AIB charges refunded for a while

zagmund

Last year I moved everything from BoI (customer of ~30 years) to AIB for a number of reasons, starting with the money back on the credit card bit and ending with the fact that AIB customer service was way ahead of BoI.

The next week AIB introduced their current account charges or modified them such that it was almost impossible to avoid. I wasn't impressed, but I could live with it. Basically, the credit card refunded ~€50 per quarter while the charges were ~€25 so I was still up.

Then I noticed that AIB were actually crediting back the charges, so one day they would charge me €25 for the quarter and the next day they would refund it back to me. Net result - no banking charges but I still got the money back on the credit card.

This month I received a fee notice in the post, so I knew it must be serious and indeed they didn't refund the money this time.

Does anyone know whether this was some sort of introductory offer or why they would be refunding charges for the last 3 quarters ?

z

Huggles

They recently changed the terms and conditions of their service.

There are numerous threads on this, try searching. Basically, you need to keep a minimum of 2500 in your account at all times to realistically qualify for free banking.

zagmund wrote: »

Last year I moved everything from BoI (customer of ~30 years) to AIB for a number of reasons, starting with the money back on the credit card bit and ending with the fact that AIB customer service was way ahead of BoI.

The next week AIB introduced their current account charges or modified them such that it was almost impossible to avoid. I wasn't impressed, but I could live with it. Basically, the credit card refunded ~€50 per quarter while the charges were ~€25 so I was still up.

Then I noticed that AIB were actually crediting back the charges, so one day they would charge me €25 for the quarter and the next day they would refund it back to me. Net result - no banking charges but I still got the money back on the credit card.

This month I received a fee notice in the post, so I knew it must be serious and indeed they didn't refund the money this time.

Does anyone know whether this was some sort of introductory offer or why they would be refunding charges for the last 3 quarters ?

z

zagmund

I know about the €2,500 minimum and I know I didn't meet it throughout the last year - that was why I was surprised when they refunded the money originally.

For a variety of reasons I've had a fair bit of money in the account over the period, but it would regularly have dropped below €2,500 for days and weeks at a time. My understanding was that a single day below that limit was enough to lose the free banking.

z

Huggles

I think it only kicked in from May this year

zagmund wrote: »

I know about the €2,500 minimum and I know I didn't meet it throughout the last year - that was why I was surprised when they refunded the money originally.

For a variety of reasons I've had a fair bit of money in the account over the period, but it would regularly have dropped below €2,500 for days and weeks at a time. My understanding was that a single day below that limit was enough to lose the free banking.

z

macker35

zagmund wrote: »

Last year I moved everything from BoI (customer of ~30 years) to AIB for a number of reasons, starting with the money back on the credit card bit and ending with the fact that AIB customer service was way ahead of BoI.

The next week AIB introduced their current account charges or modified them such that it was almost impossible to avoid. I wasn't impressed, but I could live with it. Basically, the credit card refunded ~€50 per quarter while the charges were ~€25 so I was still up.

Then I noticed that AIB were actually crediting back the charges, so one day they would charge me €25 for the quarter and the next day they would refund it back to me. Net result - no banking charges but I still got the money back on the credit card.

This month I received a fee notice in the post, so I knew it must be serious and indeed they didn't refund the money this time.

Does anyone know whether this was some sort of introductory offer or why they would be refunding charges for the last 3 quarters ?

z

No, they have changed and are charging fees for everything now.
They will even charge you for putting money into your account and for your wages going in too.

Total gangsters!!!
I have now switched to Permanent TSB, who will not charge you fees if you have 3000 euro going into your account every quarter and use your Debit card 18 times a quarter and Internet Banking once a quarter.

Happy Days!!!

LasseBrown

What annoyed me most was the way this was (not) communicated. I recently complained in writing to AIB and was informed that on the 21st of March a notice was given in the main national papers. Great, so you have to look at the bank adverts and read the small print in there. Also, a new customer leaflet was held in their branches and the AIB website included a link to a document titled 'how to minimise transaction fees'.
Why would I be interested in such a document, considering that I didn't pay transaction fees to that point?
If AIB would have wanted to inform customers, there would have been many ways to do this clearly and fairly. The way they did it might comply with the Payment Service Regulation (when was that regulation drafted?), it was most certainly not done in a way to inform all their customers.
Why should AIB act reasonable towards their customers? They are too big to fail, they know that now. Either the morons (or whatever they think of their customers) move somewhere else or they stay and pay.
Didn't find too many friendly comments on BoI here, but moved there nevertheless.

macker35

moving to BOI is as bad, as their charges are more than AIB per transaction.
I moved to Permanent TSB as they offer free banking with conditions.
1. you have 3000 euro going into your account every quarter.
2. you use your Visa Debit cart 18 times a quarter.
3. you use internet banking to pay a bill or transfer money once a quarter.

they will switch everything for you and they have been fantastic, even got a follow up phone call from them to see if everything went through okay.

LasseBrown

True, pTSB seems currently the best choice, but they are quite far away from me. If I have to go there twice a year, I might be better off paying the BoI fees. Per transaction the BoI charges are higher than AIB, but there is no standing fee. To get cash I will use a debit card from abroad - it is free of charge. A complete joke - back to cash business...
Hopefully an online-only bank will enter the market soon enough. Free current accounts are certainly no cash cows for banks, but most people will do the rest of their business with the same bank.

Nharrison02

macker35 wrote: »

moving to BOI is as bad, as their charges are more than AIB per transaction.
I moved to Permanent TSB as they offer free banking with conditions.
1. you have 3000 euro going into your account every quarter.
2. you use your Visa Debit cart 18 times a quarter.
3. you use internet banking to pay a bill or transfer money once a quarter.

they will switch everything for you and they have been fantastic, even got a follow up phone call from them to see if everything went through okay.

Just moved from AIB to Permanent TSB. Have to say that it seemed like a good idea at the time but at this point not sure it was worth all the hassle. Their level of customer service is very poor compared to AIB. I have also had other issues which I am actually too frustrated to list at this point.

zagmund

Reference LasseBrowns comments about communications from AIB a while back . . . I opened 2 of their regular saver accounts earlier this year, and this (for no good reason other than T&Cs) required opening 2 deposit accounts with them. I already had a deposit account, current account & mortgage with them. I had to open 2 regular savers because they had a maximum of something tiny like €200 a month per account. So now, all of a sudden I had an extra 4 accounts when I only wanted to open a single regular saver account. The deposit accounts paid a reasonable amount so I transferred some small balances in there since the accounts were there anyway.

Roll forward to earlier this month when I notice that the interest rate on the 2 deposit accounts that I didn't want to have had moved from something like 3% to 0.1%, and the regular saver had dropped also.

I got on the phone to them (and went to the branch) to point out that this sort of messing around isn't exactly helping build my confidence as a customer, and that the communications were pretty poor. They trotted out the same lines - newspaper, branch notices, etc . . . but this isn't good enough. I might go to the branch maybe 2 or 3 times a year, and when I do I don't pick up every single leaflet they have. I do however check transactions online every week and they have a notification system which tells me about €50 off insurance deals or whatever - they should be using this system as well. With this they can let me know of increases & decreases in rates for the accounts that I have.

From what I can tell though this system is really just advertising for them and there are no plans to use the online notification.

I ended up having to open *another* regular saver account and close off the other two. They rattled on about how this new account was much better, blah, blah, blah . . . but didn't seem to take the point that I already had a good regular saver account with them (two in fact), but now because of them messing with the account I had to close them and open a new one which looked just like the old ones. Waste of time, paperwork, effort, goodwill, etc . . .

z

daradublin

My wife and I moved our current accounts, savings accounts and credit cards to Ulster Bank about 3 months ago. It was a bit of hassle but it was worth it as we're saving now about 60 euro quarterly. So far so good. Hopefully they won't introduce the charges... Also I must admit they're customer service over the phone is much better, they're almost too nice. Let's hope they'll keep it that way!

I don't understand why banks want to charge us fees for card transactions since they already get money from retailers for intercharge fees. They're just too greedy...