How a man paid $3521 for a beer

The man complained to his bank after he bought a beer thinking the price was $3.30, but really it was $3,500. Photo / 123RF

A man complained to his bank about what he believed was a fraud after he bought a beer from a bar in Hong Kong and was charged $3521 on his credit card for a drink which he thought cost $3.30.

But he withdrew the complaint after the Banking Ombudsman pointed out that he had signed the receipt and his bank hadn't breached the terms of its credit contract.

The complaint is just one of many strange and unusual cases seen by the ombudsman over its 25 years in existence.

In another case a man stole a house in a mortgagee sale gone wrong.

A couple were forced to sell a property after they got behind on payments.

The man offered to buy the property for $20k and was given three months to organise the settlement.

But before he paid the full amount he onsold the house on the property for $30k and removed it from the land without telling the bank or his lawyer, and then went off the grid.

A complaint was made to the police but the house was never sold and the man went bankrupt. No money was ever recovered from him.

The bank wrote off the debt and discharged the mortgage but years later the original owners were sent a demand for unpaid rates of $2500.

They were unaware they still owned the property and didn't know the house hadn't sold.

The ombudsman ruled that the bank had not properly communicated their failure to follow through with the sale and as a result the bank compensated the original owners for the loss suffered.

In a recent case a Bitcoin sale went wrong when a man tried to sell $5000 worth of the coins to a fraudulent buyer.

The buyer paid the money online to the seller's account and he transferred the Bitcoins to the buyer.

But 10 days later the bank reversed the $5000 credit and froze the account after it found the "buyer" had used a malware infection to hack another customer's account and used their money to make the payment.

When the customer got in touch with the bank to say he had been hacked the bank reversed the transfer sending the seller's account into overdraft.

The ombudsman found the bank had the right to do that but could have handled the situation better.

The Bitcoin seller was told to repay the $5000 to the bank but without any interest, fees or costs.

But he didn't agree with the ruling.