ANZ acts on fake Facebook profile

Five ANZ debt collectors, including a staff member in management, were behind the creation of a fake Facebook profile they used to try to get information from bad credit customers.

In May, The Age revealed that Melbourne collections staff had created the false persona, named ''Max Bourke'', on the social networking site in order to find people with outstanding personal loans and credit card debt.

The fake profile was made to look like Max was a real person - it included a photo of a man running on a beach and listed his hobbies as football and poker but failed to mention ANZ.

The bank yesterday said its internal investigation had been completed and actions taken in response ranged from ''counselling staff through to first and final warnings''.

''ANZ has completed a thorough investigation that resulted in disciplinary action being taken against a small group of individuals involved,'' bank spokesman Stephen Ries said.

Five members of the bank's unsecured debt collections team were involved in the scandal, including a staff member in middle management.

It is believed the Bourke identity had been up for a year before it was taken down and had a total of 81 Facebook friends, some of them ANZ customers. The idea behind the profile - later described by the bank as ''grossly misplaced staff creativity'' - was to make friends with customers who had left their previous address without informing the bank of their new one.

Mr Ries said staff had since received training and the bank was confident the scandal was ''an isolated case''.

- © Fairfax NZ News