Trending News 21 June

Qantas is ‘ripping off’
frequent flyers with QFF changes

Qantas’ changes to QFF points
is effectively ‘ripping hundreds of millions of dollars off its frequent flyer
customers’ according to influential business columnist Terry McCrann.

500,000 QFF points were worth $38,470
yesterday (20 June) and are now worth $34,620 meaning Qantas has “snatched away
$3850.”

100,000 QFF points were worth $7694 yesterday
and are now worth $6924, down $770.

Yesterday 192,000 points could buy a business
class return seat from Sydney to Los Angeles. Today 216,800 points is required.

Outrageous Qantas points shop
pricing revealed

Qantas’ QFF points shop is charging members highly
inflated prices for consumer goods they buy using their QFF points according to
influential business columnist Terry McCrann.

Redeeming QFF points on domestic or
international economy class flights, seat upgrades or at the Qantas points shop
is a ‘spectacular rip-off’ says Terry McCrann.

Right now, an Apple iPhone 7
128GB ($917 at OfficeWorks) costs 135,190 QFF points in the Qantas Points Shop
which equals about $10,300.

Converting the points to
dollar value, Mr McCrann says the Qantas Points Shop is charging $17,000 for a
coffee machine and $600 for a plastic takeaway coffee cup.

Westpac
allows loan officers to have ‘discretion.’

Westpac will
allow its credit officers to override serviceability requirements for low-risk
owner-occupied home loan paying principal and interest.

Currently the
bank’s loan officers must assess a mortgage application against an interest
rate of at least 7.25 per cent. 

“Where a customer applying for an owner-occupied, principal
and interest loan falls just outside our current serviceability guidelines,” a
Westpac spokesperson told Mortgage Business, “the loan can be referred to a
credit officer who will have the discretion to override.”

The Australian
Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) is proposing to ease the
serviceability requirements for home loan applications down from 7.25 per cent.

UBank goes
under three per cent

Loans.com.au,
ME and UBank have all announced cuts to their fixed rate home loans. ME’s new
headline two-year fixed home loan rate is just 3.43 per cent.

UBank has
followed Greater Mutual Bank in offering a headline home loan rate under three
per cent. UBank’s new one-year fixed headline rate is just 2. como tomar ivermectina 6 mg coronavirus 99 per cent.

Loans.com.au
cut two and three-year fixed headline rates by 0.29 percentage points to 3.19
per cent.

How often can debt
collection agencies contact you?

Debt collectors have to stick by the rules when
it comes to contacting you. They are as follows:

By phone:Collection agencies can
call you three times a week, up to ten times a month, between the hours of
7.30am and 9.00am on weekdays and 9.00am and 9.00pm at weekends.

By visiting you:They can call on
you once a month at the maximum, between the hours of 9.00am and 9.00pm, but
only if all other attempts at contact have failed.

Debt collectors absolutely can’t use any
physical force, intimidation, verbal abuse or try to intimidate or take
advantage of anyone who is vulnerable, like a child or someone who’s ill or
disabled.

They can’t make any false statements of any kind
to get you to part with money or goods, or to frighten you. These codes of
conduct come under Australian Consumer Law so if a debt collector breaks any of them, you must
complain to your creditor.

Bank fee
income is trending down

Aussie
households paid a total of $4.2 billion in fees to their banks in the last
year, according to official data from the Reserve Bank of Australia. This was
down 6.5 per cent on the year before as a result of many big banks axing ATM
withdrawal fees last year.

Bank fees paid
by household fees are mostly credit card, home loan and deposit fees. Bank fee
income from household deposits fell 19.9 per cent after the big banks and many
others axed ATM fees. There has also been a continued decline in the use of
ATMs.

The fall in fees on housing loans was a result
of lower loan sales in 2018. Fees from credit cards continued to grow, up 2.2
per cent in the last year.