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Multi-award-winning journalist, Adele Ferguson talks to Cheryl Akle about her investigations into banks which helped bring about the royal commission, and her new book, Banking Bad.
About Adele Ferguson:
Adele Ferguson is a multi-award-winning senior business writer and columnist for The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review. She is a regular guest
reporter on ABC’s Four Corners and 7.30, and is the author of the bestselling unauthorised biography Gina Rinehart: The untold story of the richest woman in the world.
With more than 20 years’ experience, Adele is one of Australia’s most awarded journalists. She has received eight Walkley awards, including a Gold Walkley for her joint Fairfax Media and Four Corners program ‘Banking Bad’; two Gold Quill Awards, including one for her exposé of CBA’s CommInsure; two Gold Kennedy Awards; a Logie; and the Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year award. Her series of investigations into the banks over the past five years helped bring about the royal commission into the sector. She was recognised for services to journalism with an AM in 2019.
CFSIL and CFPL, the CBA Groups, breached my 2009 Agreement by charging unauthorised ‘ongoing adviser service fees’ from 2009 to 2016. Nearly two dozen CBA complaint staff members have deceptively claimed from 2018 to the current date that I was never charged these fees, only ‘Standard Service Fees’. These appalling fees were prevented from being charged after the FOFA Reform in 2012 and also related to the CBA Whistleblower Jeff Morris at the Banking Royal Commission. I allege that my CFSIL Transaction Account was completely concealed because I never received mandatory Renewal Notices nor was I informed about switching to MySuper. CBA complaint staff were only given a copy of my 2009 Agreement, not a copy of my CFSIL Transaction Account which displayed ‘adviser service
fees – ongoing’, nor were they given a copy of my CFSIL Half
yearly Statements which illegally displayed that I had accepted to
pay advice fees to my financial planner. I sent email copies to Mr
Comyn who has done nothing. I will be turning 80 in July this year and what I have been put through from September 2018 to the current date has severely affected my mentality. However, I am not just sticking up for my own rights, together with compensation, because there could be a multitude of other vulnerable, elderly CBA Group customers who have been treated in the same manner, but either did not know what to do, or did not understand everything, and I would be so happy if my issues could be made Public so that we are all compensated. If I was to give up my issue, I would feel guilty for the rest of my life.