A Queensland cattle farmer has claimed “jerks” and “bullies” from agricultural lender Rabobank pressured her into borrowing millions to buy a farm in a transaction that ended in disaster and “nearly wrecked” her.

In a dramatic and emotional day at the banking royal commission, Wendy Brauer spoke of her shock when the bank shed its “fluffy” exterior and behaved ruthlessly when floods ravaged the property.

Ms Brauer said she become “clinically depressed” and that her relationship with her husband and children suffered as a result of Rabobank’s action.

Overall, the counsel assisting’s line of questioning painted a picture of a bank with an aggressive sales culture and an incentives system that put sales targets ahead of the human impact of their policies.

In 2010, Ms Brauer and her husband Adrian – at that stage living temporarily in the US – were approached by their bank manager at Rabobank about the sale of a farm adjacent to their existing cattle farm 280 kilometres from Rockhampton in Queensland.

The commission heard that the Brauer’s bank manager sent them emails strongly encouraging the sale, providing them with a huge amount of information about it. The Brauers were persuaded and bought the property for $2.9 million.

But a few months later in the summer of 2010-11 massive floods devastated the property, forcing the tenant to leave the farm and leaving the Brauers with no income from the farm, and with no obvious means to service the debt.

The Brauers promptly returned from the US, and attempted to address the “dire” situation, expecting their bank manager – who had always been helpful – to be understanding and supportive.

But instead they found two new managers had been appointed who she said were completely unsympathetic, informing the Brauers that they had to pay back $3 million in full within two years.

She said the new managers were intimidating, describing one as a “bully” and saying she was surprised he “wasn’t carrying a baseball bat”.

“I was frightened, panicked. How were we going to do this? And then I was mad. Because we’re farmers, that’s what we’re good at. And their business is money. And we trusted them.”

She said the demand to pay back the $3 million in such a short time came as a surprise, and had never been part of the deal when they had bought the property.

Ms Brauer said they finally managed to pay the $3 million by refinancing the property through a bridging loan with a private lender at 9 per cent interest, and then refinancing that through NAB.

The whole thing left them $1 million worse off, she said.

“I was depressed – clinically so. I was mad. I still am. I’m really mad,” Ms Brauer said.

“I recommended those jerks to other people, and said what a great experience they were and how understanding they were. I trusted them.

“They put us backwards. They came hunting for us. They came looking for us to buy this block and 12 months later they wanted us to pay back more than we borrowed. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

After Ms Brauer’s evidence, a Rabobank executive Brady James took to the stand.

He revealed that the bank manager who had recommended the purchase had been behind on his annual target of $15 million of loans a year. If he missed this target, he would not receive his bonus.

When asked if it was Rabobank’s policy to actively encourage purchases of this sort, he said it was something the bank “would do with caution”.

“As a general practice I would not encourage it. It could go towards advice, and we are very much a non-advice model.”

He added in this case there was a conflict of interest, and the manager should not have promoted the purchase.

However, he was unapologetic about financially rewarding bank managers for meeting sales targets, which he said allowed the bank “to grow [its] business through increased lending”.

Late in the day it emerged Rabobank’s Sydney office had concerns about the loan to the Brauers early in the piece. More will be heard about this on Thursday morning.