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THE SERIOUS ‘GLITCH’ that has impacted on hundreds of thousands of Ulster Bank customers across the country enters into its fourth working week on Monday.
Although the group claims that next week will be the final one during which clients will experience any significant delays, full and normal service will not resume until the week starting 16 July – and that will still not be for every customer.
Gradual and significant improvements are being reported by Ulster Bank management but have you noticed? On Monday, we published some of personal experiences that had been related in our comments section and across social media. The following is an updated selection from Thursday and just before close-of-business Friday.
If you want to update us on progress – or not – or if you have tips to help others in your situation, please leave us a comment with your advice/experience.
Wendy, a reader of TheJournal.ie and Ulster Bank customer, emailed us from an English airport after an ATM “ate her card” on Friday morning. After calling the helpline, staff told her they could not send her emergency money because of insufficient funds in her account. Eventually, another branch agreed to transfer funds through Western Union. After three hours of waiting she finally received her money but was unsure if she would be charged fees for the transfers. She also added:
Dreading how long it will take them to send me a new bank card!
Teemu Tempura Kankkunen is having a similarly stressful experience out of the country: I’m abroad and my current acc is full w double transactions eating my balance that is soon down to zero because of this..really nice…and yesterday 400 EUR disappeared aswell without any explanation..
Even though the financial services ombudsman has said he has only received a “handful” of complaints as of yesterday, many seem set to contact the regulator. Matt Donovan writes: I will be first in line, no money since June 14th, only found out when I went to pay for groceries but card was declined, had thought that my account was skimmed, having to take time off work to queue to get money (not an easy to get time off in my job this time of year), landlord not so patient, my wife is heavily pregnant & out of her mind with worry. Yes, I will be in touch with the regulator amongst others as this debacle is unacceptable & has tried my patience in oh so many ways!
Chuck Eastwood responds to Ulster Bank’s decision to lower its interest rates in line with the ECB rate cut: Waiting to see what will happen with my mortgage which is due out today. Haven’t been paid in three weeks and have had to dip into credit union saving to get food as my bank cards are bring refused. My local bank is not staying open late and I am not in a position to take time off work. The only reason they are passing on the interest rate cut to variable mortgages is because there would be murder if they didn’t. A self imposed penalty I suppose.
Mike Thornton has yet to see normal service resume: Have not received four weeks of pay into my Ulster bank account. Lodgements are not available. Any ATM withdrawals are immediately debited and to top it all I have been double debited for purchases to the tune of €500.
John Banks is an AIB customer but has still had problems: This is going on too long! How are they going to compensate credit cards and other missed payments via other banks? AIB said on the phone yesterday I will be charged late fees etc ! ulster bank need to tell us what their plan is for all concerned! Horrible that customers are receiving letters from the same bank about late fees!!!
Laura O’Sullivan was one of many to receive letters about overdrafts, missed direct debits and overdue loan repayments: So how nice of ulster bank to write to me and tell me that they are very concerned about the overdrawn amount on my account….im now gunna write a letter back tell them im concerned that they have applied for every transaction twice since this happened and can they pleaase ring me and make an arrangement to pay me what they owe me!!!!!!
Becs Nicholson reminds people to keep all correspondence relating to the issue: I have a loan with ub and that hadn’t been taken out even though it was due two weeks ago! Also beware if you have loans/mortgages with other financial institutions! Rang ebs today about our mortgage that is due to come out on the 7th. Ebs said it will show on my account as a returned direct debit (and I will be charged) then they will try again on the 15th (I will be charged again) and if it isn’t paid, unless I have a letter from ub saying its their fault it will show up as arrears on my account. Not happy at all
Leah Burgess notes the difference attitudes of various other companies affected by the so-called glitch: Yesterday Vodafone DD had not gone through thankfully when I phoned them they were very understanding and put a note on my account to say I was with the ulster and to take the money next month. My mums Sky subscription DD has not gone through either but they say if they don’t get their payment they will cut the service off. I contacted Ulsterbank on twitter and got a tweet back directing me to a site ref dd that they are working with other banks and this is what it says “We would like to reassure our customers, and those of other banks, that we are working with other banks, service providers, insurance and utility companies to ensure that, as a result of this issue, customers will not be without their services, will not be permanently out of pocket and will not have their credit record affected.”
The bank’s handling of the situation has also frustrated some people in the media. Yesterday, BBC correspondent seemed baffled at the group’s resistance to being interviewed:
Also, on Twitter yesterday, customers vented their frustrations and highlighted other, newly-discovered problems such as setting up PayPal accounts and cancelled direct debits being mistakenly honoured:
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my wages finally went in after nearly 2 weeks but none of the ammounts ive withdrawn at branch level so im goin to withdraw money and run up a substantial overdraft … give them a long wait for payment just like they did to me
i cannot urge effected customers to make complaints to the financial service ombudsman and any other regulatory bodies. what the bank is doing to you is wrong and nobody else Will make that complaint for you. also it would be wise to keep a diary of any correspondence you may have had with the bank and write down details of lodgement, atm withdrawals and any other transactions you never know when you might need to recall that information…
that should say *cannot urge effected customers enough*
Co-run a small business, account with Ulster Bank. Very fortunate to have a landlord who has not yet kicked us out on account of rent payment hovering in limbo between our account and his.
It is unthinkable in this day and age that a bank can be this useless for this long.
Have learnt in the last ten years to act like our European neighbours and complain like hell when the service i pay for and expect is c***.Already drafted my letter highlighting how this fiasco has effected me.Just waiting for everything to be cleared up in relation to my account before i post it.I feel sorry for the ordinary staff in the bank l think they are going to suffer for this screwup.People will close and move their accounts.So less business less jobs:-(
There seem to be some changes on my account. Was -230 yesterday morning and this morning the same balance has gone down to -95 and dated 5 July. On the day itself, that is 5 July, my balance was a positive figure. Money was in and out but no exact clue about the proper movements. Now am waiting for everything to be definitely sorted so as to print a statement and to check all transactions. Still seem very dodgy to me.
And finally got paid child benefit this morning, after 4 days.
Just tried to call the helpline to check my account info………..now they are having “technical issues” with their phonelines they told me…..they can’t hear customers on the line………………What a load of sh!te!!!!
like Sarah says Please take the time to write down how this has affected you and send it in the first instance to customerrelations at ulsterbank dot com. they will follow up on every complaint, but you need to put it in email and get it off there. otherwise. .the assumption will be this has not really bothered or affected you, and the CEO will be the first to say that they only received x amount of complaints etc.
Man on dole ‘took £42,000 from Ulster Bank cash machine’
Similar experience to all the other comments; some outgoing transactions have been updated to 27/6 which has left our current a/c overdrawn and therefore we cannot use the ATM. The bank seem reluctant to let us withdraw from savings a/c. My Husband’s salary has not been updated for two consecutive weeks, child benefit has not been paid either.
Finally, of the updated transactions these have not been done properly, one has been duplicated twice on our statement. I heard on the radio that this has happened to a number of people, transactions being charged multiple times etc!
even this morning my balance is down 300 euro approx since yesterday. not used card in week! balance had jumped up 3 days ago. no statement appearing foe ANY of these movements. totally in the dark and will have to trust UB I’m not out of pocket. I also have some double debits from June 25. whole thing dragging on and on and on. I won’t stay without serious apology and compensation for 3 weeks of this non service, hassle, frustration, and stress!
It’s probably no harm to register in writing how badly you’ve been AFFECTED. I for one don’t trust the bank to help its customers off their own bat. They still can’t get their own house in order regarding bread and butter everyday transactions, let alone the tidying up they’ll have to do.
Anyone complaining to the financial ombudsman, their complaint will be forwarded to the appropriate department in UB, who’ll reply to Ombudsman and who in turn will write to you about the reply from UB. Quite a procedure here but worth it. At least there’s an office following up on complaints and hopefully all of us who’s been affected will be compensated rightly by UB. This will cost them billions and really sorry for the innocent branch staff who will be affected by this, due to the incompetence of their senior management.
ombudsman will tell u to contact UB direct in first instance. I spoke to him.
Just received an email from UB, after 3 weeks, entitled “Progress update from Ulster Bank”. Took them so long to send over updates to their customers…. and updates which i suppose we have been reading over and over again on their website and NOW they have decided to send the said supposed progress update to customers by email, which i suppose will make us think that we are being cared for….
The email reads as follows:
If you can’t see this email from Ulster Bank, view it online here.
Help for what matters – Ulster Bank
We are working hard to put things right
Many of our customers should see an improved position on their accounts over the next few days, with account transactions continuing to update as we work through the backlog. Once again we would like to apologise to our customers for the significant disruption this has caused, in the meantime, we continue to:
Provide access to cash through any Ulster Bank ATM. If the balance does not reflect up to date payments due into your account, including salary payments, please come to any Ulster Bank branch with your photo ID, account details and payslip.
Waive the cash advance fee and interest for Ulster Bank credit card holders who use their credit card to access cash during the current incident.
Treble our call centre staff to assist you with customer queries through our helpline on 1800 205 100 which is open from 8am until 10pm. If you are calling from abroad please call +353 9156 2910.
Open our Saturday opening branches today from 10am until 3pm and we will also open our main branches on Sunday from 10am until 1pm to help as many customers as possible. A full list of these branches is available on http://www.ulsterbank.ie/help.
If you are elderly or have a disability and are unable to access one of our branches, we would ask you to phone your nearest branch so that our staff can put an arrangement in place to support you.
We promise that no customer will be permanently out of pocket as a result of this problem.
Our staff are ready to help and answer any questions you may have.
ulsterbank.ie/help – 1800 205 100
About this email
Please do not reply to this email, the address this email was sent from is not monitored. If you need to speak to us about this email, please refer to the Contact us section of our website.
Security
Many internet users have recently been targeted through bogus emails by fraudsters claiming to be from the Bank. These emails ask customers to provide personal details or Banking Security Information in order to reactivate an account or verify an email address. Please be on your guard against emails that request any of your security details. If you receive an email like this you should not respond. Please remember that, for security reasons, apart from when you create them at registration or when you change your Internet PIN or Password we will only ever ask you to enter random characters from your Internet PIN and Password when you log on to this service. We would never ask you by email to enter (or record) these details and we would therefore request that you do not respond to emails asking for this information. If you think an email that appears to be from us is a phishing email, please forward it to phishing@ulsterbank.com. For further information about this and Internet Security in general, please refer to http://www.ulsterbank.ie/security.
Legal
This email message is confidential and for use by the addressee only. If the message is received by anyone other than the addressee, please delete it from your computer. This information is classified as public and Ulster Bank Ireland Limited does not accept responsibility for changes made to this message after it was sent.
Whilst all reasonable care has been taken to avoid the transmission of viruses, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that onward transmission, opening or use of this message and any attachments will not adversely affect its systems or data. No responsibility is accepted by Ulster Bank Ireland Limited in this regard and the recipient should carry out such virus and other checks as it considers appropriate.
Ulster Bank Ireland Limited. A private company limited by shares, trading as Ulster Bank, Ulster Bank Group and Banc Uladh. Registered in Republic of Ireland. Registered No 25766. Registered Office: Ulster Bank Group Centre, George’s Quay, Dublin 2. Member of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group. Ulster Bank Ireland Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Calls may be recorded.
2 of our cards have been involved in fraudulent payments. Had to call head office who told us to go into our local. Our local bank rang head office who said they couldn’t verrify that it was atucally the local bank calling them becuase their system was down… My god what a time to have an extra problem with your account on top of this colossal computer error from UB.
I just want them to let us know, in acceptably plain English, what happened; where was the breakdown, why was the redundancy so aenemic, what have they learned about the intrinsic weaknesses in their (parent company, presumably) set-up.
I don’t care about the coffee, tea, and chocolates in my local branch. I don’t care about the painstakingly crafted apology on their website. I wish the powers that be would stop faffing about and pony up some real, unpatronising explanations rather than being left to cobble a reason together from internet rumours, journalists with unnamed sources of dubious quality, and anecdotes about the (genuinely) harrowing fall-out for many. Why? Why did this occur?
Getting double debbitted for transactions and S/O for June 25th taken out of my account but still not showing up in my other bank account whereas S/O for June 19th and July 2nd are showing up. It’s a complete joke, hope they will compensate customers for this disaster but doubt that very much!
Let your fingers do the talking.
I should have been paid my salary on June 25th, my mortgage should have been paid on June 27th was paid on July 5th, loan should have been paid June 30th paid July 5th. Still waiting for debit card transactions to update my balance .
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