Ulster Bank Systems are down part 3 *READ* First post

wonski

anfield liv wrote: »

The saga continues...part 300000000 ans counting!!!

Made TWO PNONECALLS in last hour:

Call 1 : HSE: 'Your missing salary is not our problem.....Ulster Bank are at fault and they should not be blaming us.

Call 2: Ulster Bank: me: 'where is my missing salary from weeks back.....
UB; Did hse PAY IT?
Me: Yes ,I have the payslip...and seemingly can withdraw all my money if I want to but this will mess up my a/c even further .....and furthermore I'm fed up listening to the media saying all is sorted regarding UB..

UB: All is not sorted,Hse payments are among some of the work we are dealing with now and accounts will be up to date by Monday 16THJuly

Me: If I go to ATM on Monday 16TH July my a/c will show my long awaited HSE salary!??
UB: Yes,everything WILL be up to date
Me: Thank You,enjoy your weekend of work!!!
UB: Thank you for your call

Just off the phone with UB - the guy quickly said it is going to be in on Monday??? He did not know who i am, and when my pay was due???
He just said Monday. And yes, he is 100% sure it is going to be in on Monday...
Now, i made another call to their regular number, using phone banking, and it is not exactly the same. I was told to call if it is not in my account on Monday...
Now, when i asked what is going to happen, what the procedure will be on Monday if money is not in my account, he said he didn't know...

Thank You Ulster Bank.
I do hope we all get sorted on Monday 16th, as they claim.
But bear in mind they don't know what to do if we don't get sorted by then...

skippydoo20

What baffles me is that the HSE have posted nothing on their website since 5th July about it all. It's like the missing salaries have been forgotten about.
Whether or not its HSE fault, they should be updating and reassuring their staff that they will get paid. Surely they can't just wash their hands of it?? Its was originally HSE money to be paid to their staff. Surely that deserves some follow up by the HSE???

mathie

UB put through a standing order that I cancelled last week.
Well done lads.
My account is now massively overdrawn.

I no longer get my pay put into Ulster Bank now.

Now if you want that money back you can pay me expenses to get it back to you.

My hourly rate is 500 euro.

leeroybrown

Everyone should do what I'm doing. Move your savings and future business elsewhere then make sure you write a customer complaint stating that you're doing this and why. Banks won't cop up unless customers punish them.

Eblana12

I have just noticed that UB have transferred money from one of my accounts to another without me asking them to do it (this is not a transaction that I have ever ever gotten them to do in the past - I always lodge a cheque or do it online myself so I don't know what they think they are doing but there will be hell to pay next week when I get on to them). The lodgement that I had put in has also show up as well with the result one account is overdrawn and the other has nearly a grand in it (conveniently for them they have moved it from an account with a visa/debit to an account, leaving that overdrawn with a card that is useless, in the account that I have no card for). I guess I am going to have to spend yet another Saturday queuing up in a branch to get my money back off them.

Has anyone else noticed that the transactions/mistakes all seem to be done in such a way as to stop access to funds from an ATM and force customers into branch.

DUBACC

It's actually staggering how inept and incompetent they have been at this stage! I mentioned before on here that i had been charged a whole pile of 12.70's and that i was waiting on my mortgage to go out. Well it went out and bounced back in again and the feckin mortgage is with Ulster Bank!
One thing has happened though - they paid all the charges back to me which is welcome but as of now i still have no idea what happened to the money lodged with them on 20th June. It still hasnt popped up yet. Lodged more in on the 25th to cover said mortgage and that cam up with a lodgment date of 10th July, after the mortgage was due.
Business account is screwed too - i've had to withdraw cash from my credit card to pay staff this week. Any compensation mentioned appears to be purely the refund of all fees. This is an absolute outrage - i nearly lost a couple of clients because of this week's to-ing and fro-ing with the branch to get wages sorted. I have applied to another bank to get my business account moved there as of Monday next.

Eblana12

DUBACC wrote: »

Business account is screwed too - i've had to withdraw cash from my credit card to pay staff this week. Any compensation mentioned appears to be purely the refund of all fees. This is an absolute outrage - i nearly lost a couple of clients because of this week's to-ing and fro-ing with the branch to get wages sorted. I have applied to another bank to get my business account moved there as of Monday next.

I am horrified at this, even if your business account is mucked up they should have been able to give you cash for wages. My business account is way outside of terms because I still have missing lodgements. I have rung/emailed my business rep and been given access to cash no bother to cover wages and to pay some suppliers who won't accept UB cheques at the moment (they have never once asked me whether I have lodgements etc. to cover it). Admittedly it is going to be a bit of a mess trying to square up the cash withdrawals with the accountant and I will be asking UB for a signed letter detailing all the cash transactions to put on my accounts file with the accountant in case of a Revenue audit.

jojofizzio

skippydoo20 wrote: »

What baffles me is that the HSE have posted nothing on their website since 5th July about it all. It's like the missing salaries have been forgotten about.
Whether or not its HSE fault, they should be updating and reassuring their staff that they will get paid. Surely they can't just wash their hands of it?? Its was originally HSE money to be paid to their staff. Surely that deserves some follow up by the HSE???

We got an internal e-mail from the HSE at lunchtime,saying that outstanding payments would be made tonight Friday,available for withdrawal from ATMs from 7am Saturday and reflected account balances online from Monday July 16th...time will tell

skippydoo20

jojofizzio wrote: »

We got an internal e-mail from the HSE at lunchtime,saying that outstanding payments would be made tonight Friday,available for withdrawal from ATMs from 7am Saturday and reflected account balances online from Monday July 16th...time will tell

Keeping everything crossed we see this money this weekend. So sick of waiting :mad:

MrVestek

wonski wrote: »

Achilles wrote: »

http://www.financialombudsman.ie/making-a-complaint/

It clearly says you have to complain to your bank first...
They will do nothing before you try to discuss your case with Ulster.
After Ulster fails to compensate you, you can start process with FSO.

Right... Which is exactly what I've done. Are people really lazy enough to allow themselves to be fucked over like this and just not bother?

Our man in Havana

Achilles wrote: »

Right... Which is exactly what I've done. Are people really lazy enough to allow themselves to be fucked over like this and just not bother?

It is the Irish way.

Solair

Is there no law requiring a bank to keep accurate accounts?

If you think the data on your account is invalid, inaccurate or being created after some forensic process to balance the books, I think you should contact the Data Protection Commissioner.

If in doubt, you are also probably entitled to get an explanation (in writing) as to how they arrived at these transactions that they are posting if you need to query something. The data has to come from somewhere.

http://www.dataprotection.ie/

Islander13

Our man in Havana wrote: »

It is the Irish way.

Nothing to do with Irish or otherwise. I was inconvenienced by not getting salary for 2 weeks etc. like many. However, not sure what running to the ombudsman achieves now. I don't feel entitled to compensation as it was only an inconvenience. The ombudsman is fully aware of the issue. Waste of my, theirs and the Banks time. We have better things in life to do..

Like post on boards about the issue

donal.hunt

Is there a summary of what services are still seeing delays?

My reading of the current FAQ suggests that electronic transfers from UB to other banks are still affected but there is no indication if that is hours, days or weeks.

anyone know?

Solair

Islander13 wrote: »

Nothing to do with Irish or otherwise. I was inconvenienced by not getting salary for 2 weeks etc. like many. However, not sure what running to the ombudsman achieves now. I don't feel entitled to compensation as it was only an inconvenience. The ombudsman is fully aware of the issue. Waste of my, theirs and the Banks time. We have better things in life to do..

Like post on boards about the issue

That's a minor inconvenience if you've got funds in savings or can access credit via an overdraft or credit cards. A lot of people live pay cheque to pay cheque and can be in serious trouble if they are missing funds.

All recent household income surveys here would show that a significant number of households are at the pin of their collar. So, to do this to people like that is absolutely horrendous and very frightening. It puts people in a position where they've got to borrow from friends, money lenders, bounce bills, and all sorts of chaos ensues.

What Ulster Bank did was pretty scary and a lot of people will see it as a hell of a lot more than a minor issue.

Also, it seems quite a lot of customers had payments delayed much longer than just two weeks.

Frankly, O2 in the UK did more grovelling over a barely 24-hour long glitch in their telecoms network than Ulster Bank / RBS did over this.

I also think O2 handled the communications much better and provided rapid, accurate technical explanations and huge amounts of status updates about exactly what was going on and how long it would take to fix.

Ulster Bank just left customers (and local staff) dangling with no explanations and kept spinning a line that it was going to be resolved quickly. Self-imposed deadline after deadline passed without a successful resolution.

The fact that this is still going on after nearly four weeks is just beyond belief.

Berty

Took out the balance today, checked boi and this weeks wages have arrived. Card should arrive monday so the small bit left from the UB will cover the weekend. Paid off credit balance today. Handed over my card(credit), signed a form and left.

Kept current account open for want of some compensation.

chasm

Received an up-to-date statement from my credit union today and compared it to my online UB a/c and it's left me with a question that i hope someone here can answer.
My standing order to the CU goes out on a Monday and since i moved to UB the CU usually receives it the following day.
My Payments are listed as follows:

UB online statement C/Union
18/06 19/06
25/06 06/07
02/06 10/07
09/07 12/07

Now, the dates that UB have listed on line ARE the dates that the standing order was due to be paid but they were not paid on those dates. So, should UB not have to list the correct date that the standing order was taken and not the date it was supposed to be taken?

anfield liv

It is beyond horrendous how people are being treated ...............in UK the Bank heads were called in and told to sort the issue within a week when this first happened or their banking licence would be revoked...............the bankers had it sorted in two days!!!,in Ireland it was different,no pressure put on any bank leaders except a token Oireachtas gesture after 3 weeks to encourage UB to give free banking 'til Dec 12.(and not dealing with us people waiting for our wages for 3 wks)
One other point I'd like to raise was the one in which I could go to the UB with my payslip and withdraw money,the money came out of my account and messed it up....the correct way of dealing with such withdrawals would have been to take all monies out of a central fund and then go back and key the relevant sums to individual a/cs when the mess was sorted.The way they have done it leaves the individual open to all sorts of charges that may go on for 3-4 months.
I suggest also that all complaints go to HEAD OFFICE and not to the branch as H.O.wants us to do.......my branch were wonderful and I would not say a negative word against them so why should I write a letter of complaint to them.I have already written to H.O and will do so again over the w'end requesting my life back after not being paid for 3 weeks!

Our man in Havana

I agree. Write to head office and let them deal with the complaints. I have no beef with the local staff.

phormium

Their complaints system is set up so that all issues need to be logged through the branch network and are then escalated to head office, it's easier if you just follow the procedure then you will get a final answer, otherwise it will just get lost in space.

Solair

It's amazing that people are being so patient with them to be honest.

If this happened in the US the lawyers would be having a field day.
If it happened in France the branches and HQ would have been picketed.
I wouldn't like to even contemplate what might have happened if it'd occurred in Greece!
If it happened in Germany etc the regulators would have probably taken them to task very very severely.

Do Irish people just have a huge tolerance for absolute incompetence?

Our man in Havana

This is not a branch issue. I have no reason to trouble them.

chasm

Solair wrote: »

It's amazing that people are being so patient with them to be honest.

If this happened in the US the lawyers would be having a field day.
If it happened in France the branches and HQ would have been picketed.
I wouldn't like to even contemplate what might have happened if it'd occurred in Greece!

Do Irish people just have a huge tolerance for absolute incompetence?

Incompetence has become the norm in this country unfortunately

Solair

Our man in Havana wrote: »

This is not a branch issue. I have no reason to trouble them.

I agree with that. It feels like RBS HQ is pushing a problem caused at the highest level down the line to the front line staff in branches.

Ulster Bank HQ staff didn't even seem to have any technical information about what was going on as the problem allegedly occurred in Edinburgh.

From what I could see the staff knew no more than the customers did. They were left totally high and dry in an almost impossible situation.

My question is WHY didn't the Irish HQs know what was going on. Regardless of who owns the bank, where their IT systems are located, the bank should have been able to respond much more effectively than it did.

The bank's organisational problems are really not the customers' problems and while I am sorry for the staff on the front line, it still doesn't excuse the mess created by the bank itself.

It also makes me wonder if, in this era of ever-increasingly complex IT systems, whether the financial regulators (possibly at EU level) will also have to fully audit bank IT infrastructure. A transaction system failing like this is an absolutely disastrous situation.

chasm

Regarding complaints, during the week i received an email from my local branch in relation to a previous complaint(concern) and was informed of the following:

"As our systems are down since the 20th of June our concerns system has been manual but we hope to have all systems up and running asap"

So Maybe Head Office is the best place to lodge your complaint!

booth70

Update sent this afternoon by the HSE


UPDATE FROM ULSTER BANK FOR PAYEES OF HSE - FRIDAY  13TH JULY
HSE payees who are Ulster Bank customers
In the Republic of Ireland the majorit y of Ulster Bank systems are showing account balances for customers as of morning Friday 13 July 2012. These balances include transactions processed normally this week as well as ‘Over the Counter’ transactions which had been delayed due to our system issues.

Payments originally submitted for payment on 6th July were processed overnight and are reflected in customer accounts this morning.

However, there are still payments remaining, to both HSE staff and suppliers, which have yet to be reflected in customer account balances, including payments originally scheduled for the 21st and 28th of June. The bank's technology team continue to giv e this their highest priority. Ulster Bank are now working to include these payments in our overnight processing, so that cash should be available at ATMs from 7:00AM on Saturday 14th July, though the customer accounts balances will only reflect this payment on Monday 16th July.

Ulster Bank continue to have arrangements in place to ensure HSE staff who are customers of Ulster Bank have access to their money. Please visit an Ulster Bank branch bringing your photographic ID, HSE payslip and account details with you.

HSE staff who are Ulster Bank credit card holders can also access cash using our cash advance service. Ulster Bank will waive the cash advance fee and interest for Ulster Bank credit card holders who use their credit card to access cash during the current incident.

HSE payees who are non-Ulster Bank customers
All payments that were due to be credited should now be available to HSE payees.

Ulster Bank would like to unreservedly apologise to all staff and suppliers of the HSE who have been im pacted by our technical issues.

anfield liv

So they are giving it their highest priority.......imagine if HSE staff did the same to them and left them sitting for 3 weeks!!!!!

So tomorrow Saturday the 14 July we may,should,might .....but will not see the salary in our a/cs until maybe ,possibly ,NO GUARANTEE Monday...

SEEING is believing and ITS the same SH1T they are telling us for the last 3 weeks.I'm AFRAID ALL THEY ARE DOING IS AGAIN TELLING US TO GO TO THE BRANCH TOMORROW MORNING AND THEY WILL butcher OUR ACCOUNT IF WE NEED MONEY.

Its (the wages) in the a/c or its not!!:mad::rolleyes:

MrVestek

Islander13 wrote: »

Nothing to do with Irish or otherwise. I was inconvenienced by not getting salary for 2 weeks etc. like many. However, not sure what running to the ombudsman achieves now. I don't feel entitled to compensation as it was only an inconvenience. The ombudsman is fully aware of the issue. Waste of my, theirs and the Banks time. We have better things in life to do..

Like post on boards about the issue

I'm sorry but that exact attitude is what's wrong with this country. If the Ombudsman receives enough complaints they'd have to officially launch an independent investigation into the entire fiasco... you don't want them to be sanctioned for the fact that they looked after RBS customers (bigger customer base) and businesses (much higher revenues) before regular joes in Ireland... who earn them the least amount of cash?

They are dragging their heels pure and simple even if it does have to all be done manually... if you ask me if a company can't operate as a bank and have a feck up to this magnitude their license to bank in this country should be revoked.

MrVestek

Also don't forget that whilst all this cash that's unaccounted for is sitting in some holding account somewhere it's earning the bank ALOT of money in interest.

MrVestek

anfield liv wrote: »

It is beyond horrendous how people are being treated ...............in UK the Bank heads were called in and told to sort the issue within a week when this first happened or their banking licence would be revoked...............the bankers had it sorted in two days!!!,in Ireland it was different,no pressure put on any bank leaders except a token Oireachtas gesture after 3 weeks to encourage UB to give free banking 'til Dec 12.(and not dealing with us people waiting for our wages for 3 wks)
One other point I'd like to raise was the one in which I could go to the UB with my payslip and withdraw money,the money came out of my account and messed it up....the correct way of dealing with such withdrawals would have been to take all monies out of a central fund and then go back and key the relevant sums to individual a/cs when the mess was sorted.The way they have done it leaves the individual open to all sorts of charges that may go on for 3-4 months.
I suggest also that all complaints go to HEAD OFFICE and not to the branch as H.O.wants us to do.......my branch were wonderful and I would not say a negative word against them so why should I write a letter of complaint to them.I have already written to H.O and will do so again over the w'end requesting my life back after not being paid for 3 weeks!

This is the exact reason that I'm trying to get people to do the sensible thing and complain the ombudsman... what the hell has happened in this country?

Our government feck us over and we do nothing... stuff like this happens and we do nothing...

The Irish had fight in them once for what was right... have we all just turned in to lazy moaners?