Avoid Permanent TSB

Andy454 wrote: »

I had a direct debit declined in September for the lack of 30 cents in the account (despite my regular weekly wages going in the day after the direct debit!) A failed direct debit charge of over 12 euro was then applied to the account instead.

This is automated, the vast majority of the time the DD will be bounced automatically, without a member of staff checking over it. The rare exception to this would be if an account was blocked for some reason (person was deceased, order of discovery, attachment order, etc) or if it was an absolutely enormous DD (revenue or the like), then it would flag. Small bills and the like don't get decided on one-by-one anymore because the man hours it took was unreal.

I decided to close the account and find another bank as this sort of rubbish never happened me before - AIB were smart enough to hold it for a day until the wages went in!

I'd be willing to bet that AIB didn't "hold" the DD, more likely the DD automatically re-presented on their system in 24 hours. Or, depending on where the DD originator holds their accounts, it can take longer for the DD to present to other banks.

SO the following month during the winding up - there was 20 euro left in the account - which I took out on a Saturday and sent in a letter to close the account, the following Tuesday they charged their fees of 12 euro to the account and charged a "referral fee" of 5 euro for the pleasure of authorising their own fees! - Therefore its obvious that they pick and choose which transactions they will let through and which ones they won't!

There are always fees due when you close an account. If you withdrew the last 20 out of the account, leaving a zero balance then obviously there would be nothing left to cover the fees with. Once they hit the 'close' button on an account, fees will automatically be charged. Again, there is no 'review' process for fee transactions, and they will go through regardless of whether or not there's money in the account - this is the case with all the banks, it's not something that's exclusive to TSB.

When I called customer service they gave another spiel blaming the last ATM withdrawl on the referral charge - however this bank never gave me a cent over the available balance on the card!!

What they told you is correct. On the saturday when you withdrew the money, there was 20 available in your account. You then posted the letter, which they probably received on a Tuesday, and when they actioned it the fees were automatically charged to the account.

UPC overcharged me by 159 euro during their initial startup (instead of 59 euro) - again I was charged a 10 euro fee for failed direct debit - despite going into the bank and clawing the direct debit back due to it being incorrect - I was never refunded the fee due to the incorrect debit - The Branch manager said "that it was up to UPC to refund the fee - PTSB was entitled to its transaction fee"

Again, this is correct. They are entitled to charge you that fee, and you consented to the terms and conditions when you opened the account. It's not their problem that UPC put the DD through for the wrong amount. If it was a case that they paid out a DD that you never signed up for, then that would be different, and I'd be expecting a refund of the amount and the fees, however in this instance the fault was with UPC, and it should be them who refund the fee. TSB did their bit by recalling the DD, they're not obliged to do any more.

I was also told incorrectly on numerous occasions when stopping direct debits that I had to get the debitor to stop the debits and I always had to get the branch manager to cancel / recall debits despite this facility being available at the customer service desks of AIB, BOI etc etc.

The 'best practice' for cancelling DDs is to inform the originator (UPC, ESB, etc) that you are cancelling the DD to ensure that they no longer attempt to present for it, and then cancel the DD with your bank also, just to cross the Ts so to speak - originators are often a bit 'slow' to cancel direct debits. They got the first bit correct, however the branch should have cancelled the direct debit when you asked. I'm not sure why they wouldn't do it, could have been poor staff training, or some lazy staff members. Regardless, you can do it with online banking.

As regards re-calling the direct debit, my guess is that the branch manager probably wasn't bothered (or possibly wasn't completely sure of the procedure) and that's why they were so slow to do it. Again, I'd say poor staff training played a part in this, because they should have known that they were obliged to do it.

The manager in PTSB on the Walkinstown roundabout actually told me to "F*CK OFF" out of the bank when I asked him about a facility to tie me over until Tuesday the 2nd of September if the outage was going to take that long!

That's disgraceful, no excuse for that from a branch manager. A front line staff member I worked with had a similar outburst with a customer. This guy was still on his 6 month probationary period, and was fired on the spot. How long ago did you lodge the complaint? If were me, I'd send a registered letter to their customer care section, outlining what happened, and also that the original complaint hasn't been acknowledged in any way. You might get nowhere, but if that had happened to me I wouldn't let it go.

I also note that their debit cards frequently suffer "outages" so always be prepared to pay cash for items otherwise you may be left stuck - again according to Customer Service this is a feature of their account and they do not guarantee reliability of their debit cards!

Personally I've never had any trouble with my PTSB debit card, it's always worked perfectly.

Look referral/unpaid fees are a pain in the hole, I get that. I've incurred a couple of them myself over the years and it's hard not to see red when one pops up on my account, but the thing is they ARE perfectly entitled to charge them. By opening an account, you're agreeing to their terms and conditions, which clearly state that you will incur charges if your account is not sufficiently funded. The onus is on the customer to always ensure that there are sufficient funds in the account to meet payments going out.

If it regularly happens that a DD is presenting the day before you're paid, then you need to contact the originator and change the date the DD goes through. I've had to do this with a number of my bills because they were coming out 4 days before I got paid, which left me absolutely skint and barely able to get my groceries for the couple of days.

Regarding the 5 day cheque clearing, that again is the same across all the banks. You may have been allowed to draw on the cheques straight away in your previous bank because your account was with them a long time, or it operated well. When a customer opens a new account, it's standard procedure not to let them draw on cheques until they are fully cleared. Cheques drawn on the same bank take 3 working days to clear, domestic cheques drawn on other banks take 5 working days, and foreign cheques can take up to 30 working days. That's just the way the clearing cycle works.

Once an account is open over 12 months and has operated well (no unpaids) then they remove what's called the 'cleared for funds indicator' and you can draw on cheques as soon as they are lodged. You will incur a small interest charge (usually a few cent, unless it's a particularly large cheque) for doing so, and this will be reflected in your quarterly fees.

Now before you go accusing me of working for PTSB, I can assure you I don't. In fact, for the last decade, I've worked for one of their competitors, so I have no allegiance to them, and absolutely nothing to gain from posting this. My only tie to TSB is that I have a current account and a savings account with them, and since I've opened them, I've been very happy with their customer service.

In fairness, several of your experiences with their customer services have been very poor. However the issues around unpaid fees and returned direct debits would be the same in pretty much any other bank.