The number of participants to Australia's largest class-action suit rose to 170,000 after 6,000 Bankwest customers joined on Thursday the lawsuit. With the inclusion of the 6,600 the pool of fees in the legal dispute went up to more than $220 million.

Law firm Maurice Blackburn filed the complaint on behalf of the Bankwest customers. Paul Gillett, senior associate of the law firm, said the 6,600 who just joined the law suit is just the tip of the iceberg.

"There is a type of behavior here that we say is common to all banks, and that is that they tried to throw their weight around," The Australian quoted Mr Gillett.

The complainants said that the Australian banks such as Bankwest, ANZ, Bank SA, Citibank, Commonwealth, National Australia Bank, St George and Westpac charge excessive and unenforceable fees. ANZ accounts for $50 million of the disputed fees pool and Commonwealth $56 million.

Although most of the Australian banks have withdrawn or reduced their disputed fees, Bankwest charges businesses that have overdrawn on their accounts fees that range from $37 to $45, and personal customers are charged late fees of $35.

The amount involved in late credit card repayment fees and dishonoured fees charged by Bankwest to the 6,600 complaining customers in the past six years is estimated at $10 million. Maurice Blackburn insisted that it should be returned to customers.

With that amount, the lawyers plan to get back up to $1,500 each for the 6,600 Bankwest complainants, half of whom are from Western Australia.

Three other Aussies banks were considered possible targets of the class-action suit, but there are indicators that it would escape legal action. These are the Bank of Queensland, Bendigo & Adelaide Bank and Suncorp. Mr Gillett explained that the number of people affected by the action of each bank is not significantly large enough to pursue a class action.

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