The difference between two banks

themadchef

Dropped into my friendly Ulster bank today to lodge a cheque into my personal acc. The cheque was made out to both my husband and myself (he signed the back). We do not have a joint acc (odd but it works for us). Ulser bank have taken all cheques in the past without so much as a sigh. Today i was told "no way we can lodge that for you here....its got your husbands name on it" etc etc.

I told her about the gazillion other cheques deposited before this one (draw down of mortgage etc) and she told me to go up the street to FBD (it was not even a personal cheque!) to get them to reissue the cheque to either just me or just him. So like a donkey i went up to FBD who basically laughed and said no, but were kind enough to write a letter stating that they refused to reissue and pretty please deposit the fkn thing for me to shut me up.

Back to the UB with letter in hand. Snotty lady proceeded to ring manager in Wesport branch who also said no.......i was fuming now. I then told her i was crossing the street to AIB wher she laughed at the thought that they may lodge it into hubby's personal acc.
It took all of 2 minutes for a lovely young fella in AIB to procces the lodgement for me........ so annoyed i am with the UB over 20 yrs, and strangers never even asked me for i.d to lodge it. Soooooo going to change over in the new year.
My point was they knew me, it was never going to bounce, was i looking for too much and if so why did AIB not have same problem with it?

I took great satisfaction in going back to snotty lady to show her the lodge ment slip. Her reply.......take it up with westport manager! goodbye!


Rant over

Mods please move if you feel this should be in banking.

Random

So the guy was just doing his job in UB and AIB broke the "rules" ?

themadchef

random wrote: »

So the guy was just doing his job in UB and AIB broke the "rules" ?

This is exactly what i'm wondering? If this is the case then did the rules change lately because they never had a problem changing the cheques in the past.

Also, i don't want to open a joint acc and i feel im being more or less forced into it now as i will have no other way to change these very rare cheques.

I never changed my name, so therefore have no bills with my husbands surname, driving licence and passport are both in maiden name so how in hell am i going to be able to open this seemingly neccasary acc?

So confused now

Hester

If the cheque was crossed "account payee only" which I'm assuming it was, then the cheque should have gone into a joint account. The cashier was just doing her job. I've been in the situation where I've been getting abuse from a customer simply because I'm following the instructions on a cheque.

And why would you think you need ID to lodge a cheque? Once the name on the cheque matches the account then it's all good.

If you're going to have a joint account then why don't you open it in your maiden name, if that's the name you use?

themadchef

Hester wrote: »

If the cheque was crossed "account payee only" which I'm assuming it was, then the cheque should have gone into a joint account. The cashier was just doing her job. I've been in the situation where I've been getting abuse from a customer simply because I'm following the instructions on a cheque.

And why would you think you need ID to lodge a cheque? Once the name on the cheque matches the account then it's all good.

If you're going to have a joint account then why don't you open it in your maiden name, if that's the name you use?

Your'e right, it was account payee. I wasin't abusing her i was just annoyed at the half hour wait to ring the other branch, i knew it was not her fault...policy etc. It's the not knowing it wasin't allowed that annoyed me more than anything as there were never any probs in the past.

As for setting up joint acc, good advice but how will it work if the cheque will be paid to my married name? It was a stupid of me to use his name on mortgage....but thats the past and i cant change it. Its the setting up of a new account that i will now have problems with and changing future cheques.

Advice?

Sangre

themadchef wrote: »

I took great satisfaction in going back to snotty lady to show her the lodge ment slip. Her reply.......take it up with westport manager! goodbye!

Wow, you sound like a cow. Do you actually think she'd care? I'd can imagine all of them having a laugh about that as soon as you left. Although how can you be mad at someone who was told by a manager not to do something? Its irrelevant what the FBD letter said, its not their bank rules they need to follow.

A teller doesn't care if you've been there for 20 years. They don't have any authority to break bank policies or rules. And yes, they will change quite often especially if they're to do with a security issue.

If it was account payee there wasn't really much she could do.

pow wow

That's a bit harsh!

I know from working in a bank myself (briefly!) that the rules are always being bent/loosened for customers so I don't think the OP is being entirely unreasonable by being frustrated that a rule that has never been enforced by her bank is suddenly being applied and inconveniencing her.

That said, a rule is, in theory, a rule and so if you want to continue banking with UB who are enforcing it then a joint account would seem the only way to go.

parsi

My old fella had to get a draft in Ulster Bank last week and the one they issued had the date wrong (2 months wrong). They said that they couldn't reissue it so they "doctored" the date...I'd love to see how they deal with it when it's presented in another branch.

themadchef

Sangre wrote: »

Wow, you sound like a cow. Do you actually think she'd care?

If it was account payee there wasn't really much she could do.

Actually after she told me in no uncertain terms that AIB would certainly not take the lodgement i asked if she would like to know the outcome, so told her if they took it i would come back to show her the slip. She was more than stunned to say the least, and her reply was not FK you..take it up with the manager..it was more, take it up with the manager ..(he needs to hear this!) goodbye......youre busy, im busy nothing i could do. She was doing her job i'm well aware of this.

And as for me being a "cow", well, perhaps youre right, but i thought i was more than civil in the circumstances.
You either enforce rules or you don't. Some staff do at this branch, and obviously some dont or the cheques i have lodged in the recent past would never have been lodged, all acc payee. This is my point, UB afaik had no problem taking these cheques, and without warning they stop. Not good customer service. Better way is "madame you cant lodge future cheques like this....etc etc when i lodged the last one!

andyeire

As far as i was told the rules changed quite a few years ago.Some thing to do with third party cheques ie where as long as the person who the cheque was written had endorsed it it could be lodged to any account.

I had a similar issue in a Bank of Ireland a while back the teller explained they used to take the cheques for 'people they knew'.This worked until branch was audited and this practise was noticed and staff where 'retrained'.

It is money laundering legislation they dont have a choice .If the teller in AIB bends the rules as they see fit what if they are as lax when it comes to the security of your accounts.

I got around this by adding my wife to my bank account with my surname and she added me to her account where she uses her maiden name .This covered all the different possibilitys for getting in cheques

themadchef

andyeire wrote: »

I got around this by adding my wife to my bank account with my surname and she added me to her account where she uses her maiden name .This covered all the different possibilitys for getting in cheques

Thanks, seems like a great suggestion, i will look into it. Hope it won't be too complicated.