Rip Off charged €48.50 by Bank of Ireland for a duplicate bank statement!

Re: Rip Off charged €48.50 by Bank of Ireland for a duplicate bank statement!

Well done BrixMortar - that's the spirit vote with your feet. But make sure you tell BOI why you're leaving otherwise little changes.
 
Vanilla said:
But aren't you overlooking the cost of running the database, the cost of setting it up in the first place, the staff cost, the overheads for those staff and buildings....
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The database exists in any case, so the incremental cost here is probably the cost of taking the call, the cost of a staff member going onto the system and ordering the printout, the cost of the printing (including I guess the cost of the printer used as they probably need extras just to cope with the demand for duplicates) and paper and the cost to mail it out. This still is not trivial I suppose. I would have thought that if it was purely about the costs there should be a higher fixed charge for the first statement with a much lower charge for the subsequent pages (say EUR10.00 for the first page and then 0.10c per page thereafter). But then I suppose everyone who needed just the one page would feel aggrieved as they are probably being subsidised at the moment.

There is also probably an issue with whether the data is archived though as well. However I get the impression this may vary from bank to bank. Some posters talk about being able to see transactions online going back many years whereas the 2 banks I have had online banking with only go back about 6 months online so the remainder may be archived on tapes etc. which have to be retrieved which would further increase the costs.
 
The Banks dont care any more if you vote with your feet. They will get as much money as they can out of you, and if you decide to change Banks it will only be you who are inconvenienced.

It wont be long either until the honeymoon is over with the new Bank and they will be up to the same tricks. Believe me I have been with a few over the years. This charge for statements is only a means of getting profits. We need to find another way of dealing with these institutions and play them at their own game.

They have plenty of money now so are not desperate for you to stay.They will soon have another customer to replace you.
 
10to1 said:
Rainy Day but I simply can't understand why many contributors feel that a charge for duplicate statements is ok if it says so in the T's and C's. This seems ludicrous to me and leads me to believe that there is an element of bias in the contributions. 48.50 is totally unreasonable for a few sheets of paper. The time taken to retrieve the system electronically shouldn't be more than a minute and the paper and ink 1-2c a page.
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A wise man once said 'Don't shoot the messenger'. The equivalent from the AAM posting guidelines is 'Attack the post, not the poster'. The fact that you can't understand the views of others does not make it right for you to make unsupported and untrue allegations of bias. Such allegations are not welcome round here. If your posting approach is going to continue to involve unsupported allegations of this nature, I would respectfully suggest that you find another bulletin board for your posts.

10to1 said:
Banks looks for ways to exploit customers and I think we should question that. The fact that you and othes think it is ok because someone has misplaced their statement does little to force banks to change their policies.
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You seem to assume that everyone wants to force the banks to change their policies. As explained above, I see absolutely nothing wrong with this policy, so I'm not trying to force the banks to change the policy. Any change to the policy would simply bury the costs and spread them across all customers. I'm far happier for the costs to be borne by the customers making such requests. The original poster isn't surprised that there was some cost involved, but didn't clarify that cost up-front. While I would criticise the bank for not making the cost clear up-front, the OP also shares that responsibility by not asking about the cost when making the request. And I don't accept that banks 'exploit their customers' - they do look for ways to make money from their customers, as I'd expect any profit-making business to do. If you don't want banks to make profits from you, then take your business elsewhere - it's simply, isn't it?

10to1 said:
Rainy day you say "As a bank customer, I'm glad that I'm not paying for the costs of branch staff to dig out statements for those lazy customers who can't be bothered to file their statements" and "I'm glad I'm not paying the IT costs to develop systems to print duplicate statements for those lazy customers who can't be bothered to file their statements" and yet in your opening paragraph you say you find it a "bit offensive" that I feel the need to "cast aspersions of this nature" on you. Your comments on the public as lazy customers is dissapointing coming from your position as a Moderator. It clearly demonstates a lack of tolerance for others who may have many reasons for misplacing a statement and just out of laziness as you choose to see it. I suggest a little more tolerance and less of the "lazy" stle comments would be more appropriate.
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Thanks for your feedback on my moderation style. I'll give it all the attention it deserves. Having spent 5+ years as a moderator here and participated in building one of Ireland's leading online communities, I'm honestly not all that worried about dissapointing someone who lashes out false allegations of bias unsupported by evidence when faced with an unpalatable message. And please do explain in more detail what kind of good reasons exist for misplacing a statement, particularly in the context of the original request, where the poster is a very active customer of financial services (4 mortgage drawdowns in one year)?
10to1 said:
Oh and banks don't have to dig very far these days for statements. The IT systems that you mention are in place for many years now. It's just a case of access or lack of and why.
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I'm glad to see that you have inside knowledge of the banks' IT systems. Specifically which banks were you referring to? How many years of data do they keep online? Are the statements printed centrally or at the branch? How do they monitor & audit access to accounts to prevent unauthorised access?
 
BrixnMortar said:
There is a direct and absorbed cost in providing duplicate statements. However, it is not €48.50. Its probably not even a tenth of that. Duplicate statements should be charged for, but subject to a maximum amount (say €12).
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What do you estimate the cost of this service to be? Why cap it at €12? Why not €1 or €10 or €20 or €48.50?
 
BrixnMortar said:
The bank teller did not advise me of ANY charges at the time of the request. It was 6 months worth of statements.
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Why didn't you ask? I assume you don't go into a shop and ask for something but not ask the price of it?

BrixnMortar said:
so I have required a number of sets of statements over the past year, that in some cases are not returned.
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Why didn't you ask for these statements to be returned to you? Is it not standard practice for these documents of proof to be returned once they've had a look at them?

BrixnMortar said:
In any case, the bank offered 'as a gesture of goodwill' to refund half of the amount. I refused this offer as I did not think it was sufficient. This post however seems to have struck a chord with nearly 1,000 viewers, so someone in BOI has probably noticed. That can't be a bad thing can it?
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If I was BOI at this stage, I'd tell you to take a running jump for turning down their gesture of goodwill. The didn't even have to do this in the first place.

BrixnMortar said:
Although possibly NIB has a better grip on putting customers first. Maybe I'll go to them - they've got free banking.
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Let us know how you get on getting reprinted statements for free from NIB. Will be interesting to know how you get on there.
 
Seems to me there's a few bank emplyees on this thread by their defence of the banks
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Just for the record, and given that the above comment was posted immediately following my own post above, I can assure you that I'm not and never have been a bank employee, neither have I worked for any bank in any capacity nor have I ever owned shares in any bank. So there.
 
Is all this really going anywhere anymore? The OP felt that the charge was high. Fair enough, they have now decided to bank elsewhere. Some of us feel that the bank was justified in charging what is set out in the Ts and Cs for a non-standard service, others don't. Some of us are defending standard stated bank pratices, others feel that this is exploitation. It looks like we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't see people changing their positions and it looks to me like anything constructive has already been said.
 
RainyDay said:
A wise man once said 'Don't shoot the messenger'. The equivalent from the AAM posting guidelines is 'Attack the post, not the poster'.
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If you refer to posters as "lazy" when in actual fact it was a duplicate statement that was required then I don't see why I can't question your objectivity as Moderator. RD you need to be able to take a little when you are prepared to dish it out regardless of your position. Don't you think?
 
With respect I don't think that you're in much of a position to be affronted at the use of the term 'lazy'. In fact your own approach to this debate could easily be described as 'lazy' in the light of your ludicrous allegations that the contributors who disagreed with your opinion were bank employees, and the fact that you have since proceeded to feign offence at Rainyday's comments rather than keep the discussion on topic as it were. Especially as it is a lot easier to whinge and falsely question others' motives than it is to debate the issue itself and face the reality that everyone does not necessarily agree with your opinion.
 
CCOVICH said:
Is all this really going anywhere anymore? The OP felt that the charge was high. Fair enough, they have now decided to bank elsewhere. Some of us feel that the bank was justified in charging what is set out in the Ts and Cs for a non-standard service, others don't. Some of us are defending standard stated bank pratices, others feel that this is exploitation. It looks like we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't see people changing their positions and it looks to me like anything constructive has already been said.
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I agree.

Maybe a moderator should lock this topic?

I don't think we will see real competition in the banking market until after we have a few more new entrants fully set up and trading.
 
I totally agree with you MonsieurBond. In the interim Prime Time Investigates tonight should encourage more of us to question our bank more often but as you say the topic should probably be locked.
 
ubiquitous said:
Perhaps in the interests of clarity, BrixnMortar could possibly answer this question posed above by Swallows
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Not possible 48.50 - 3.80 = 44.70
44.70 / 2.50 = 17.88 pages :confused:
 
Hooray

Hooray! BoI has refunded my duplicate statement charge of €48.50, without a big fight. So the campaign may have been worth it. In this instance it was the best thing to do for them, as I am not prone to inertia and would have moved. This action has made me reconsider my move. Thanks to everyone for the interest-I'm sure it made a difference!
 
Re: Hooray

BrixnMortar said:
Hooray! BoI has refunded my duplicate statement charge of €48.50, without a big fight. So the campaign may have been worth it. In this instance it was the best thing to do for them, as I am not prone to inertia and would have moved. This action has made me reconsider my move. Thanks to everyone for the interest-I'm sure it made a difference!
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So should the title of this thread not be changed to reflect the fact that they are not now ripping you off?
 
Just shows you that despite the T's and C's it's always worth asking for a refund when you feel a charge is unfair. Well done! Pity more of us don't question what many contributors feel are unfair charges and banks would more readily take notice.
 
10to1 said:
Just shows you that despite the T's and C's it's always worth asking for a refund when you feel a charge is unfair. Well done! Pity more of us don't question what many contributors feel are unfair charges and banks would more readily take notice.
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If more of us needed €48.50 of duplicate statements, I guess we would.

Anyway fair play, hope you spend it wisely ;) .
 
RainyDay said:
Are you just going to ignore the questions about how the fee came to €48.50?
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Maybe he should first get the statements supplied, foc, and then write a stinker of a letter demanding that they account for the arithmetic..? ;)
 
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