Timeline of our dealings with AIB

Hi all

Apologies in advance for the long thread but it might be interesting to people to see how long we have been fighting with AIB on this issue. Obviously some dates in this pertain to just my case and I have probably forgotten to include one or two bits but there was a fair amount of paperwork gathered along the years!
Thanks to all who helped along the way
Brian


May 2008
Letter of Offer sent out

Jan 2009
Queried rates (including tracker) over the phone with AIB

24th Oct 2012
Letter received from AIB with sample (NB) rates available (no tracker mentioned) after us requesting options

11th May 2013
First post on AAM querying the 3.2 clause


15th June 2016
Letter from AIB offering “new” tracker of 3.67%

21st Jun 2016
Post on AAM on the new tracker rate offered, lots of others posted they had received the same. Original group formed soon after and group letter sent in to AIB looking for a resolution


11th Aug 2016
Letter from AIB acknowledging our dissatisfaction with our complaint not being upheld

26th Oct 2016
Letter from AIB stating they did a further review which found nothing in our favour

15th Nov 2016
First contacted Michael McGrath who replied and promised to ask about our case in the Oireachtas Finance Committee the following week (which he did)

26th Nov 2017
Starting getting more emails in for people looking to add to our group

31st Jan 2018
Meeting in Portlaois with Brendan and about 15 people from the website

22nd Mar 2018
Letter received from AIB stating after a review they acknowledge a breach of service and will be paying compensation of €1615

11th Apr 2018
First conference call with our solicitor with the view to getting a legal opinion on the case. Financed by 65 people affected paying €200 each from the AIB compensation

2nd Oct 2018
Legal opinion received from SC Jackie O’Brien and JC Arthur Cunningham

28th Mar 2019
AIB Independent Appeal Panel set up and BDO Appeal Form received, later rejected

25th Sept 2019 - Edit - Actually April 2019
Brendan picks a case (Karens) to put forward to the FSPO

4th Feb 2020
Brendan posts “We have won the Prevailing Rate Issue”!

17th Apr 2020
AIB payout to Karen, 35 days after the FSPO’s final decision

Great summary.

Just one major correction

bungaro said:

25th Sept 2019
Brendan picks a case (Karens) to put forward to the FSPO

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I am efficient but not that efficient.

I submitted Karen's case in April 2019. It has taken a year from submission to receipt of compensation. Even still I think that might be a record because we deliberately anticipated all their arguments in our initial submission and when they responded, we told the Ombudsman that we did not need to respond to their response. Each cycle of "he said, we say" drags it out another two months.

Brendan

Bungaro

I have inserted links to the posts

You were the first back in 2013! 7 years ago.

I had not realised it had gone back so far.

Well done.

Brendan

Brendan Burgess said:

Great summary.

Just one major correction




I am efficient but not that efficient.

I submitted Karen's case in April 2019.
Brendan

Click to expand...

I wasn't 100% on that date as I was going off old emails and posts on here so feel free to correct!

Can I ask how you became aware of clause 3.2 back in 2013? What prompted you to dig it out?

tnegun said:

Can I ask how you became aware of clause 3.2 back in 2013? What prompted you to dig it out?

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Can't remember to be honest. Probably was paying a fair amount back then so wanted to see my options. It being my first mortgage I was pretty clueless when signing

Was pretty clueless about the whole thing myself, was that @Brendan Burgess's first time to hear about the clause too?

Hi Gunner

I don't think I was aware of that post at the time.

A few well informed people told bungaro that he had no case.

That was good enough for me.

Brendan

Brendan Burgess said:

Hi Gunner

I don't think I was aware of that post at the time.

A few well informed people told bungaro that he had no case.

That was good enough for me.

Brendan

Click to expand...

Ha! We'll keep those names to ourselves Brendan

So this whole thing has come about from you just happening to read your contract back in 2013?

tnegun said:

So this whole thing has come about from you just happening to read your contract back in 2013?

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Not at all. I was one of many who noticed this but it took a Google search or being aware of askaboutmoney.com to realise we weren't alone in this matter. I might've been the first to post about it but if it wasn't for the website I'm not sure if our group would've come together. So not only did Brendan help finish our issue, but if it wasn't for his website in the first place who knows if it would've gathered all this momentum

Brian , a few things struck me when reading the timeline again .

1) AIB could have so so easily gotten away with this . Only for the fact you noticed the clause in the contract and raised questions about it and found an excellent forum like this to find likeminded people and leaders like Brendan , they most likely would have .
It really make me think what have other institutions ( not only banking ) have got away with over the years .

2 ) You generously left out the appalling behaviour of AIB during the timeline , the dismissive almost mocking tone at so many AGMs and Finance Commitees - it really was so disheartening to watch roadblock after roadblock being put in our way . I think AIB almost presumed if they said we'll see you in court we would back off worried about the costs

3 ) Considering where we started from , the result is phenomenal . If we had been offered this even a year or two we would grabbed it with both hands . I know it's not exactly the final destination that everyone expected after the preliminary decision but we have made it a long long way down that road .

4 ) Its shows the value and need for consumer advocates like Brendan and forums like this to help and encourage regular people in battles against pillars of the state like AIB . I personally believe we would have never kept going without this forum and Brendan's advice and encouragement to keep going

5 ) It showed the value of an independant person like the Ombudsman in dealing with issues like this .

6 ) I only helped in a tiny way by contributing to getting the Senior Counsel advice and emailing TDs etc but it does give me great pleasure to know that I was part of around a hundred people who kept this issue alive and forced AIB to take us seriously and helped achieve a life changing result for 5900 people ( the majority of whom will have no appreciation of the time and effort yourself , Brendan , Karen and many others put in )

Thanks Again to all those who put in so much time and effort over the years to get us to this point

Well said

Greenbean said:

2 ) You generously left out the appalling behaviour of AIB during the timeline , the dismissive almost mocking tone at so many AGMs and Finance Commitees - it really was so disheartening to watch roadblock after roadblock being put in our way . I think AIB almost presumed if they said we'll see you in court we would back off worried about the costs

Click to expand...

Greenbean, you're right in your points but I just want to focus on this one. Myself and Balfour would've worked closely in a lot of the timeline, especially since the meeting in Portlaois and I've lost count of the amount of times we encouraged each other to keep it going as we hit dead end after dead end. But the one thing which kept us going on was to not let the bank get away with this. You would not believe the times we had been told documents had been lost, or that they couldn't find really important details in contracts. I remember reading about one person on this website who requested all of their mortgage documents and they were sent it minus the page with the 3.2 clause!! It was in my opinion corporate bullying of the highest order and they were prepared to drag it out as long as they could as they knew they had the financial clout behind them. And even when speaking to Brendan recently (and he mentioned it in a post on here) they were still putting themselves out as being on the side of the customer yet they were submitting legal challenge after legal challenge to try and reverse the FSPO decision. Even our solicitor felt we were right in our case but that the financial redress which now AIB have to pay was reason enough for them not to settle.

Brian , I think it says it all about AIBs behaviour in this matter that they announced after the preliminary decision that " in the interests of the bank and it's customers " that they wanted to " bring this issue to resolution " and after they had announced that they were making a provision of €300m at the time , that they then lodged a 10 page series of legal challenges to that preliminary decision.
They then waited 35 days after the final decision was issued before they decided not to appeal to the High Court and concede defeat . This from a company who's tagline is " putting its customers first " .........

Thanks very much for this info Bungaro, it is a great credit to your perseverance. Whatever the circumstances of you getting to AAM, it has ended up having potential life changing consequences for a lot of people so fair play to you and all involved.

Update:

27th of Aug 2020
Redress paid out. Long road to get here

TBC: date for interest refund calculated with compound interest.

Wow!! Fair play to ye all! Thanks for all the hard work! It’s mad stuff!! Taking on the bank and winning! ye can’t be thanked enough!

Hi Bungaro

Liam Ferguson puts the story into the longer perspective of tracker mortgages here

[broken link removed]

Even [in 2003]AIB seemed to have a love-hate relationship with the tracker mortgage, even though it was a product they offered. From the Irish Times article in January 2003...

"Firstly, people who have been paying their mortgage off for a number of years may not be aware that their lender offers tracker mortgages. Some lenders, such as AIB, only introduced them quite recently and do not market them in their own right."