Pricewatch

‘I am baffled by the lack of help, lack of humanity, lack of customer service from PTSB’

Pricewatch: Accidentally transferring cash to the wrong account turned into a long ordeal for an unfortunate customer

26/10/14 - FINANCE - A Permanent TSB office on Dublins Grafton Street. PTSB Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times logos logo

Conor Pope's face
Conor Pope
Mon Apr 17 2023 - 05:45

“Basic customer service within PTSB does not exist,” was the ominous-sounding subject of a mail we received recently from a reader called Pauline. And when we read the mail, we couldn’t really disagree with her.

In January, Pauline was paying some bills online and did something any of us could have done.

“I incorrectly chose an old O2 account instead of my visa account,” she says. Now 02 no longer operates in this country and she no longer has an 02 account – obviously – so clearly this was likely to be an issue but, she figured, not a major one, not least because she was all over it straight away.

“It was completely my error and one I realised immediately. I rang PTSB and explained the situation,” she says. “They said if the O2 account no longer exists, the payment would bounce back in five days. It didn’t.”

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So, Pauline rang again. This time PTSB said it would process a payment recall to AIB where the 02 bank account had been. This time, Pauline was told, it would take up 20 days for a response. “They eventually did this after some to-ing and fro-ing,” she writes.

So far, so stressful. But it was only going to get worse.

It must happen a lot. Pricewatch has lost count of the number of times it has nearly sent money to person or business X when trying to send money to person or business Y

“After the said 20 days, they advised the payment recall was rejected/refused. I asked why and they said no reason was given by AIB and they didn’t need to give a reason. They said I needed to contact AIB myself as they could do nothing further. I was a bit surprised (stupidly) at their response but off I went via phone to AIB. Of course, for GDPR purposes, AIB would not speak with me.”

You can’t really blame AIB, given that Pauline was not the beneficiary of the AIB account, an account, incidentally, which almost certainly no longer even existed. In fact we can’t really imagine any circumstance in which that bank would have been able to discuss the account with a third party – in this case Pauline. But then what do we know? We’re not bankers.

‘Standard practice’

According to Pauline, AIB told her that PTSB “was being ridiculous in sending me to them” as it, too, would have know that AIB couldn’t possibly talk to Pauline about an account that she had no connection with whatsoever other than having transferred money to it in error.

“They did say, however, that all my bank had to do was pick up the phone and ring the payments department in AIB to sort it out. The lady in AIB said this was standard practice for them as this issue arises a lot.”

Of course, it must happen a lot. Pricewatch has lost count of the number of times it has nearly sent money to person or business X when trying to send money to person or business Y.

So off Pauline went back to PTSB with this suggested remedy of getting her money back.

It was €400 in case you’re wondering. We certainly were.

Communications company O2 no longer operates in Ireland. Photograph: Ian West/PA

“PTSB said no, they would not ring anyone, that they had followed their protocol and would I like to make a complaint? I said no, could I speak with a supervisor. The phone attendant went to get a supervisor but came back and said the supervisor was going to tell me the same thing. I also tried contacting O2 in the UK, who had no idea what I was talking about! I then tried 3 here in Ireland, who said they could do nothing without an IBAN number.”

If Pricewatch had any hair he would be tearing it out at this point. But it gets even worse.

“Having told my story to several people, I have found that I am not alone in my outrage of a bank treating one of its customers this way

—  PTSB customer Pauline

Poor Pauline went into a PTSB branch in person and explained the issue. “They said it was only Open24 in PTSB that could resolve the matter and that how I was treated was a disgrace and to certainly make a complaint and that they were unable to give me the IBAN number I had paid into either, for GDPR purposes (even though I would have given it to them initially to set up the payment).

“So, I rang PTSB back again and asked if they would ring AIB, which they said no. I asked again for the IBAN to the account the payment was made and they refused. I then asked for the complaints team. Again, after some to-ing and fro-ing, I eventually got to make a complaint.”

‘Truly baffled’

Time passed and eventually the crack complaints team got back to Pauline “to clarify my complaint. When they were happy with what I had explained they said that PTSB had followed protocol and did not have to do anything further like make a phone call on my behalf to AIB. As far as they were concerned, the matter was now closed and I could feel free to complain to the financial ombudsman if I so wished! I have recently done so!

“Having told my story to several people, I have found that I am not alone in my outrage of a bank treating one of its customers this way. It wasn’t that long ago we were bailing them out! I am truly, truly baffled by the lack of help, lack of humanity, basic lack of customer service that I am genuinely scratching my head. Many thanks for reading this and apologies if it reads as a rant (it probably is!).”

Pauline was nowhere near as ranty as we would have been had we found ourselves in this situation.

We could not get our head around why PTSB had behaved in such a fashion. Never mind protocols, surely someone somewhere in the bank would have come across the problem and thought to themselves, ‘I can fix this problem for one of our customers so I may as well do that? We also wondered where Pauline’s money was and when she might expect to get it back.

We contacted the bank and received the following statement. ”We apologise for the customer’s experience when dealing with the bank, which was not of the standard we aim for. We have been in touch directly with the customer to apologise and we have offered to make a gesture of goodwill to them to acknowledge that poor experience.

“On the substantial issue, the recall request which we made in respect of the payment made in error by the customer was completed as per the SEPA Rulebook for the industry and was rejected by AIB.

“We have now reached out to AIB who have confirmed the beneficiary account is now operating as Three Ireland. AIB has recommended that the customer contact that company directly to resolve the issue.”

We will be contacting the customer to confirm the above.

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