Bank Of Ireland Vs. AIB

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I've been with Boi since I was pretty much born. I've taken my fair share of student loans and paid them all back, some well in advance.

I applied for a small load of about 4k.

I received a letter saying I was denied. I called a loan manager to find out the reason and was told I had missed a number of direct debits over the course of the last year which had put a few black spots on my account.

Whenever these direct debits were missed I was notified and I paid them off immediatly. It was me being absent minded rather than any financial trouble.

I am on an okay salary, I don't have any financial burdens like mortage or anything. I work in the public sector and there is no way I will lose my job short of the country falling apart( i'm going to pre empt any 'it is already' jokes).

Anyway, the loan manager was ridiculously rude to me on the phone, all the time she was say "i dont' have time for this" and then going silent and not being very 'customer' friendly.

I am considering closing my account and moving to AIB. I know they will probably not give me a loan just like BOI but its the principle. I was treated bad by a bank who has had my money for almost 1/4 of a century so I don't feel this is right.

Is AIB better as a bank, or is it all the same where ever you go?

narwog81

BOI have really tightened up their loans policy in recent weeks in my experience.

Two friends of mine, both in secure employment with incomes of 40k+ were refused loans (2k and 7k) recently.

When they pressed for the reasons why they were refused they also recieved quite rude responses and felt they were dealt with very poorly, considering like you they were both long-time customers of the bank.

Neither had any previous difficulties with repayments ever.

Solution: both went to their local credit union and got the money and with better service. One has moved all his accounts from BOI as a result and wrote them a letter leaving them in no doubt as to why.... He later got an apologetic phone call from a customer service manager and then the branch manager but he told them both to go jump.

stepbar

Margot Worried Vow wrote: »

I've been with Boi since I was pretty much born. I've taken my fair share of student loans and paid them all back, some well in advance.

I applied for a small load of about 4k.

I received a letter saying I was denied. I called a loan manager to find out the reason and was told I had missed a number of direct debits over the course of the last year which had put a few black spots on my account.

Whenever these direct debits were missed I was notified and I paid them off immediatly. It was me being absent minded rather than any financial trouble.

I am on an okay salary, I don't have any financial burdens like mortage or anything. I work in the public sector and there is no way I will lose my job short of the country falling apart( i'm going to pre empt any 'it is already' jokes).

Anyway, the loan manager was ridiculously rude to me on the phone, all the time she was say "i dont' have time for this" and then going silent and not being very 'customer' friendly.

I am considering closing my account and moving to AIB. I know they will probably not give me a loan just like BOI but its the principle. I was treated bad by a bank who has had my money for almost 1/4 of a century so I don't feel this is right.

Is AIB better as a bank, or is it all the same where ever you go?

That seems very harsh if the only thing declining the loan was missed D/D's.

My advise, call the branch and ask to speak to the sales manager / customer service manager. Ask them to

1st. have a word with the customer advisor who put up the loan. That behaviour is not on.

2nd. Ask the mgr to appeal the application. Give him / her details of where the student loans were etc. They won't be able appeal unless you can give additional info to support same. But just make sure the mgr goes through the application to see if the info recorded in the first place was correct. If the customer advisor was as feckless (as in rude) as you say they may have missed something.

It's a lot of hassle for you granted but at least the person who seen you initially can been dealt with by mgt. Can't be if they don't know.

Toots

+1 to Stepbar's post.

It might also be worth mentioning that you'd consider taking your business elsewhere.

When you say you missed a few direct debits, how many are you talking about?

Slice

Looking at your past ability to honour direct debit payments is standard practice in banks and it also gives a fairly good indication of the future prospects that you'll make timely payments of whatever loan they give you. Ultimately, it's still your responsibility to ensure a bill is paid, and paid on time, whether it's paid by direct debit or not.

dotsman

Margot Worried Vow wrote: »

Is AIB better as a bank, or is it all the same where ever you go?

That's the million euro question. The fact is, that there's no real answer to it. For every pi$$ed off BOI customer, I'm sure you'll find an equally pi$$ed off AIB one.

Ultimately, both banks have generally good customer service. However, as they are both large organisations, there are, no doubt, some branches/reps etc who fall below par. Overall, most customers are happy with their service, and the overwhelming majority of transactions/requests etc are carried out correctly, efficiently and with a smile on their face.

If you want to move out of principle, then go for it (I have in relation to moving from NTL to SKY and Eircom to BT). Even if it's just for the personal satisfaction - then it's worth it. Can I guarantee that you will never have an issue with AIB? I'm afraid not - but the odds are in your favour:)

The only bank that I've found to have overall bad customer service is Halifax (and I think there are many others despite the bank having such a small customer base!). I base this on the fact that I've only contacted them a few times, and every single time something went wrong. I'm not even sure whether I'm still a customer or not (I refuse to contact them ever again, and one of the issues I had with them was the complete lack of communication from their end, so I'm not sure if my third request to have my credit card canceled was successful)!