Today we needed to make a largish, but still under money laundering limit, to a government department. The first attempt failed because their system was down, the second time it was up but they needed to speak to my husband before the did the transfer, again the system failed , attempt number 3 again asked to speak to the bank. It's now getting late and my husband was trying to get the person on the phone to hurry up as if the payment doesn't go through today there will be interest to pay, again a number of questions asked including how often i play on the xbox!
He gave and made the transfer from our other account but stayed on the line to tell her that the transaction was no longer needed because her paid out of another bank. She then continued to ask questions including what bank we'd used and son other specific information from the other bank to the government department. He refused to give this as it was no longer relevant to this bank. She then said that she had frozen the account until we could produce the information in branch.
I'm aware of how to make a complaint which we will be doing.
Can anyone advise why a bank would need to know things like how often I game? It's none of their beeswax.
Thanks for letting me vent.