'I can still get to you': Bank payment references used to send thousands of abusive messages
Friday, 21 May 2021
Every month, thousands of abusive and coercive messages are being sent in the reference fields of bank payments. Now, banks want abusers to know: ”We can see you.” Kate Newton reports.
“im sorry” reads one message.
A few days later: “i miss u”.
They keep coming: “can we talk?”
The sender is relentless. Nearly 40 messages amass over six months, showing up every three or four days. They alternate between pleading the female recipient to get in touch, telling her the sender misses her, and referencing their sexual history.
These aren’t texts, emails, or Facebook messages. Instead, a couple of times a week, the sender transfers a few cents to the woman’s bank account and includes messages in the reference fields.
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The references aren’t abusive. They don’t contain direct threats. Apart from one message, there aren’t even any profanities.
Sent with the consent of both people, as part of a normal relationship, the transactions could be harmless; maybe even romantic.
But Holly Carrington, a policy adviser at domestic abuse charity Shine, says the tone and frequency of the transactions suggest a different scenario: these are communications sent by someone who has been blocked from every other method of contact.
“Picture if you will, you’re in a relationship where you’ve experienced a range of abusive and controlling tactics over a period of time, and you’re trying to separate from this person,” Carrington says.
“You might get a message that says: ‘I love you, I miss you’. People might read that and go, ‘Oh, that’s sweet’. What that’s actually saying is, ‘I can still get to you’.”
While society is becoming increasingly aware of other types of coercive control – like isolating women from friends and family, or controlling them financially or emotionally – the phenomenon of “transaction abuse” is something banks here and overseas are only just beginning to grapple with.
The potential for misusing the reference fields in bank transactions is obvious to anyone who has included a silly reference when they’re paying a friend or relative back; the difference lies in the intent.
“People can be quite creative in finding ways to control, harass and abuse their partners or former partners, so it doesn’t surprise me that people have discovered this way of doing it,” Carrington says.
Thousands of concerning transactions uncovered
The messages above were among more than 10,000 potentially concerning transaction references that New Zealand’s second-largest bank, BNZ, identified over a six-month period.
Shine staff have also encountered transaction abuse aimed at their clients on several occasions, Carrington says.
BNZ general manager of customer assist Martin King says the catalyst for the bank’s analysis was similar work done by CommBank in Australia last year.
The transaction abuse BNZ found fell into three main categories. The most common were references that included profanities or abusive language. “Sometimes you can determine it might be a joke, sometimes you can determine it as more than a joke,” King says.
Some of those transactions were clearly child support payments, but the abuse was not limited to partners or former partners. “There are cases where someone is clearly paying some money back, and they send it with some nasty words as well.”
King’s team also found examples of people using bank references as a secure messaging system. Analysts pieced together a full exchange between two people discussing a third person in what appears to be the aftermath of criminal offending. “That was silly of him, he’s going to jail now,” one told the other via several $1 transactions.
The smallest but most concerning group of transaction references were the ones that were not always overtly abusive or threatening but showed hallmarks of coercive control – in this case, repeated, unwanted contact, King says.
“[Those transactions] are less than a dollar, and they’re repetitive.”
AUT financial abuse researcher Ayesha Scott says the tactic can also be used to sully a person’s reputation via foul language showing up on bank statements required for things like a mortgage or loan approval.
“In a world where, rightly or wrongly, appearances do matter, if you were the lender … you’re probably going to question the company that person keeps,” Scott says.
“[Sending obscene references] is exerting control over that person’s future dealings and that’s classic coercive control and classic domestic violence.”
BNZ is still refining its ability to monitor transaction abuse but did not want to wait any longer to address the problem, Martin King says. “The first thing is to say, ‘We can see you.’”
Where the recipient of abuse is a bank customer, specially-trained staff will now contact them to ensure the messages are unwanted before offering what support they can. That could include setting up a new account for the person, helping them route payments like child support through IRD rather than receiving them directly, and referring them to external organisations like Shine or Women’s Refuge.
If the sender is a customer, BNZ will first warn them their behaviour is unacceptable, King says. The next step would be to “de-bank” the person – forcibly close the person’s accounts and refuse them as a future customer.
BNZ’s terms and conditions already allow the bank to do that, but it is reviewing those terms to explicitly ban transaction abuse, King says.
Unfortunately, privacy laws prevent the bank getting in touch with recipients or senders who are not its own customers – meaning there is no way of checking in with the woman who received that barrage of 40 messages.
It also has no way to prevent any customers it de-banks from simply going to another bank and continuing their abusive behaviour.
A spokesperson for ASB, which is owned by CommBank, says the bank amended its terms and conditions last July to “make it clear that it’s unacceptable to use ASB’s services to harm, harass, abuse, intimidate, or to encourage physical or mental harm or violence”. The bank will suspend transactions or de-bank abusers if it comes across such behaviour.
ASB has also road-tested the data tool developed by CommBank to screen for abusive messages, the spokesperson says. “We intend to continue working to understand the scale and complexities of this problem and the most appropriate way to ensure banking is safe for everyone.”
A spokesperson for Westpac says it would de-bank any customer who engaged in transaction abuse. “We have a number of internal teams investigating the issue and looking at the best ways to prevent it.”
The issue is not on the radar of New Zealand’s largest bank, ANZ, though.
“As far as we’re aware, this isn’t an issue we’ve had complaints about, or concerns raised about,” an ANZ spokesperson said.
“Customer safety and security is a concern, and we’d look at what we could do if transaction statements were being misused.”
Government-owned KiwiBank says it has had one formal complaint to date from a customer on the receiving end of transaction abuse. “In that case we were able to remove the offending language and we have flagged the issue with the sender’s bank.”
KiwiBank appears to leave it up to customers to report abuse, though. “If customers are experiencing this sort of abuse, they can report it via secure mail, internet banking, on our mobile app or by calling our contact centre,” a spokesperson says.
Carrington is frustrated that, because of strict anti-competition regulations, New Zealand’s banks cannot share specific data and strategies with one another to deal with transaction abuse. “What we really need to see is some of our regulatory bodies putting some rules in place for all the banks.”
Ayesha Scott says although banks cannot share all their information, industry bodies like the Banking Association provide a forum to agree on certain guidelines without breaching anti-competition laws.
“It should be a basic minimum standard – if you want to send a financial transaction in New Zealand, this is the bare minimum that a bank expects of you.”
Both Scott and Carrington would also like to see a shift in how both society and the law view financial and economic abuse in a relationship.
Coercive control and stalking are not explicitly mentioned in legislation, although domestic violence law does name financial, economic and psychological abuse as forms of violence, Scott says. “It is there – it’s not used.”
She is therefore sceptical about the chances of someone actually being prosecuted for transaction abuse.
“As a society we still have a very deep-seated misconception that violence is purely physical… I would like to see perpetrators taken to court over economically and financially abusive behaviours, in the absence of physical violence.”
Where to get help
Women’s Refuge 0800 733 843 (females only)
Shine Free call 0508 744 633 between 9am and 11pm (for men and women)
1737, Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor.
Kidsline 0800 54 37 54 for people up to 18 years old. Open 24/7.
What’s Up 0800 942 8787 (for 5 to 18-year-olds). Phone counselling available Monday-Friday, noon-11pm and weekends, 3pm-11pm. Online chat is available 3pm-10pm daily.
Youthline 0800 376 633, free text 234, email talk@youthline.co.nz, or find online chat and other support options here.
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 111.
Need help? If you or someone you know is in a dangerous situation click the Shielded icon at the bottom of this website to contact Women's Refuge in a safe and anonymous way without it being traced in your browser history. If you're in our app, visit the mobile website here to access Shielded.