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Niall O’Grady, director of transactional banking, at briefing last week. Sam Boal

'We have two young kids, €320 a month is a massive amount to be overcharged by'

A mortgage customer says the compensation he’s been offered is “simply not good enough”.

A PERMANENT TSB mortgage customer says that he has been offered €2,700 in compensation after being overcharged by €21,000.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime programme, “David” says that the offer is “simply not good enough”.

He says that, had the problem not been spotted, his family would have been overcharged by close to €120,000 over the course of the mortgage.

Permanent TSB has written to 1,372 mortgage holders to inform them about “serious failures” in the management of their loans.

Up to 22 people lost their homes as a result of being overcharged. A Central Bank investigation found that some customers may also have wrongly ended up in arrears with some in unnceccesary legal proceedings.

David said that “luckily” he did not lose his home but that being overcharged had a significant impact on his family’s lives.

He says that they were overcharged by a total of €21,000:

We have two young kids, €320 a month is a massive amount to be overcharged by. It’s nearly €4,000 a year, that does impact on your life.

8/4/2015. Permanent TSB Business AGMS Shareholder Breda O'Brien voices her opinion at the bank's AGM. Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

David told the show that he has received the letter from Permanent TSB outlining the issues and compensation offer. Seeing the numbers on front of him brought the cost home, he said.

“It’s not until you look through the letter and you see the vast amount of money that’s involved in this.”

Had this not been rectified we would’ve been overcharged, in our case, I think it’s between €110,000-€120,000, that we would’ve been overcharged by over the term of the mortgage.

“People probably look at it from the outside and say, ‘It’s great that they’re getting a lump sum of money back’, but the money that we’re getting back is our money, it’s my money that we’re getting it back.”

“We’ve been offered just over €2,000 compensation for that, which is just, I feel, wrong.”

CEO of Permanent TSB Jeremy Masding has apologised to the affected customers and the bank has said that it’s putting a “comprehensive redress scheme” in place.

David says that he’s not happy with the offer made to him but does not know how to dispute it.

“Apparently, there’s meant to be a committee for people who aren’t happy with the compensation that they’re getting. I was informed by the bank yesterday that that committee isn’t for me, I’m not one of them, it’s only for people who’ve lost their homes.”

“Luckily, I’m not one of those people who lost their home but we were wronged nonetheless and we feel that the level of compensation we’re being given is not good enough.”

Permanent TSB says there are two separate appeals panels for those who aren’t satisfied with the redress being offered. One of those panels is for customers who lost their homes or are involved in legal proceedings, the other panel is for all other impacted customers.

“Customers can accept the redress and compensation offered and still appeal if they wish to do so,” the company adds.

Read: Permanent TSB boss: ‘I’m sorry, but we inherited these problems’ >

Read: Take a look at a note the under-pressure PTSB boss made for himself >

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