THE OFFICE OF the Financial Services Ombudsman has said that it is not “overrun” with complaints in relation to Ulster Bank’s technical meltdown which affected hundreds of thousands of clients over the past month.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie this morning, a spokesperson for the Ombudsman said they have received “a few dozen” complaints but most are being channelled through Ulster Bank itself.
“If a complaint is received we have to ensure that the consumer has first exhausted the complaints procedure in the bank,” he continued. “If the consumer is unhappy with the outcome of that process, they can pursue the complaint to this Office.”
An exact figure for the number of complaints received so far is not available as that data is not collated but the office is confident it has the resources to deal with the issue.
“If we need extra staff, we can get them at short notice,” he said.
The office has held meetings with management at the bank to ensure the smooth conclusion to customer complaints.
The Ombudsman has advised that because of legislation restrictions, it can only deal with account holders from Ulster Bank or those who have been offered a financial services. Others affected by the so-called technical glitch but who do not have an Ulster Bank account have been advised to contact Ulster Bank directly to complain.
Anybody who has contacted the Ombudsman with such queries has been referred on to Ulster Bank.
The spokesperson told TheJournal.ie that the office expects such complaints to be considered favourably.
No data was available from Ulster Bank about how many complaints it is currently processing. Details of its compensation package will be announced “shortly”, a spokesperson told TheJournal.ie today. It is currently in talks with the regulator and it is hoped an agreement will be reached soon.
Customer experiences
In its update this morning, Ulster Bank said that reconciliations of customer accounts will continue over the coming days and weeks. A video message from Jim Ryan, managing director of branch banking, accompanies the latest apology.
Extended opening hours continue this week with 51 branches open until 6pm until Friday.
Some customer experiences this week have not tallied with the bank’s claims that all technical faults have been resolved. Writing in the comments section of this website yesterday, Jennifer said that her account is showing as overdrawn due to duplicate transactions. She continued:
Called UB twice last week and was told it would be fixed by Monday 16th. It wasn’t fixed. When I tried to call Monday morning, I was hung up on / cut off 3 times and when I did speak to someone she was rude and unhelpful. Called them two more times for updates on Monday and was told it would be fixed by Tuesday morning. Nothing so far though… Absolute JOKE!!!
John and his wife are also still having problems:
UB still messing up! Myself and my wife both got paid twice this week and the mortgage came out twice. This only happened today! In the process of changing back to Back of Ireland
Eli Brace revealed that his wages “went in Thursday” but were showing up as an overpayment yesterday and had therefore been withdrawn again. “Double payments are all over may account and now leaving my account massively overdrawn.”
Meanwhile, Emmie was having issues online shopping: “Nope, still not normal. Made a payment to littlewoods on the 4th of July. They still haven’t got it.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say