Ex using bank transfer messages to harass woman says he wants her to be 'scared' of him

A Tauranga woman says the man used bank references after she tried blocking other forms of contact with him. Photo / 123RF

An ex-boyfriend allegedly pestering a former partner using vile bank account references says he wants the woman to be scared of him and leave town.

The Tauranga woman contacted the Herald after receiving a series of abusive references on multiple one-cent deposits.

A domestic violence abuse prevention network said the misuse of bank references was an increasingly common form of harassment.

The Bay of Plenty woman said banks and police seemed disinterested or powerless to stop the messages.

She said the pair broke up late last year and about two months later her former partner started spamming her.

"I had to block all his numbers and then he started paying to text me."

The Tauranga woman believed at one point the ex paid to use four-digit premium text numbers, which generally companies or charities used to send alerts.

"You can't block them because they're all different so then I had to change my number."

She said she went to Papamoa police after the ex confronted a relative, and she spoke to a woman at the police station about the alleged harassment in late April.

"They told me I need to go to a lawyer. They asked me to explain it all. She said: It's a civil matter."

She said since visiting the police she'd been receiving the bank deposits.

Screenshots of the deposits showed references with terms including "aha your dog died" and another with the term "sub-human" and racist, misogynist words.

One seemingly received on July 5 said "never gonna stop" and another said: "Still got your nudes".

Another appeared to say: "You will always be trash."

Contacted on Tuesday, the Bay of Plenty ex-partner admitted sending bank references.

"What are the Police gonna do? They don't do anything in this country. They're f****** revenue-gathering pieces of s***."

He said he hated his former partner.

Bank transfer messages like these allegedly sent in recent days have been used to harass people. Photo / Supplied

"I just want her to be scared of running into me. I want her to move to a different town and f*** off."

He said he didn't understand why the Herald was contacting him and he had not decided if he would keep sending the one-cent deposits.

"Maybe the bank can filter out offensive words from the reference system. The system's there, mate."

Police have been approached for comment.

The man's bank, Westpac, said he had recently been issued a warning.

"We have a monitoring process that we introduced last year to identify transactions containing offensive phrases," said Ian Hankins, Westpac NZ general manager of consumer banking and wealth.

"The Westpac customer in question was picked up through this process last week and we sent him a warning letter via email on Monday. If he does not stop sending abusive messages we will close his bank accounts," Hankins added.

"We continue to refine our processes and educate our staff about our programme, and will be reminding our employees that complaints like these ones should be escalated immediately to our Extra Care team."

BNZ has threatened to terminate the accounts of anyone caught using reference fields to send abusive messages.

Margie Agaled-Dinwoodie, national service delivery manager at Shakti, said non-traditional harassment was increasingly common.

"When I started work in the domestic violence area in New Zealand 10 years ago we already started seeing cases where there's a lot of online abuse ... What we'd call now digital harm."

She added: "We all have digital lives. We have social lives online."

Agaled-Dinwoodie said a type of digital harm was now involved in most of the cases Shakti dealt with.

She said police commonly seemed not fully aware of how to advise people caught up in similar situations.

"Even with the traditional forms of abuse, it doesn't mean that the police are fully informed of the different forms abuse can take.

"Not many police officers would have a wide understanding of the issue."

She said society generally was sometimes slow to appreciate that harassment by current or former partners could be nuanced.

"Our systems are not so quick to adapt or respond to new developments."

Agaled-Dinwoodie said broadly speaking, a person had the right to not be insulted or threatened when accessing banking.

"This is my bank account. I should be able to have some form of control over it."

Where to go for help or more information:

• Women's Refuge: Free national crisis line operates 24/7 - 0800 refuge or 0800 733 843 www.womensrefuge.org.nz

• Shine, free national helpline 9am- 11pm every day - 0508 744 633 www.2shine.org.nz

• It's Not Ok: Information line 0800 456 450 www.areyouok.org.nz

• Shakti: Providing specialist cultural services for African, Asian and middle eastern women and their children. Crisis line 24/7 0800 742 584

• Ministry of Justice: www.justice.govt.nz/family-justice/domestic-violence

• National Network of Stopping Violence: www.nnsvs.org.nz

• White Ribbon: Aiming to eliminate men's violence towards women, focusing this year on sexual violence and the issue of consent. www.whiteribbon.org.nz

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