Active interest

Q&A:My wife had a five-year loan with First Active that was paid off on the March 2nd, 2007. She had received correspondence from First Active back in December 2006 in relation to the final payment of the loan in March.

On April 2nd, 2007, the sum of €312 was withdrawn from her account. The same amount was taken from the account on May 2nd and in June.

She rang First Active which apologised for the error and confirmed that the loan had been paid in full on March 2nd. They told her that they would have to send her out a form to complete before they could credit the three amounts that were debited from her account, even though the loan had been paid off in March.

Two weeks passed and my wife rang First Active, to find out why she had not received the amount owed to her.

She was told that "you are in a queue". Are there so many people being overcharged that there is queue? I am in no doubt that should this situation be reversed First Active would have no hesitation in debiting the account to recover what was rightfully theirs.

The icing on the cake came this week when my wife checked her account and found that she had again been debited an amount of €312 on July 2nd. So, after numerous phone calls and correspondence to and from First Active during the month of June, they charged her again!

I work in the industry and it is amazing that customers are being treated in this manner. Surely with the press coverage of overcharging, financial institutions should be bending over backwards to sort this type of situation out immediately. Is she entitled to interest on the sum of c€1,248?

Mr P.S., Dublin

Your letter speaks for itself. Quite clearly, the systems at First Active failed on this occasion.

The bank tells me that your wife's experience was "an isolated incident". They say they have now identified the error and the situation is being rectified. Satisfied? I hope not.

Bank systems do what the people inputting the commands tell them to do. If the bank is continuing to take your wife's money after she has paid her loan, it is because someone made an error.

If they are continuing to do so after being notified of the problem, it says clearly that they don't care.

The comment you say your wife received from staff at the First Active branch speaks volumes.

If that staff member was fully trained, whoever does the training should be let go; if he or she was not trained, the bank's HR department has questions to answer.

Unfortunately, the experience of this column is that the attention and consideration your wife failed to receive on this occasion could as easily have occurred at most, if not all, the high street financial institutions.

Are you entitled to interest on the money the bank took from your wife in error? I would certainly say you are. If you exceeded the terms agreed with your bank on an overdraft, it would be quick to charge significant interest.

I think your wife should negotiate restitution - including for the time she has wasted dealing with the matter - and I would certainly advise that all that is done in writing.

Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street, Dublin 2, or by e-mail to dcoyle@irish-times.ie.

This column is a reader service and is not intended to to replace professional advice. Due to the volume of mail, there may be a delay in answering queries.

All suitable queries will be answered through the columns of the newspaper. No personal correspondence will be entered into.