PTSB - US Dollar Cheque Issues

ClubMan said:
Plus most of us (me included!) love fees free banking so a race to the bottom in terms of services offered (and maybe customer service levels) is a logical outcome. And yet I still don't want to pay a few quid a month to operate my current account... ;)
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You don't need to pay fees.

Your 49,999 soon to be 50,000 is sufficient.
 
S class said:
If you are happy to put up with deplorable service fair enough.

5 minutes to email complaint to PTSB.
15 minutes to fill in Ombudsman complaint form.

I have received goodwill payments from several financial institutions as a result of what you are referring to as employee errors.

In some cases the goodwill payment was offered in the IDR resolution.

If more people adopted a zero tolerance attitude to sloppy service these financial companies would make a better effort to ensure that their employees don't repeatedly make mistakes.
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But what is the complaint?

They put a mark on the back that doesn't affect acceptance elsewhere?

That they charge €50 for the service and the charge is detailed in their service guide?

The way I deal with poor service is not to give business to the place again. That is the ultimate sanction.

Fergal Quinn said each customer was worth £100,000 (1995). If he lost a customer, it was a £100,000 loss of trade as it was not just the £20 they were spending that day - but what they will potentially spend in his store in their lifetime.

Hence the ultimate sanction for poor service is to withdraw your custom.

Leave the ombudsman for more serious issues.
 
PTSB entered into a contract with a customer to process their cheque for a fee of 1.80 euro.

They then unilaterally refused to complete the agreed contract.

They then expected their customer to return to their branch in their own time and at their own expense to retrieve their cheque.

If I was that customer I would certainly complain using their IDR.

If they did not resolve the complaint to my satisfaction I would forward my complaint to the ombudsman.

The ombudsman service is provided for all citizens.

It's not just for the big shots.

So I reject your comment to leave the ombudsman for more serious cases.
 
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S class said:
I have received goodwill payments from several financial institutions as a result of what you are referring to as employee errors.
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I’m reminded of Uncle Albert in Only Fools And Horses, AKA ‘The Ferret’ for the number of holes he fell down and made insurance claims.

Someone who’s received ‘goodwill payments’ from ‘several’ financial institutions is a timewaster, a troublemaker, and an ambulance chaser who clogs up the system for everyone else.
 
Just to update - we don't bank with any other bank and wasn't going to open an account for $200! We tried one credit union and they said they dont take them. We tried another and they said they could but weren't too sure about the stamps and writing on the back and would need to check with a manager. It sounded like they didnt want the hassle so we didnt push it.

In the end, my husband took a photo of them, sent the photos to his mother (in the US). She used her phone app to scan them and lodged them into her own account and they cleared.
 
I would say you had some progress with PTSB, even thou in not ideal way. I asked PTSB local branch (by walking in) if they would cash a check (I was their customer) and they told me they don't have an intermediary bank to cash in USD checks. Then I asked AIB if they would open US dollar accounts and they said no.

So apparently, (at least) in Ireland, dealing with USD currency and USD checks is a big pain. Even thou banks claim foreign currencies, what they mean is Sterling Pound and no other currency (that's what PTSB told me when I said they deal with foreign currency).
 
Gordon Gekko said:
Someone who’s received ‘goodwill payments’ from ‘several’ financial institutions is a timewaster, a troublemaker, and an ambulance chaser who clogs up the system for everyone else.
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You were happy to clog up the system when your behaviour was called out by the Gardai.

Alleged Parking Offence

Mrs Gekko gave me a lift to meet some mates on Saturday. We pulled up and I got out of the car. A Garda approached us and said that we were parked in a disabled bay. I said that she wasn’t parked and was just dropping me off and that he’d seen us pull up 10 seconds earlier. He accused me of...
www.askaboutmoney.com
 
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S class said:
You were happy to clog up the system when your behaviour was called out by the Gardai.

Alleged Parking Offence

Mrs Gekko gave me a lift to meet some mates on Saturday. We pulled up and I got out of the car. A Garda approached us and said that we were parked in a disabled bay. I said that she wasn’t parked and was just dropping me off and that he’d seen us pull up 10 seconds earlier. He accused me of...
www.askaboutmoney.com
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I think your serial offending trumps my single complaint (which was upheld by the way).
 
T McGibney said:
Melodramatic much?
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Nothing melodramatic about it. They wasted the customer's time, they should have told the person he dealt with to do his or her job properly in future but lodged the cheques and not bothered the customer. Quite apart from anything else they are spending their time on this too, a bank spending time giving bad service is at the core of attitude of banks in this country.
I think the regulator should require a customer payment for anything like this, it need not be large amount but enough to get banks to make some effort to do their job. One sided arrangements where they can change their mind and you cannot are widespread.
 
ardmacha said:
Nothing melodramatic about it. They wasted the customer's time, they should have told the person he dealt with to do his or her job properly in future but lodged the cheques and not bothered the customer. Quite apart from anything else they are spending their time on this too, a bank spending time giving bad service is at the core of attitude of banks in this country.
I think the regulator should require a customer payment for anything like this, it need not be large amount but enough to get banks to make some effort to do their job. One sided arrangements where they can change their mind and you cannot are widespread.
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Well with this attitude seemingly prevalent, one thing that won't "get widespread" is the existence of bank branches where customers can torment officials and initiate formal grievance procedures on the bank over even minor mistakes where there was no financial loss and only a modicum of inconvenience.

At last count, there were 9 separate bank branches on the High Street in Enniskillen while there is barely a town in the Republic with more than 3 banks.

I wonder why...
 
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S class said:
Because the banks are cutting costs.
It's not because a few customers happen to make complaints across the counter.
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It must surely be equally the case that banks operating in Northern Ireland are also cutting costs yet they somehow find it both profitable and worthwhile not merely to maintain bank branches in all sizeable towns (Enniskillen is on a par population-wise with the likes of Tullamore and Castlebar) but to compete fiercely with each other on this basis.

Yet branch banking in the Republic is becoming almost a thing of the past

It sure is a mystery.
 
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T McGibney said:
Well with this attitude seemingly prevalent, one thing that won't "get widespread" is the existence of bank branches where customers can torment officials and initiate formal grievance procedures on the bank over even minor mistakes where there was no financial loss and only a modicum of inconvenience.

At last count, there were 9 separate bank branches on the High Street in Enniskillen while there is barely a town in the Republic with more than 3 banks.

I wonder why...
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I wonder about the Enniskillen statistic, a large number of bank branches in the North have closed. For instance, Omagh has no AIB so people have to go from there to Enniskillen.
All I said was that if a bank makes a mistake such as this that they should simply process the transaction and not spend any more time on it, there was no need to cause the customer any inconvenience to try and get more money out of them.
 
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