State Savings Customer Service.

PMU said:
It appears so. I received the document to which your refer, basically a description of the savings product, in relation to a recent purchase.
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I emailed them about this and they confirmed within 24 hours that the information in the letter and investment details is the new way of doing it. No more bonds/certs with the harp on top!. I thought they were an additional receipt and nearly binned them.

Plus their rules have changed with effect from yesterday. When you buy a new product on line your nationality, occupation and estimated monthly income are among the questions requested - just for one time only. This they say is to counter money laundering and terrorist financing.
 
cbreeze said:
When you buy a new product on line your nationality, occupation and estimated monthly income are among the questions requested - just for one time only
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The estimated monthly income aspect seems way over the top in light of the fact that they generally get people's PRSI number also

I complained in the past when they lost a cert and form for me some years back. They eventually found them internally misfiled. I spoke with a supervisor who confirmed that in future I did not need to complete certain info such as PRSI number etc in case the documentation was lost in the post and got into the wrong hands.
 
cbreeze said:
When you buy a new product on line your nationality, occupation and estimated monthly income are among the questions requested - just for one time only
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My occupation and income have nothing to do with the sums of money invested.

I move savings about from institution to institution as they mature and I have inherited monies.

Why do they need to know my occupation and monthly income?
 
Just to be clear about my experience with the security questions call a few months ago:

The caller ID was the same as the number on the State Savings website, but I believe caller ID spoofing is possible and so cannot be trusted. I refused to answer the questions when they called me and said that I would call the State Savings number myself. They said that I cannot be put through to the security question people if I do that and the only way was for me to answer them when they call me. I tried it anyway, and was again told that it is not possible and that the only way is for them to call me. I submitted an official complaint about this being poor security practice. If it is now possible to call them yourself and be put through to the security question people then it means that they have responded to complaints like mine and changed their practice. That is good news, and perhaps means that their customer service has improved since my experience, but I do not think my complaint at the time was unreasonable.
 
I don't think that the levels of demands for compliance on AML / Tax evasion are any different to the rest of the savings/investment market.

Huge pressure on product providers to have everything in order as audits are common.

Service is going to suffer if customers are contacting you to execute transactions and a few elements of the AML are outstanding. Had no reason to contact State Savings until recently (since 2008) and they basically had no information on me at all. Yes, there were delays, duplication (IMHO) and question marks about whether they read what I sent in at all but it's probably no different to the experieces of a lot of customers of other financial institutions. In the words of the FSPO in last years report : It is clear that many of the consumers making complaints to this Office could have had their complaints addressed by their provider, at an earlier point in time. In general, if a provider wants to improve their service, it has to get worse before it gets better as they take a good person out of the line to train a few new people.

Attached is a typical application for a savings/investment product via a Life Assuarance company. The level of information required may seem onerous, but that's where we're at. It doesn't matter if you provide proof of address (or ID) today if the dates have expired next time you want to do a transaction. You have to go through the process again. Plus, some proofs of address like TV Licence, mobile phone bill and what may appear like a bill but is really an invoice will not be sufficent. Proof of PPS. No. is the only one that you have to provide once. Source of wealth (and the account the money came from) has to be provided on each transaction.
 

Attachments

  • bond.ieEditableApplication.pdf
    391.4 KB · Views: 78
gledswood said:
Why are you passing comments like this. You can't seem to help yourself. Same in lots of threads.

If they have changed their practice, then the "complainers" as you call them achieved something by complaining.
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Why help do you recommend that I seek and from what source(s)?

Bear in mind that you have the right to report any of my comments to which you take exception.
 
In March this year I sent in a Bond for encashment, I included the top part of a recent bank statement as requested. I received a letter from them saying that it was not dated. I then cut the top of another one of my bank statements and sent it in to them. I then received the payment.

This month I had another bond maturing. Anticipating problems I cut the top off another one of my bank statements and sent it in. I received a letter from them saying that it was not dated within the past year. It was actually dated for the previous month.

A number of phone calls later and after someone checking my encashment form, they agreed that everything was in order.

My understanding is that you are only required to send in one bank statement dated within the past twelve months. This information is supposed to be held on record. It seems that the bank statement I sent in last March was not recorded or linked to my accounts.

So they now have three bank statement headers of mine all dated within the past 12 months, when only one is required.......and they still manage to mess up what should be a simple encashment process.

It does concern me that they are not storing my private information properly.
 
They have re-branded the website and material they send out - letter,brochure etc. when a bond matures.
 
theresa1 said:
They have re-branded the website and material they send out - letter,brochure etc. when a bond matures.
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Purely cosmetic. Nothing about their awful service has changed.

The following message is appearing on the website today:

09:00 1st November 2024: Due to planned maintenance from 17:00 today, access to your annual statements will be temporarily unavailable. We anticipate full service will be restored by Sunday, 3rd November @ 12:00. Our telephone lines 0818 20 50 60/01 7057200 are open Mon-Fri 08.00-20.00.Thank you for your patience and we apologise for any inconvenience.
 
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