Q&A

I've a qualifying investment share account with Irish Nationwide, which I opened in 1990. I held well over the minimum amount right up to May last year, at which stage I withdrew €3,500, leaving just 73 cents in my account.

Irish Nationwide

Irish Nationwide now tell me that I'm not entitled to a "windfall", even though my account type is a qualifying one as I didn't have sufficient funds in July 2003. (I put 150 into my account last week just in case I might still qualify.)

Who determines who qualifies? Can circumstances still change which may mean I may qualify?

Ms H.B., Dublin

Oops, I think you will find that you are indeed locked out of the windfall unless you can find a spare 20,000 to invest and hope that the demutualisation process does not begin for another two years - an unlikely sequence of events, I'll grant you.

The minimum threshold laid down in building society legislation states that anyone with 127 in a qualifying savings account falls into the net when it comes to windfalls.

Irish Nationwide has gradually raised the threshold in the last few years, and the entry level for membership is now 20,000.

The need for new legislation is the one thing that has held the society back from moving away from a member-owned financial services group. That now looks likely to be on the statute book sometime this year.

I am a little surprised that you reduced your account below the €127 level in May last year. After all, the Irish Nationwide had raised the bar on entry to a possible windfall to 20,000 two months earlier. In any case, it had been a five-figure sum for a year or more before that.

No doubt, the €3,500 was needed by you for something important at the time but, for the sake of leaving 127 of it in the account, you have forfeited your right to a 7,000-plus windfall whenever that happens.

The fact that you have subsequently put 150 into the account will not alter this, I am sorry to say. Once a member falls below the qualification level - a level determined by when they opened the account, which, in your case, is 127 - they start from scratch again, so you would need to meet the May 2003 qualifying standard of 20,000, or any later change to this.

As to who determines who qualifies, it is the society, in accordance with the rules laid down by the Building Societies Act. Can circumstances change that might allow you to qualify? Technically, yes. Will they? No.

First Active

I am sure I am not the only First Active customer who has become dissatisfied with their service.

My first complaint concerns the fact that First Active changed all their branches to non-cash outlets. This means that all withdrawals will be by way of a draft. What use is a draft when one is in town doing one's shopping and cash is required? Secondly, First Active charge a fee (€1.60) for issuing a draft, so every withdrawal costs money. I don't know if they charge a fee for lodgments as well.

My second complaint deals with receipts for mortgage and other lodgments. As I have not set up a direct debit I pay the mortgage by cheque each month. First Active used to issue stamped and branded receipts. With the new system the customer now retains the top copy of the lodgment docket as a receipt but this is not stamped or verified by the building society. In other words, they are not receipts but merely memoranda. If the building society mislays the lodgment, say in January, this will not come to the customer's notice until 15 months later when the annual statement arrives.

The third complaint is in respect of their 10-day notice account. I gave notice to make a withdrawal and was told that I could collect a draft on a particular date, which was a Thursday. As I was not able to call to the branch on the Thursday I called in on the following Monday. Instead of getting a draft I was told that I would have to give another 10 days' notice, as the notice had expired. Apparently, the notice is valid for one day only during which one can collect the draft. The draft will not be waiting for you, nor will it be posted out to you, but will be issued only when you call in person with a photo ID. How do people with disability or illness deal with this?

My fourth complaint is that the annual statement as at December 31st 2003 was not received until middle of April 2004. The society blames the delay on the postal dispute (which happened roughly March 19th to April 3rd, 2004!).

The last complaint is that I discovered from the above statement that First Active had made a debit to my mortgage account in May 2003 under a heading "insurance premium adjustment". I have queried this once by e-mail and twice in writing to them during the past month but I have not received a reply. What do I have to do to get a satisfactory explanation from First Active?

Ms A.M., Dublin

I am not entirely surprised by your comments. First Active's new owner, Royal Bank of Scotland, has a reputation as a fairly ruthless cutter of costs.

The bank has the right to decide its policy on customer service, just as you have the right to move your business elsewhere, which I understand you quite correctly will do. Where it is absolutely in the wrong is in refusing to respond to three separate queries from you in the space of a month on an item on a statement.

First Active tells me it will investigate what happened to your queries and will contact you but I suspect the damage is done.

You are a little bit unusual in today's terms in banking without an ATM card. However, you are not unique and a bank that offers only cashless branch service is asking to lose customers and not just people in your position. Older customers less comfortable with electronic or automated banking will be seriously put out by the policy.

In relation to your mortgage payments by cheque, First Active tells me you should receive a stamped and branded receipt at the desk when you pay. If you use the lodgment box, there is a box on the lodgment docket where you can request a receipt to be sent out to you.

The 10-day notice account is a classic case of the changing nature of the relationship between customers and banks. First Active says that if, when you notified it of your intention to withdraw, you had indicated a suitable day, it would have facilitated you.

The bank's spokespeople seem unable to understand that a normal customer would assume that the money would be available at the branch any time after the notification date.

I'm not even going to address the three-and-a-half-month delay in issuing a mortgage statement, which was blamed on a two-week postal strike, because the whole thing is just an insult to any customer's intelligence.

Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 or e-mail to dcoyle@irish-times.ie. This column is a reader service and is not intended 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.