Bank of Ireland have just charged me £5.00 for a 'lodgement error'

SusieDo

I'm not sure that they would have reversed the charge had I not complained (and mentioned this thread in the letter!)
That's the troubling thing, how many other people have been charged & just accepted it?
It's worrying to think that ill-informed staff are photocopying cheques and posting off letters to their customers, they should concentrate on customer service and swotting up on their latest policies!
Anyway, it's a result and my £5 was well enjoyed on :beer: !!
Thanks for all your help
S

Starrystarrynight

Blimey! Charging to amend credits. I used to send out 200 of those letters a day when I worked in cheque & credit posting and there was no charge. Glad you got your refund, OP!

DesG

If you think that is bad, they even charge you to cancel a direct debit mandate!!

Cheers, Des.

Blue___Nile

I can explain why they have made a charge for the lodgement error. An official has keyed in the amount of the credit slip and then the cheques into the computer which then tells them the figures don't tally. The computer automatically produces the lodgement error letter and debits the account with the lodgement error charge.

The charge is made because the whole transaction has to be reversed off the computer, the amount on the lodgement slip changed and then the whole thing reinput with the new amount. Also the lodgement slip and cheques are photocopied to be sent to the customer. This all takes time and depending on the amount of the error, another bank official has to double check the error and sign off on it.

I know in my day there was usually some discretion about charging the fee in the first place and often if a reasonable complaint is made the fee will be refunded.

You make the point that if an elderly person walked into the Bank would the same charge have been made. Unfortunately this can no longer happen in Great Britain (not sure about NI) as they no longer offer cashing facilities/walk in customer service facilities preferring personal customers to use telephone/internet banking instead. This is why a lot of branches closed and merged into customer service centres instead.

Also remember that it pays to complain as BOI and I would imagine all banks have an internal monitoring system regarding complaints and compliments which have to be logged and dealt with during a certain amount of time. It was a standard item on all staff meetings as well where figures had to be produced regarding time frames, complaints dealt with etc. From memory this is also detailed in The Banking Code, a copy of which can be supplied by any bank.

Hope this helps.