# Be careful using prepaid ulster bank appeal envelope



## kazzasa (27 Jun 2019)

Sent in my appeal on 7th May in the prepaid envelope. After waiting 2 weeks for an acknowledgement I phoned BDO who said they hadn't received it and advised me to wait another week. Phoned again and they still hadn't received it at which point I went a bit mad! I had included all original documents with it and there was about 50 pages of evidence. I was asked if I had used the prepaid envelope with the PO box number on it, which I had. Their response was "oh sometimes they end up going to Ulster bank instead of us and then Ulster bank dont know what to do with them so they end up sitting in a pile on someone's desk until we go looking for them. I'll contact Ulster bank and see if I can track it down".

I was so angry when I got off the phone. Thankfully I had taken photos of everything I submitted so phoned back the next day and asked if I could submit printed photographs of everything I had submitted. After much himming and hawing they agreed to allow me to resubmit the printed photographs. 

Was gathering all that stuff together when a family member passed away so everything got put on hold. Was going to get onto it yesterday and decided to just phone BDO again before I did, 7 weeks after I submitted the appeal. "Miraculously" my original appeal had suddenly appeared in their offices this week and a letter of acknowledgement was going in the post that day.  What a coincidence!!! 

They said that 10 files had been passed over to them from Ulster bank this week after being misdirected. I don't believe a word out of their mouths. I think they are deliberately stalling and making the appeal process as difficult as they can in the hope that people will just give up, because I know when it came to me possibly having to do the whole appeal again I couldn't put myself through it a second time.

Has anyone else experienced something similar from Ulster Bank? Should I now be complaining to the Ombudsman for their blatant disregard the appeal procedures and timelines?


----------



## SaySomething (27 Jun 2019)

My experience has certainly been that they will drag things on as long as they can in the hopes that you are worn out.
After we got redress the bank said they'd negotiate directly with us over issues we had. That took 6 months of going around in circles. It has now been over 12 months since we submitted our appeal and we've not had a ruling yet. The bank were directly responsible for a considerable amount of their heels being dragged.

My experience in dealing with the panel has been less than stellar also.

There is nobody you can complain to about the panel. The Central Bank say that in order for the process to remain independent they cannot intervene (in any event they do not deal with individual account holders), the Ombudsman can only review a file when they receive a formal complaint about the Bank (not the appeals panel). If you are going before the panel then you cannot at the same time go to the Ombudsman - it's one or the other at any one time. The Finance Committee are toothless, even though they are brilliant at raising awareness/shining a light on problems.


----------



## notabene (27 Jun 2019)

kazzasa said:


> Sent in my appeal on 7th May in the prepaid envelope. After waiting 2 weeks for an acknowledgement I phoned BDO who said they hadn't received it and advised me to wait another week. Phoned again and they still hadn't received it at which point I went a bit mad! I had included all original documents with it and there was about 50 pages of evidence. I was asked if I had used the prepaid envelope with the PO box number on it, which I had. Their response was "oh sometimes they end up going to Ulster bank instead of us and then Ulster bank dont know what to do with them so they end up sitting in a pile on someone's desk until we go looking for them. I'll contact Ulster bank and see if I can track it down".
> 
> I was so angry when I got off the phone. Thankfully I had taken photos of everything I submitted so phoned back the next day and asked if I could submit printed photographs of everything I had submitted. After much himming and hawing they agreed to allow me to resubmit the printed photographs.
> 
> ...



It might not be practical for you, but to avoid these sorts of delays I’ve dropped all submissions in by hand to BDO - I live near town and can go home from work via town if necessary but it has just meant I know and they know exactly when it has arrived so no messing about


----------



## Brendan Burgess (27 Jun 2019)

kazzasa said:


> I don't believe a word out of their mouths. I think they are deliberately stalling and making the appeal process as difficult as they can in the hope that people will just give up, because I know when it came to me possibly having to do the whole appeal again I couldn't put myself through it a second time.



Hi k

That is a terrible story.    It is shocking that whoever sorts the post does not recognise the appeals. 

But it's pure incompetence and unlikely to be a conspiracy. 

I presume that BDO get paid according to how much time that they have spent on the the case. So it's not in their interest to bury appeals. 

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess (27 Jun 2019)

What is the actual address on the prepaid envelope. An image would be helpful.

From memory, the address for AIB is BDO .  I don't think that there was a PO Box involved.

Brendan


----------



## elcato (28 Jun 2019)

The BDO is dealing with probably up to 10k appeals. Given that each letter needs opening and a response and all sorts of correct logging I would hazard a guess that this would mean 1 person can deal with 10 queries per day. There is no conspiracy. They actually rang me once rather than send a letter asking for a bank statement which I thought was nice. Even when I got same statement and delivered it by hand, it took another 3 weeks for the standard response letter acknowledging it. There is no conspiracy with them. I do accept that the banks are deliberately stalling though imho.


----------



## kazzasa (30 Jun 2019)

Brendan Burgess said:


> What is the actual address on the prepaid envelope. An image would be helpful.
> 
> From memory, the address for AIB is BDO .  I don't think that there was a PO Box involved.
> 
> Brendan


Unfortunately the envelope is the only thing I don't have a copy of. It was addressed to the independent secretariat and then there was a PO Box number.


----------



## kazzasa (1 Jul 2019)

elcato said:


> The BDO is dealing with probably up to 10k appeals. Given that each letter needs opening and a response and all sorts of correct logging I would hazard a guess that this would mean 1 person can deal with 10 queries per day. There is no conspiracy. They actually rang me once rather than send a letter asking for a bank statement which I thought was nice. Even when I got same statement and delivered it by hand, it took another 3 weeks for the standard response letter acknowledging it. There is no conspiracy with them. I do accept that the banks are deliberately stalling though imho.



If this is the case then their appeal guidelines shouldn't say that they will provide receipt of confirmation within 5 working days.... it was 7 weeks from when I sent mine in to getting an acknowledgement!


----------

