First Active moving the goalposts on CAM - not fair?

Absolutely, I strenuously questioned the sales person about the product they were selling – and I was assured on many occasions in front of a witness that my monthly repayments would reduce as per the balance offset against my current account!

I would never have signed up to their product otherwise!!!

Remember this:

[broken link removed]
The Sunday Business Post, October 03, 2004
By Louise McBride


“Some of the main sellers of endowment mortgages, including banks acting exclusively for certain insurers, could face legal action for mis-selling them.”
 
Got a call to ask did I get the letter and what did I plan to do.

I asked what the options were?

Laughably told I could pay off a lump sum against my loan to bring back my repayment to what it was , and how might I do that except make a payment out of my current account and surely isnt that my issue with the change, that I dont want greater sums going out of my current account. No messing but I had to go through sample figures to explain how that was a nonsensical "solution".

Asked did I want to speak to manager I said theres no point in me having a discussion with a list of people in a chain of command telling them the same thing - I said go and find out at the appropriate level (i.e. where it can be fixed) as to how its going to be fixed or what is going to be done for us.

Their line is that its the systems that cant accomodate the continuing standard repayment but I pointed out that that is their issue to deal with and that it was wasnt on to go expecting customers to be at the loss of this.

I'm fairly sure something will have to be done for us as I, and no doubt others, will be willing to publicly make noise if we dont get satisfaction.
 
Betsy Og said:
Their line is that its the systems that cant accomodate the continuing standard repayment but I pointed out that that is their issue to deal with and that it was wasnt on to go expecting customers to be at the loss of this.
Click to expand...

They can use their existing or old systems to make the calculation and simply input the results of the calculations into the new systems. If they threw a programmer at it for a week it would work just fine.

Alternatively they could load the lot of ye into a single spreadsheet every month and then input the result of its deliberations into their other 'systems' .

A week of programmer time is peanuts to them given their profit margins.
 
I have been mis-sold a 40year mortgage, and I dont need this grief at the moment, I should be compensated for inconvenience, interest lost and stress due to time wasted on this issue.

I will be taking legal action for breach of contract if they dont honour my original agreement!
 
40 years worth of stress and uncertainty is a big number in my book.
 
The whole point is that they want to move the accounts over to their new system. They want to decommission the old system.

This is significantly more than one week's development. I've been involved with similar projects, and you're looking at several months to get this done.
 
How many months does it take to decide on a mortgage and get it processed???
 
Yet another disgruntled FA customer here. I was horrified when a call from FA's Branch Development Manager informed me that my mortgage repayments would go up by 1420euro PM under FA's decision to force me to move from the 'Standard Option to the "Planned Option'.
My mortgage broker was flabbergasted and knew nothing about this. It goes to show the contempt FA has for those to sell their products. While reference to the 'Standard Option' may be absent from FA's website I walked into 3 branches and was handed the brochure offering both options.
Could it be that some executives in FA are being set up to loose their jobs
through their involvement in this debacle as part of Royal Bank of Scotland's efforts to streamline operations in Ireland?
 
There was an article in the Tribune about it yesterday, cant but help.

Hopefully First Active will try to find a reasonable solution to this. If, as was said, its only a minority affected then a manual "bolt on" to the new system shouldnt be that onerous. I could do it myself on Excel in 5 minutes using the PMT function which calculates monthly repayments on a given mortgage at a given interest rate.

It aint rocket science, especially for a bank which already has a system which can cope with it, why not run the old system, or a part of it, in parallel for this "minority"?
 
Have to agree with everyone who fells annoyed. What else are they going to change just to suit them in the future.
 
How many affected customers (here) have made a formal complaint to FA and/or IFSRA?
 
I haven't gotten my call from FA yet, but I'll be one of the complainers. That's pretty much the only reason I took it out and paid higher rates!.
 
I don't understand why they won't adapt the system to cope with the existing T & C's, NIB have recently done a take over where they transfered to the new parents systems, and clients on existing products still get to keep their old T & C's. They must be on real dodgy ground legally speaking.
 
I can confirm that I have written a formal letter of complaint to First Active, I have not received any reply yet, indeed they have gone remarkably quite about the matter. My mortgage broker asked them to write to me to explain the reasons for the change of option and as yet I have received no letter of explanation. In my complaint I asked that an additional letter of complaint that I drew up, be forwarded to the Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland (Sir Fred Goodwin) on my behalf. My next step this week will be to write to the Financial Regulator asking him to uphold my best interests in accordance with the Irish legislation. I envisage inviting the Regulator to order FA to withdrew all intimidating letters, even for those customers who have signed up in ignorance and send out a new communication to all 'Standard Option' holders, explaining in detail a person's rights, options, and financial consequences, by way of worked examples.
 
If FA have signed up to the IBF code of practice, I would be reporting them to the IBF aswell, the regulator can't actually enforce the codes as the are voluntary.
 
Well I received my phone call from First Active, they offered me a 10year interest only loan - but as I said to the manager - how can i trust that!!! - same terms and conditions right? She agreed so she has escalated my case to the regional manager. I haven't received the call from him yet.

I will be writing my formal letter of complaint today.
 
Met with FA. Offered to run my gross loan account as a tracker variable @ 3.25%, .75% over ECB of 2.5%, over the full original term. Cheaper than CAM 3.79%

Offered a good rate of return on the balance in my current account. (PM me if you want detail - I dont want to put up too much info at this point in time).

So I have to think about it but it does seem to address some of the problems in that I'm not forced to repay early as would have to do on the Planned Repayment Option. The monthly repayment is much the same though under both options so if thats the major crux then maybe their extended term or int only for 10 years might be of some value.
 
After mailing the branch to complain, they've come back to me and also offered a .75% tracker.
On the current a/c they were offering a money market account, keep a minimum of 5k in there, max allowed is the mortgage amount. FA person wasn't positive of the rates, so I'll wait to confirm when they come in the post.

This rate is better than their site advertised tracker rates too, and I've too small a loan to qualify for their best rate t's & c's.

if anyone else knows the money market rate being offered, post it please, impatient for the postman.

This seems to be a standard offering from them now, as I hadn't mentioned Betsy Ogs previous mail. Ring and ask for it if you like it.

R.
 
Resident said:
On the current a/c they were offering a money market account, keep a minimum of 5k in there, max allowed is the mortgage amount. FA person wasn't positive of the rates, so I'll wait to confirm when they come in the post.
Click to expand...
Do you mean a high rate current account no longer linked to the mortgage? If so then I would be surprised if they offer a better rate than [broken link removed] 3.45% gross CAR.
 
Hi,

These are the options I was sent.

01. A Tracker Mortgage offer of ECB plus a 0.75% margin - this is 0.54%
below the present Current Account Mortgage rate
02. Any fixed rate option from our suite of new business fixed rates (*)
03. Extend the term of the mortgage - ease any short term cash flow issues
04. Avail of an interest only facility on the Tracker mortgage of up to 10
years
05. I can now offer you a Money Market Deposit Account rate of ECB plus
2.25% to be maintained for the term of the mortgage. The balance in the
Money Market Account should not exceed the mortgage balance and requires a
minimum balance of ?5K This will allow you to transfer any savings you have
in the current account to a deposit account attracting a rate of ECB plus
2.25% for the duration of the loan.
06. Any legal fees, to a maximum of ?1K, will be paid by First Active. You
can choose your own Solicitor or opt to go through our legal option using
First American Title Insurance.

I assume everybody is getting the same offers.
 
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