Commonwealth Bank Essential Super

Great first impressions – Good customer service. Spoke to Ash who explained the product realy well and answered all my 1000 questions patiently. Also spoke to Annabel and another attendent whose name I cant remember. Very polite people. Opening the account also super easy using nedbank app. Also love the fact that my super now shows in my bank account and can keep track of it.

Two weeks to access account statements after rollover – I have recently rolled over my Essential Super to another fund. However to my surprise once my roll over had been completed not only my Essential Super account was closed but it also disappeared from my NetBank. I do not see it in even in "closed account" section so there is no way to access my account statements. I now need a few past years of my… Read more

account standard statements for my legal case with my ex-employer but two weeks later, multiple emails and two long Essential Super support calls I am still cannot get my statements to be simply sent to my registered email address. As of today the only document I managed to get from Essential Supper support is a concise list of transactions which is not a statement. Today I called the support again explaining that I need a statement but in response the same concise list of transactions was sent to me. Not sure what to do now: call them again with the same request only to receive the same useless list for the third time?

UPDATE: Finally I managed to get from Essential Supper the documents I needed by complaining to their Complains Resolution team via membercare@cfs.com.au email. A senior member of the team promptly responded to my request, immediately understood exactly what I wanted and provided me with a correct (manually composed) document. It is a shame that I had to go via complains department but at least there is a way.

Low quality expectations. Somehow worse than expectations – • Has abysmal quality customer support and service • Hiring customer support workers with less of an attitude and more of a friendly, helpful and kind tone should be one of the priorities to achieving better service. Commbank, however, seems to continue hiring people who have lost joy for their work and have no intention for helping people at all.… Read more

• Commbank needs to update how they operate in terms of updating information for accounts so that the process doesn't need to be so tedious, time consuming and all in all just a waste of time. • Relying on customer support from this organisation will lead to disappointing outcomes so if possible try fixing the problem as much as possible before conceiting defeat and calling up their customer support number. • 1 out of 5 review. Atrocious experiences in the past to say the least. Trying not to be repetitive but if I could rate it a zero I would.

Lost money – Very disappointed. This fund has lost 10% of the balance of my money in the six months to June 30 2022. How is this possible. 10% in six months. ?????? I know my balance won't increase by 10% in the next six months.

Absolutely Appalling Service – Over 3 years since passing and I still cannot get them to pay out my stepfathers super/life insurance to his wife..even with a will and probate. They lie about their intentions and do not follow their own deadlines.

Made to take Super when employed at CBA and insurance – Joined CBA to work many years ago. Was advised when joining that as employee I needed open super with them, even though I had Super elsewhere which I didn’t want to change. I have realised that they were charging me insurance, which I could never claim against as I had insurance elsewhere with original super group. I lodged complaint last year but… Read more

they have no record and now trying to make complaints they outsource who handles ex staff super and going into branches they don’t know who to speak with. Have paid a lot of money in insurance which I never asked for and it’s been just a waist as super eroded with fees I should never have been paying for.

Worst return – Have been with essential super for years and now I realised there is not much returns at all. Really bad investments and way too much fee to justify what they are doing.

WORST SUPER – If you want to see your money goes down quick on daily basis choose Essential Super. No wonder why it's not available to new customers as it's crap. Would never recommend to anyone

Lack of skill of staffs – The most useless bank staffs, Essential Super the most useless staffs as well. they do not what they are doing. Not recomand to deal with Commonwealth and essential super, both off them are useless.

CBA OSF balanced fund advised by government as sub performing fund and recommend moving – Today. I and all CBA OSF balanced fund members received a letter advising they were one of 13 funds identified by the government as below acceptable performance even though they had been given ample warning. Significant investment in amp, commercial property. I can imagine the men in these positions are the most highly paid in the super business and aren't invested in their own fund. They should be removed. Show details

Early release of super – I recently became unemployed and had previously taken out early super twice during COVID-19 but then being unemployed I needed money till find another job. I wanted to withdraw the balance of my super and had to apply the usual way by providing proof of documents to say im in financial hardship. I thought the process would take long and i honestly… Read more

thought I didn’t have a chance of withdrawing the funds even though it was a balance of just under $3000 and I had already taken early super out twice but it only took 2 days for it to be completed and approved and I received the funds the following day after sending the application form and documents. It was done fast and efficient and i didn’t have to call for any updates on the application which was great. Greatly appreciate the fast turnaround.

They lost almost 30% of my funds with the Covid 19 pandemic – Everyone could see what was about to happen. I even switched my investment option to cash, however, it took 4 days for these clowns to make the switch. I guessed they were sleeping while the whole economy was falling apart. In those 4 days, I lost about 600 dollars. Most super funds were losing 10% or 15%, but this one was losing 30%. To… Read more

summarize, they have no idea about what they are doing, just incompetency at its highest level. After seeing my losses, I made an inquiry asking for the list of stocks where the funds were invested, they did not share it. Fortunately for me, I only have 13000 AUD atm of the pandemic, I pity the ones that have all their life savings in this circus.

Just useless – Absolutely terrible communication, been trying to change my super from personal non concessional to employer concessional and has been the biggest nightmare waiting weeks for them to not do what they did they would do. just contacting them is difficult and to end up talking to someone who is clueless about what I’m requesting which was already… Read more

processed. What seems like a simple thing to change has been jumping thru hoops having to prompt them to send out confirmation time and time again

So good You may as well place all your savings on Red and see what Happens – I prefer not to gamble my money away so take what I say and do your homework- google is an amazing tool. Any super that is a part of a major bank will never compare with industry funds as there is no need to be diligent with money (due to other revenue streams) and therefore the drive to increase returns is somewhat half-arsed for a higher fee… Read more

proportion, this has been particularly true with Essential super, another issue are the fees as well- you should not be paying more than 0.4% in admin and investment fees, at Commonwealth it is 0.75%- if you are paying this start shopping around for a new product because you are just funding their propped up fat cats and their jet skis and boats. I wouldn't recommend at all going through Commonwealth, their structure is very smoke 'n' mirrors to try and confuse you out of asking the important stuff, and lets face it, their retention to keep customers is not there at all- your a small number to them just remember that. I have moved on and so should you. The attached insurances are also another joke, with a maximum cap that in reality wouldn't do much for me or my family, go seek assistance elsewhere. The royal commission did nothing!

Lost money – Iaround actually lost around $ 15600 with Esssential super in two months. I called them and they said they have invested my moniey in share market which went down. I am still loosing money every day from my super account. I dont where to seek help

so far so good – Im with Commbank essential super and so far its been a good journey. The sad part is that they have stopped providing this service to new customers. So far Im very satisfied with their services.

Verry happy – I rolled over my super to commonwealth becase it was doing terrible elsewhere and they gave me clear options of what would be best for me well explaind easy to understand and it works fine for me they were verry friendly and determined to do their best for me they're a huge company and they here to stay

A rip off – UPDATED 9TH Feb 2025 I wanted to update this as i switched from this super to an industry fund (aus super). CBA seemed to give me good results for 1 year and then nothing for the following years.. i had to leave them. Aus costs a bit more but the results are much much better - CBA is basically a rip off. Apologies for anyone that i may have… Read more

convinced to join CBA.

--------------

I used to always place my super in a company super fund as i was always told the performance was so great and the company would be paying all the fees. I was always suprised that my super didn't increase much except for the contributions i made myself. For years i was with Mercer and Amp in the corporate super funds.

When i finally had time to sit down and work the numbers - these big super giants were robbing me blind.. huge admin fees disguised as something else. These big funds look good on paper but the members do not get the quoted returns as the fees are so large. They tell you that your company is paying the fees - but i would urge all employees to check their statements as you will see that not all is paid for.

Commbank offers a transparent, easy to check service and my returns have been about 9% a year averaged over the last 3 years.. the charge $5 a month. Well done CB!

Very good so far! – After being with two separate industry funds for many years I decided to consolidate my Super and open a Commbank Essential Super account. The main reason I chose CommBank was the convenience of having my Super and everyday banking in one place. The process of consolidating was very easy. I had been told I would not get as good returns with… Read more

CommBank as my previous funds but so far that is not the case.

Highly recommend, especially for current Commonwealth banking customers for the pure convenience.

Biggest nightmare and won’t accept responsibility for their own mistakes – Have lost all faith after transferring some of my Super to them. Met all necessary requirements as had been unable to work for 12 months. Rang to ask how to transfer from another fund to them and was told by I believe their coffee boy that I needed to wait until my new account with them showed up in my MyGov account to transfer. Was told should… Read more

show up within a few days and if not to phone MyGov to query. Waited required time, rang MyGov and was told this in fact was totally incorrect and that the Super Funds only report to MyGov on 31 October each year and if needed earlier Super Fund must request for it to be shown. Called Comm Super back and spoke to someone other than the coffee boy who said it was no problems and he could do it on the spot. Because of the coffee boys advice my request to withdraw was held up by which time my partner had moved from a part time to permanent position just exceeding the threshold for a payment to me that fortnight. Was refused by Comm Super who then blamed Centrelink. Sent all supporting documentation including dates and times of phone calls and benefits paid. Still not fixed. So now I should lose everything including my car whose loan is with Commonwealth as well as awaiting probable diagnosis of M.S. and having to endure pain, tremors, loss of mobility, vision and hearing difficulties. Thanks Comm Super for nothing except losing everything.