''He was an intelligent boy who worked out how to cheat the system and play it for all it was worth,'' said the mother who, along with her son, cannot be named for legal reasons. ''As his parent and legal guardian, I begged the banks to stop giving him accounts and debit cards but each time I got nowhere because of the Privacy Act.'' She said her suspicions were aroused four years ago when her son began spending lavishly. ''I found a log book listing thousands of dollars worth of transactions with eBay customers, all of whom had deposited money into his bank accounts for non-existent laptops, mobile phones and watches,'' she said. The boy, now 19, had opened the bank accounts with ease once he had secured his first with the Commonwealth Bank by deception. ''He strolled into a branch one day and, armed with a birth certificate and a friend over the age of 18 who claimed to be his guardian, they gave him an account,'' his mother said. ''Once he secured that, he was able to accumulate cheque and Visa debit accounts with many other financial institutions including Westpac, the Bank of Queensland, ANZ, Credit Union Australia and the Hume Building Society.'' Police eventually swooped on the boy in school after many of the frauds were linked to an IP address attached to a classroom computer.

By then, however, the teenager had devised another bank-related scam. His mother said: ''He began placing small amounts of cash on his many debit cards, followed by instant large withdrawals. The flaw in the system is that you can go $1500 overdrawn before they shut down the account. He didn't care. The moment one got closed, it was his cue to open another. It became an addiction.'' In the meantime, the boy lived a playboy lifestyle with shopping sprees in which he would buy Versace and Prada clothes and Louis Vuitton luggage. He flew groups of friends interstate for weekend-long parties in rented luxury apartments and lavished teenage female friends with pampering sessions. He began living the life of a celebrity, booking penthouses overlooking Sydney Harbour that cost $4300 a night and hiring limousines to take him to the beach. ''There I was, a single mum of two, desperately struggling to put food on the table. He, meanwhile, would stroll in after feasting at the latest fancy restaurant of his choice and chuck me leftovers in a plastic tub.'' In her endeavour to seek help for her son and halt his bank card addiction, the mother said she contacted teachers, principals, counsellors, doctors, travel centres, limousine companies, motels, hotels, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the banking ombudsman and MPs. ''But each time, I was told the only people who could end this madness were the banks. To this day, they refuse to acknowledge it was their accounts being used to launder money, and their overdrafts to commit more crime.''

In the past four years, she has reluctantly handed her son to the police 15 times, leading to many spells in juvenile detention centres. ''He spent his 18th and 19th birthdays in adult prison due to parole breaches. He was assaulted so badly during one of those spells, I thought he would die in there.'' Underneath the exterior, her son was an ''insecure boy out to impress'', she said. ''Once he'd become 'Mr Popular', his biggest fear was that everyone would desert him if the cash dried up. Today of course most of those so-called friends have disappeared because they were hangers-on. It's destroyed him.'' Unless she finds a lawyer to take on the case pro bono, she will be forced to represent herself when the case returns to court next month.

She has found an ally, though, in NSW Police Senior Constable Dave Henderson who, in 2008, charged her son with almost 20 separate incidents of fraud. In a letter to the Commonwealth Bank in February 2009, Senior Constable Henderson said the boy's mother had ''done all she can to stop him reoffending'', adding he was ''an extreme risk of reoffending with more fraud matters''. He said: ''I believe the Commonwealth Bank should seriously consider any decision to grant him any sort of account.'' The boy has not committed an offence for more than a year but in his mother's mind, the damage is done and their relationship remains volatile. ''He was a vulnerable child in desperate need of help but because the banks only recognised me as a third party, I could do nothing.'' she said. When contacted by The Sun-Herald, all four banks confirmed they would be defending their position but declined to comment further because the matter is before the courts. eduff@sunherald.com.au