Craig Harwood, Author.

Craig has had successful sporting and business careers and has now authored the book When Banks Go Bad.

In the last 3 years Craig has become an expert in helping people recover money wrongly taken from them by banks and this book exposes the many ways everyday consumers and small business people have unknowingly been ripped off by an industry that is largely unsupervised.

 Craig was successful in sports as a Champion Motorcycle Racer. Successes included a lap record at Mount Panorama Bathurst and being issued an international license to ride World Championship Grand Prix events.

In business Craig was equally successful, winning many business awards including:

•  Regional Family Business of The Year Gold Coast,
• The Gold Award for Quality,
• Finalist - Queensland Exporter of the Year (3 times),
• Winner - Queensland Export of the Year
• Finalist Australian Exporter of the Year.

Craig’s business success was smashed after a dispute with Westpac cost him his business and his home. He has now started rebuilding and along the way is determined to expose what our major banks have been up to.

Craig’s Westpac Story

In 2003 Craig and his father had a very successful business that had been the recipient of many government awards along with several State and Federal Government grants.

After a dispute with Westpac involving allegations of Westpac operating in Deceptive and Misleading manner the situation became dramatically worse. Unbeknown to Craig Westpac had entered into a deal involving one of the company’s competitors. Then despite coming to an agreement just days before to settle the matter, the bank reneged on the agreement,  and appointed a receiver to the business.

Overnight all the assets were sold to a competitor for less than half their value without advertising them or having a public sale.

Surprisingly the banks often have rights to call in loans with little or no notice and its something that all small businesses have to be aware of. What they do not have the right to do is sell assets off to their friends at a fraction of the real value without an open sale or advertising the assets for sale.

This case is yet to be settled and it was during investigating the banks actions and looking for similar cases that Craig unearthed the huge issues that existed within Westpac and other banks.

Craig found a raft of issues, from cases similar to his own, to wide scale practices that members of the legal profession have labeled illegal, all being carried out under the nose of regulators who until now have refused to investigate.

Craig is now forming a consumer and small business action group to assist people who have been wronged by the banks. Profits from the book will go to establishing this consumer group.