleasure for me to be honest however its clear that anything I say is shot down and ridiculed. The justification of some of the postings is remarkable. At the end of the day, BWA will act and how that shakes out is their decision. The people posting can take it up with BWA who will be a lot less interested in engaging given that they are judge, jury and executioner.

I need to move on.

* or not

 

[Nutcase]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

I'll take the final word.

Quell Surprise.

 

[JohnK]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

Buying 50 low cost items in separate transactions, like 50 apples, is exactly the same thing.

In my opinion they are chalk and cheese.

The original reference was to paying say a $74 Telstra bill via 7400 x 1c transactions using 8 cards from 4 different accounts.

I don't think that's reasonable. It's not fraud but it's very close to abuse. You don't have to agree. My opinion is irrelevant. Bankwest is the one that matters and it appears they don't care as they are flogging an unattractive product. Not sure why they think losing money is worth it in the long run unless they close this loophole.

 

[psi999]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

Not sure why they think losing money is worth it in the long run unless they close this loophole.

What I don't get is why BW haven't closed this loophole as they are well aware of this thread (was mentioned early last year) and will absolutely know about the 1c payments.

This could be fixed overnight with a minimum QFF transaction qualification of say 50c - for the 99.9% of cardholders doing the right thing this will have zero impact but will realistically reduce BW's liability from 7750 QFF points (based on a 31 day month) for a $15.50 spend to 7750QFF points per $775 spend - good luck maxing that out.

I am dumbfounded BW have let this go on for a long as they have to be honest.

 

[dodgeyhack]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

"In my opinion"

"Payments System SME"

SME? Small and medium enterprise? So not really relevant to the bank or the merchants who are accepting 0.01c transactions?

I could see how a SME might be negatively affected by this practice, but they're in a different league to the banks and to Telstra, etc.
Of course there's a cost to the bank for these transactions, and for a very few of the accounts the cost might be significant.
There's also a cost to doing something about it.
Considering the majority probably aren't costing the bank all that much, isn't it just possible the bank doesn't care?
I also use the account as a staging area for paying off my credit cards (which funnily enough is automated through the banks own scheduling system).
Having 4k-8k sitting in the account for 2-3 weeks of every month is valuable to the bank in itself and might even offset the cost of ~1,500 $0.01 transactions a month, right?

I also can't see Qantas taking points back. Why would they piss off their customers because another business has created systems and a set of TOC that are flawed?
The Qantas/Woolies relationship has shown where the power lies.

The big question is, why did I actually bother to type all this up???

 

[mitwg]

Re: Bankwest Transaction account [General Discussion]

I think the discussion is heading towards the correct way.


Had the word 'abuse' been used at the beginning, i think this much is something that everyone would agree on (maybe perhaps to different degrees) as it is clear people are using the product to maximise their gains. However the activity alone isn't fraudulent in any way in the eyes of the law. For fraud to occur, there has to be an act of deception, which isn't the case here.


I almost see this as a similar issue as applying for credit cards with the intent of getting the bonus points. If a bank offered 100k QF points on sign up with no annual fee, there would be many people signing up to the card to take advantage of the bonus offer, without intending to actually use the card. In this way, people are abusing the incentive system for their gain.


Usually banks have their terms sorted to exclude applicants with accounts in the past X months and there's the credit check factor as well, however if we are to assume a scenario where these safety measures weren't in place, people would be applying for the card, getting the bonus, cancelling it and doing it again. This is abusing (or exploting) the system yet again, but this activity isn't fraudulent.


The above scenario is usually avoided because banks have their Terms covering the situation. In Bankwest's case, this wasn't done initially but it appears that they have now added an abuse clause, which does give them more power to govern this.


However in my personal view, I don't think the abuse clause will matter much to people taking advantage of this. First of all, nobody had expected this to continue forever. And secondly, if they start not awarding points or closing accounts, well this is the same as them closing the account under the 'we can close your account at any time' clause, which is what they already had anyway.


So eventually, we will end up in a position where BW will either individually close accounts or not award points, but the end result will be that the people using these accounts for this purpose will no longer have the incentive to use this account, so they will end up closing the account anyway.


The end result is the same: activity ends and the account is closed.


It'll be worth watching how BW will deal with this.