CIMB Countersues Individuals Over Processing Error, Demands RM1.39 Million

CIMB is countersuing nine individuals and three companies who are suing the bank for freezing their accounts after a processing error. It described the incident as “unjust enrichment” for the customers at the bank’s expense and asked all 12 parties to repay a total of RM1.39 million that was wrongly credited into the accounts as well as interest, according to a court filing sighted by FMT.

A few months back, several CIMB customers found their bank accounts frozen after a processing error by a remittance service led to the fund transfer being wrongly credited to customers twice, though some of the affected maintained that they never received such funds.

The bank earmarked the duplicate funds in the affected accounts, leading to the accounts being frozen. Following which, a class-action suit was filed by twelve account holders to unfreeze their accounts and demanded monetary damages including RM1 million compensation each, naming CIMB Bank Berhad and CIMB Islamic Bank Berhad in the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs claimed that they were being harassed by debt collectors and had been unable to withdraw money to service their hire purchase loans. Meanwhile, CIMB said that while affected accounts were put on “operational hold”, it was lifted on 13 February.

CIMB maintained that it had not violated any contract with its account holders as they were free to debit or put on hold any account as they wished as per its terms and conditions. The bank had clarified that the problem involved “a limited number of customers that undertook international to local transfers”, and pledged to offer a fair and managed resolution to affected customers.

(Source: FMT)