A trillion-dollar bank is rejecting a young couple who claims tens of thousands of dollars has disappeared from their account.
21 year-old Elli Houston and 23 year-old Trae Murphy say they initiated a $90,000 AUD transfer, worth about $58,000 USD, out of their Commonwealth Bank account back in June, reports the Daily Mail.
The couple says the money, which was being sent to the Bank of Melbourne, initially bounced back and then vanished completely during a second attempt to transfer the funds.
The pair has filed a complaint with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, and Houston the loss has been financially devastating.
“We’ve got evidence and transactions of money going into that account. We can show the transactions when we were last getting paid and then we transferred the money over into our savings account.
We can show them screenshots of our account sitting on $96,000. But from their end, it’s blank. They won’t help us.”
The bank says screenshots provided by the couple don’t line up with its own records – and says the couple’s account balance was never anywhere near $90,000.
“On examination of the images of the receipts provided, the documents differ from genuine CBA receipts and the receipt numbers do not exist in CBA’s records…
CBA confirms that the screenshots do not match CBA’s records of your accounts or the balance held in your accounts. No transactions of $90,000 were attempted on either 30 June or 4 July.”
In addition, the bank says the couple held the funds in question in a savings account and could not be directly transferred to outside banks.
In an interview with the Melbourne-based news station 3AW, Houston says they planned to use the money to purchase land in a small town near New South Whales.
During the ongoing dispute with the bank, they have leaned on an existing loan to keep the property.
“My partner and I have been together since we were 15 years old. We’ve saved for so long for this land and our goal was always to pay it off before we put a house on it so we could then travel.
And now, it feels like everything’s been taken from under us.”
The Bank of Melbourne, which the couple says is the receiving bank, has declined to publicly comment on the dispute.