BOI vs AIB vs Ulster Bank

themiso

Well I've had some trouble with Bank of Ireland (first that they didn't even give me proper ATM card, than more) so I went to AIB and closed my account with BOI. AIB was treating me like dirt (literally). I've to say I've no debt or credit card, all I have is current account (no overdraft) and savings. So I do not owe banks a cent. Anyway, I don't have huge savings so it's probably not enough to treat me as valued customer. So I closed account (after 2 years) and went to Ulster.

Ulster Bank is nice to me, however I had some serious trouble in recent days with them. On top of that my Visa card was locked (as I found out due to booking of hotel in Kuala Lumpur, like it's something extremely unusual.. so how can I go to Malaysia and pay for a meal in restaurant with Visa if they consider transactions from Asia as suspicious? If they would at least inform me that they locked the card but I had to find out on my own, not to mention embarrassment it might cause). Due to that I will travel with lots of cash as I can't trust this Visa card (who knows if it works now ...)


Anyway maybe I am taking this too seriously and overreacting to troubles that I have with banks (but banking is serious thing i guess...)

the point is ... what now ?

Is there a bank that would act fairly, is able to do things properly (such as foreign currency (Ulster Bank - waiting 1 month), and is able to communicate with a customer? (AIB went there 6 times (Monday - Friday, again Monday, I was told somebody gonna ring me the same day, nobody did)..

Is it too much to ask?

I think that is the price for free banking ... and hopefully few banks would go bust and proper (maybe from Germany?) banks would start their business in Ireland.

unclebill98

From a UB point of view.

Freezing your card is for your own protection. They would have tried calling on the number you provided and that's on their system.

As for it happening again, like with any bank telling them your going away to places like that is a good thing. When you do you should not have any more issues. Nothing more than a simple phone call will unlock a card.

If you try multiple ATMs while away the card will lock also.

As for the foreign. Ordering currency that's not the norm will always have a waiting period. That period should be no longer than two weeks.

With that in mind I'm sure all the other banks have similar way of doing things.

themiso

unclebill98 wrote: »

From a UB point of view.

Freezing your card is for your own protection. They would have tried calling on the number you provided and that's on their system.

As for it happening again, like with any bank telling them your going away to places like that is a good thing. When you do you should not have any more issues. Nothing more than a simple phone call will unlock a card.

If you try multiple ATMs while away the card will lock also.

As for the foreign. Ordering currency that's not the norm will always have a waiting period. That period should be no longer than two weeks.

With that in mind I'm sure all the other banks have similar way of doing things.

I've already raised the issue with the bank, I haven't received any call from my bank about freezing my card, which was based on transaction a week ago and I can't imagine doing my shopping for example in Tesco and finding out the transaction didn't go through even tho I have enough money on my account. That would be really embarrassing. I have my phone with me 24 hours a day ...

To foreign currency I ordered it by phone calling my branch and I was told it would take 2 weeks (as you mentioned). After 2 weeks and few days I rang Ulster to ask whether they have it or not yet and I was told there is nobody there at the moment to speak with me so she took my number (gave her 2 phone number just in case) and said somebody will ring me. 2 days later nothing so I rang again to be informed there is no order for foreign currency. So I had to wait again 2 weeks.

I guess I've bad luck for banks

f9710145

I don't think there's a perfect bank. A few years ago because of problems we were having with NIB, we switched to BOI. The same week I met someone who, because of useless BOI was switching their account to NIB.