AIB - duplicate transaction

bawnee86

I was in a bar in Dublin and spent 60euro on my laser card. A few days later I checked my online banking and the transaction had gone through twice.

I went back to the bar and they said the transaction only went through once. They had all the transactions that had gone through for the whole night - as far as they were concerned it did only go through once. They called their bank while I was there and their bank also said that it only went through once. I was satisfied that the error was through no fault of the bar.

So basically, the money was gone from my account and wasn't in their account. This extra 60 euro that twas taken out left my account overdrawn, for which I was charged. I was advised to go into my bank and talk to them about it.

When I went into the bank they looked through all my transactions and told me that the bar had taken it and there's nothing they can do. I told them about the correspondence I had with the bar and said that I wanted them to investigate it. I had to fill out a form for them to check on it. They were sooo rude to me in the bank, rolling their eyes and tutting when I asked them to investigate.

About 3 or 4 weeks later, 60 euro just appears in my account under 'fraud'. I had no phone call or letter from the bank to tell me what had happened, so I got back onto them. They said they're not accepting liability for it and it was the laser card company who refunded the money. They couldn't give me anymore information - even to contact them to find out what happened.

Although the bank didn't accept liability for the error, after a lot of phonecalls and hassle on my behalf, they refunded me the fee they had charged for causing me to be overdrawn.

This week, ANOTHER 60 euro showed up in my account - from the bar this time. I got back onto the bar and they said that their bank advised that there was a problem with the new machine which caused me to be charged twice. The bar were furious that the first refund had been marked down as 'fraud' as it's tarnishing their name.

Anyway...what I want to know is what I can do about this? Nobody is accepting liability for it and I haven't got any explanation or apology from the bank. Should I go to the ombudsman? Is there any point? Who can I get onto about this??

Oryx

Well you got your money back (double by the sounds of it) and your fees were refunded. So you cannot complain about being out of pocket. So that just leaves you unhappy with the banks attitude. In terms of what the ombudsman has to deal with, this would be pretty insignificant. I think you should write to your bank explaining your problem, but then consider changing banks if your confidence in this one has been damaged. I moved from AIB myself years ago because of a series of problems with them. Though I can't say my new bank was all that wonderful either.

jamesbondings

Oryx wrote: »

Well you got your money back (double by the sounds of it) and your fees were refunded. So you cannot complain about being out of pocket. So that just leaves you unhappy with the banks attitude. In terms of what the ombudsman has to deal with, this would be pretty insignificant. I think you should write to your bank explaining your problem, but then consider changing banks if your confidence in this one has been damaged. I moved from AIB myself years ago because of a series of problems with them. Though I can't say my new bank was all that wonderful either.

But without a doubt the bank will take that money back more than likely when the OP needs it. (Always the case) Customer service leaves alot to be desired.

dotsman

The problem is clearly between the bar and their bank.

I'm not sure why you want an apology from your bank. They did everything right. They even refunded you the money out of goodwill even though they could clearly see that they did nothing wrong.

In term of apologies, it is between the bar and their bank to do the apologising to you and your bank. You also owe your bank an apology and would contact them immediately to have the €60 goodwill payment returned to them as it is not yours.

jamesbondings

dotsman wrote: »

The problem is clearly between the bar and their bank.

I'm not sure why you want an apology from your bank. They did everything right. They even refunded you the money out of goodwill even though they could clearly see that they did nothing wrong.

In term of apologies, it is between the bar and their bank to do the apologising to you and your bank. You also owe your bank an apology and would contact them immediately to have the €60 goodwill payment returned to them as it is not yours.

i struggle to see how the OP owes the bank an apology, i do agree about going into them to return the money as its morally the right thing to do.

Also the bank didnt refund the money out of "goodwill" merely declared it as fraud, covering their arses in my opinion.

bawnee86

I will most definitely NOT be apologising to the bank. They have been so difficult to deal with and the customer service was appalling. They have not given me any information whatsoever, they can't even tell me who it was that refunded the money so I can get an answer from them.
I have no problem returning the extra 60 euro, but I would like an explanation as to how and why this happened, an apology for the dreadful customer service I received and a guarantee that they won't be just dipping into my account again if they realise that they 'accidentally' refunded the money.
If it was a goodwill gesture, surely they would have let me know that they have credited my account?