First Active-ARGH!

Lollipops23

I became a customer of this bank in september 2007;not out choice really,i got an inheritence and a friend of the family works for them, he looked after my investments. the remainder went in a savings account.

all was grand til the end of april this yr, my purse got nicked along with my cards. I rang that night to cancel my first active,along with my BOI laser and credit cards. within 2-3 working days my BOI cards arrived, no need to change my PINs, all was good. several days later my First Active one arrived,along with a stub i had to sign and send back to acknowledge receipt. did that. heard nothing.

rang about a week later to ask if my card was good to go, the guy says it should be, try it once in a machine. i did this and got told it was a wrong PIN. I rang back and got told, "Oh no no,you should have gotten a new PIN around the same time as the new card" I say nope,never got it. They send a new one.

The following Monday, i get 2 letters in the post, niether of which has a PIN in the little scratch-off box. Got very annoyed. Rang them and got "oh yeah,we had a problem with the machine that makes them, it keeps sending out blank PIN letters." Right,says I, let's get this sorted. Now while all of this was going on I was getting shunted around varios departments, being promised call-backs that never came etc.

Last Tuesday they finally said they'd send a new PIN. Letter arrives today, no PIN in box AGAIN. I'm furious. Im sick of being treated like crap by this crowd. I rang again, lost the rag completely. All they could do was offer to give me a bank draft of my savings. I swear to god if there weren't penalties for taking out investments early i'd be out of there so fast. i mean, banks are having a bad enough rep as it is and then they don't even try to keep their customers happy.

bcirl03

Have you considered going into the bank, closing the account and moving your money to another bank?

Lollipops23

i am doing that with my savings,can't do it with my investments as i'll incur penalities if i take them out before their time.

daheff

Outline your concerns to their customer service department and ask for a FINAL RESPONSE letter from them. If this is not acceptable lodge a complaint with the financial ombudsman


send it to

To: Ms Angela Kelly,
Head of Customer Relations,
First Active Plc.,
PO Box 145,
33 College Green,
Dublin 2

smelltheglove

I heard today from an insider that they will close their retail outlets on July 21st I think and that since they have been taken over by Ulster Bank which is now Bank of Scotland, or somthing along those lines this person will be finishing at the end of the year. Now the way I look at it is, I would rather have my money in a stable bank rather than one going through the process of transfer or any messing around like that.

My recommendation is take the money out and send it over to BOI or Permanent TSB, both of which I deal with and have no problems.

I paid off a mortgage early and although somewhere in the T&C it said I would be liable for a charge up to 5k no charge was applied to the account s you might get lucky.

dudara

Moved to Banking & Insurance & Pensions

dudara

unclebill98

I have seen about 3 of the so called blank pin letter and none of them where actually blank at all. The pin section had been rubbed to hard by the customer and they erased the pin.

The bank changed its paper that the pin number comes on and its a major problem thats being fixed.

Believe me, if this was a problem it would have been said to all branches by the relevant department.

But as daheff said thats the best course of action.

stepbar

I have to agree with the OP - First Active are crap. I opened an account with them a while back. That was fine until I needed a card reader. I think I must have got 2 cards and 2 pins before the card reader worked. Lets put it this way, you wouldn't want to be stuck.

BuffyBot

smelltheglove wrote: »

I heard today from an insider that they will close their retail outlets on July 21st I think and that since they have been taken over by Ulster Bank which is now Bank of Scotland, or somthing along those lines this person will be finishing at the end of the year. Now the way I look at it is, I would rather have my money in a stable bank rather than one going through the process of transfer or any messing around like that.

They've been owned by Ulster Bank/Royal Bank of Scotland for years now. They're phasing out the First Active brand and merging it with Ulster Bank, that's all. So what this comment is related to, and the price of turnips, one can only speculate..

can't do it with my investments as i'll incur penalities if i take them out before their time.

Leave them there, then. A card-account surely has nothing to do with your investments, however? Move all of that business away if you're not happy.

However, the most logical answer is the one unclebill98. It speaks volumes about their choice of methods, but like most things the end user has to take some responsibility too (be scratching too hard, or allowing inertia to stop them moving elsewhere).

ferga_com

smelltheglove wrote: »

I heard today from an insider that they will close their retail outlets on July 21st I think and that since they have been taken over by Ulster Bank which is now Bank of Scotland, or somthing along those lines this person will be finishing at the end of the year. Now the way I look at it is, I would rather have my money in a stable bank rather than one going through the process of transfer or any messing around like that.

Erm...First Active have been part of the Ulster Bank group since January 2004. The Ulster Bank Group has been a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland since March 2000. First Active wrote to all their customers about four months ago, and announced through the press that they are merging First Active operations into Ulster Bank and getting rid of the First Active brand. In areas where there are both First Active and Ulster Bank offices, the First Active one will close. Otherwise the First Active branches will become Ulster Bank ones.

Your insider isn't exactly passing you the latest trade secrets then...

ferga_com

That said, my personal experience as a First Active customer has almost invariably been poor, sometimes dreadful.

Lollipops23

unclebill98 wrote: »

I have seen about 3 of the so called blank pin letter and none of them where actually blank at all. The pin section had been rubbed to hard by the customer and they erased the pin.

fraid not.with the 3rd PIN i was even more careful with it just in case i was damaging them. seriously i literally brushed the 5c coin off the little box, there's no way in hell i rubbed too hard.as i say, i use BOI too and have gotten PINs from them over the years(like 2) and never once had a problem.

Lollipops23

just to bring this thread up to speed: i sent their customer relations dept an angry letter and detailed every step of this sorry saga. have gotten 3 letters from them telling me that they are still looking into the problems and to ring if i have any questions. i had all but forgotten it all when i got a letter this morning telling me that they have credited my acc 100quid for the inconvenience!stunned!!!

sitstill

I've had an account with First Active for many years. since I was a kid and found them to be great. I'm actually upset to be seeing the brand disappear.

unclebill98

See, banks are not all that bad :L

Toots

Hope they get your card issue sorted so you can get the €100 out!