Switching banks: my experience

cookie1977

Just thought I’d put together a post on my experience of moving banks. Maybe others who are considering such a move can take note of some of the pitfalls and issues that may arise. I’m not moaning here and I now know what I’d do differently. This is purely about my experience which may help others.

I was with AIB since 1990 and had a cashsave account. Like others who saw that fees were being reintroduced I decided to change banks. After looking around I decided to move to BOI as they offered me the best deal.

I opened the account by dropping into my local branch and was offered the option of manually switching everything over or going with the auto transfer process. I opted for the auto transfer where everything would be moved over and my old AIB account shut down.

It was towards the end of the month and pay day was 7 days away so I contacted my payroll to update the bank details. They said that they probably wouldn’t get it done in time for this month’s pay but it would be set up for next month. I’d been in touch with both AIB and they had said if it hit my account they’d forward the pay on to BOI and if by chance my account had closed they’d return the money to my employer who could in turn send it on to my BOI account a few days later.

Pay day arrived and unfortunately it coincided with my account being closed so I rang AIB who said they’d returned the money to my employer. The next working day I dropped into my branch to enquire about the balance on the new BOI account (as I’d no online access). The teller asked if I’d received my bank card, which I hadn’t, at which point he reordered a new one for me as it seemed to have been taking a bit too long to arrive. The rest of the wages story can be read here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=78831514&postcount=369 but it was eventually sorted and AIB were very apologetic about it all.

A few days later two cards arrived for my BOI account and a couple of days after that I was able to access my bank account on line with BOI. I did end up being charged for my bank card re issue (I think it was 5 euro) but I was refunded by my branch after a few phone calls and a few days.

Most of the companies I paid bills to accepted my new bank account details over the phone other than Meteor and ICS (my mortgage company, a subsidiary of BOI). I sent meteor my direct debit mandate form with the new account details but after a week they said they never received it, so I sent a second one which after another week didn’t arrive either according to them. I rang meteor to explain this and was put through to credit control who were able to accept my bank details over the phone (up until now meteor said that this was absolutely not possible).

We also sent our forms changing our ICS mortgage direct debit details. Initially ICS wrote back to us thanking us for changing our direct debit details. Unfortunately they changed them to the old AIB details (as in they never changed them at all), so we wrote to them again. This time it was successful but again unfortunately ICS took it upon themselves to also change our payment date to 10 days earlier then before (which we never asked for nor mentioned in our change of bank account details letter). Thankfully we had the funds but it involved moving money here there and everywhere. They again have apologised for both errors and hopefully it’s all sorted now.

My advice based on my own experiences would be to do a manual account transfer and shutdown, and try to do it at the start of the month. Do check that all your direct debit details have been properly changed by the companies you deal with. And try to keep some money around so if anything goes wrong you can deal with it.

Anyway that’s my experience, hopefully yours went or will go better.

wmpdd3

My advice based on my own experiences would be to do a manual account transfer and shutdown, and try to do it at the start of the month.

totally agree, I'm at it 8 weeks now and I'm still waiting for the child benefit to switch over.

Def not as easy as you think it will be. So far i've had no issues with boi.

Mimikyu

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cookie1977

wmpdd3 wrote: »

totally agree, I'm at it 8 weeks now and I'm still waiting for the child benefit to switch over.

Def not as easy as you think it will be. So far i've had no issues with boi.

BOI to date have been great. They're the main light at the end of the tunnel in this story for me anyway.

Captain Morgan wrote: »

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We had no problems moving the childrens allowance over although we did follow up with every payee to confirm they had the correct details in advance of closing the account. The childrens allowance was on my wifes and we manually shut her account down once everything was correctly moved over. It was a lot less painful but still involved chasing and confirming things. The Dept for "childrens allowance" wrote us a letter confirming the change in details. For these reasons I still advise a manual account switch and shutdown as it should make things a little less painful.

Our man in Havana

Auto switching is a poison chalice. You are always best to do it all yourself so you have total control.

cookie1977

Our man in Havana wrote: »

Auto switching is a poison chalice. You are always best to do it all yourself so you have total control.

Lesson learned the hard way but totally concur.

Glowing

It's taken us nearly 2 months to switch from AIB to Ulster Bank (UB set up the original accounts with the wrong sort code which meant the switch failed 3 times). We've since had to have NEW accounts created with new cards issued for a second time.

Now to add fuel to the fire, we have that UB fiasco so don't know what the status is of any of the accounts.

What a mess! Grr/

MrFrisp

Captain Morgan wrote: »

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We had a nightmare doing this..

Switched from AIB to Ulster Bank,,and Ulster Bank said they would do the switch-over..Nice and smooth...Hassle Free.

It turned out after We gave them the list of all direct debits to be switched over,they failed to do 3 of them. So We stated getting bounced debits.

On top of all this,,it turns out that they only notify the Direct Debits...They Do Not sort the monies to be paid Into the account..

So We went 2 weeks without My Wifes B.T.W.E.A payments,,and also missed a months Child Benefit.

It's far from Smooth,and hassle free.

As it is,,We are still in contact with them to arrange a "compensation" package.

Total nightmare.




.

Lambsbread

I did the auto-transfer from BOI to Ulster Bank and it was pretty much hassle free. I had one issue with my company not changing over to the new account (despite telling me they did) so i received my salary a few days late but other than that it was easy.

I might be doing it again soon the way Ulster Bank are at the moment :rolleyes:

But overall I did not find it that big a deal to switch over, as long as you are organised it should be straightforward.