Thanks very much for all your comments
Just one last thing, is there a lot involved in making a case to the FSO
My own experience was pretty long & drawn out but the process has since changed & the bank must go to mediation now so hopefully that will speed things up. The fso is hoping this will lessen the need for adjudication in the future. The important thing is you've got to hold your nerve, which can be difficult at times. I did it myself, but you may want to look at a third party for help depending on how you feel about it.
The bank could also possibly try to say you are out of time and try to date it to 2008, but do not accept this, the breach was in 2013, failing to offer the full conditions of the contract, so you are well in time.
I would get a folder also & put all of your documents in date order, everything you have & make it easy for yourself or anyone else to find the information. Perhaps a timeline of events would be useful also, even for yourself, to keep track of all that has occurred. The better prepared you are, the better chance you have of winning. In my experience, the bank was all over the place with paperwork and could not keep a consistent story together, my having all the paperwork really helped me to put across what actually occurred.
Try to be succinct and to the point when putting across what happened so that it is easy for anyone to understand going through it
Make sure you know what you want to achieve, as this is asked on the fso form(unless it has changed) and if AIB altered the contract and should have offered you the option of a tracker in 2013, as well as wanting a tracker, you need to be compensated for not having been able to avail of that option for the last three years. €500 goodwill payment does not cut it & I'm sure they know that.
Some contracts are ambiguous as to what would happen at the end of a fixed period, but yours is not, it is specific in the options which you should be offered. This I would think would be a condition of the contact (ie a fundamental part) and by not honouring it, they would be in breach of contract.
Is it possible to find out what tracker rates customers would have been on then and specifically look for one of those rates too as I'm sure none of them were 3.67% +ECB
Your letter said at the end that this was their final response (about half way down on 4th page), so you can fill in the form above and get started but perhaps you might try them again with the facts set out plainly to see if they will budge themselves. Particularly, as they did say themselves, last week, 'that they failed to fulfil conditions of contracts'.
If not, get your papers filled with the fso as soon as possible, as the sooner you do it, the sooner it will be sorted, if it were me I wouldn't accept what they're offering.
Your other option is to look at suing AIB for breach of contract, as you are also still within the six year time limits but that would involve a high court case as the money involved would exceed the circuit court limits.
