Does non-payment of fees affect credit rating?

Monife

Hi all,

Posted in the BOI thread about the €35 worth of charges BOI has whacked us with.

We have held our joint account for 22 months and never once been charged (I move money between accounts regularly and top our phones up on 365) until this fee quarter. We are absolutely fuming.

We are going to jump ship to Ulster Bank.

BOI stated on the fee statement that the charges will be applied to our account on 30 December.

We want to withdraw all of our money before that date, then due to inactivity in the account, they would close it themselves (is that right, the OH told me that?).

Will doing the above affect our credit rating?

Or should we withdraw our money and then write to them stating that we refuse to pay the extortionate charges and that they should close our account and put the ball in their court?

Any other suggestions?

Cheers

chris85

Monife wrote: »

Hi all,

Posted in the BOI thread about the €35 worth of charges BOI has whacked us with.

We have held our joint account for 22 months and never once been charged (I move money between accounts regularly and top our phones up on 365) until this fee quarter. We are absolutely fuming.

We are going to jump ship to Ulster Bank.

BOI stated on the fee statement that the charges will be applied to our account on 30 December.

We want to withdraw all of our money before that date, then due to inactivity in the account, they would close it themselves (is that right, the OH told me that?).

Will doing the above affect our credit rating?

Or should we withdraw our money and then write to them stating that we refuse to pay the extortionate charges and that they should close our account and put the ball in their court?

Any other suggestions?

Cheers

Only credit facilities affect your credit rating. However your rating internally in the BOI would be note if you do go back to them in future for any products.

Why dont you ring them up and query the charges now and see why you are being charge them as you feel you met the criteria for free banking. lf you didnt meet the criteria for free banking then they are entitled to charge.

You can then make a decision what to do when you hear back from them.

Monife

Thanks for the reply.

We didn't actually meet the criteria because you have to lodge €3000 into it every fee quarter and do 9 online transactions but if that was the case, we have never met the criteria because we have never lodged €3000 or more in any one fee quarter to the account. This is why I am fuming because we have never been charged before so I had assumed that only new customers had to meet the new criteria (that was introduced in Autumn/Winter 2010).

I did ring them and they told me that I must not have met the criteria this quarter and that I must have met it all the other times. I said that is impossible and she said that she would escalate my complaint to be looked into. That was last week and have yet to hear back.

We were also never given the option of the flat rate fee so therefore were charged 28c for each transaction. I told them on the phone last week to change it to the flat fee and was told I have to write into them. The bank is just a joke.

If it doesn't affect our credit rating, then they are not getting their extortionate fees.

dobsdave

If you clear your account, they will take the money out anyway.
If you don't have an approved overdraft at that time, they will also charge you for going overdrawn.
They will charge you interest on the overdraft and continue to send you letters asking you to pay up.
Eventually they will close the account, and it may go on your credit history.

chris85

dobsdave wrote: »

If you clear your account, they will take the money out anyway.
If you don't have an approved overdraft at that time, they will also charge you for going overdrawn.
They will charge you interest on the overdraft and continue to send you letters asking you to pay up.
Eventually they will close the account, and it may go on your credit history.

overdrafts on current accounts cant go on the ICB. its only for credit facilities.

dotsman

chris85 wrote: »

overdrafts on current accounts cant go on the ICB. its only for credit facilities.

That's not necessarily true. Overdrafts aren't reported to the ICB as standard (due to the fact there are no standardised repayments). However, they can (and regularly are) reported when repayment is demanded and not met by the borrower (within the terms and conditions).

In the OP's case, it will boil down to the banks write-off procedures as to whether or not this get's reported to the ICB. Perhaps someone who has been through this process recently with BOI, or who works within the insolvency and collections unit in BOI can clarify what their procedures are.

OP, as it's a relatively small amount, have you contacted BOI over the matter? Often, they can be persuaded to waiver the fees if the underlying issue was a once-off.

chris85

dotsman wrote: »

That's not necessarily true. Overdrafts aren't reported to the ICB as standard (due to the fact there are no standardised repayments). However, they can (and regularly are) reported when repayment is demanded and not met by the borrower (within the terms and conditions).

Not true. Only overdrafts reported are ones which have legal proceedings. They generally dont get reported anyways at that stage anyways. For the OP's case not an issue. See quote from ICB.

"A credit agreement can include a mortgage, car loan, personal loan, leasing agreement or hire purchase agreement. Credit card details are included in the ICB library. Overdraft agreements, with the exception of overdraft agreements that are the subject of legal proceedings, are not reported by the ICB."

http://www.icb.ie/about.php

marywary

Banks are also supposed to respond to any complaint within 5 working days, be it a verbal complaint or in writing so I would suggest you ring them again to see if anything has been logged about your first phone call to them. If they haven't anything logged then you could go that route. They must acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and then have 8 weeks in which to resolve it.