Bank of Ireland customers warned to repay money or face damaged ...
Irish consumer’s rights organisations have urged anyone who withdrew excess money from their bank accounts during Bank of Ireland’s technical failure on Monday night to lodge the money back into their accounts, warning that a large unauthorised overdraft could negatively impact their credit ratings.
During Monday’s technical blackout, customers found they could withdraw up to €500 that they didn’t have from their Bank of Ireland accounts at ATM machines, or transfer up to €1,000 onto Revolut cards and then withdraw it, sparking scenes of vast queues throughout the night at ATMs around the country.
But Brendan Burgess, Founder of the Consumer Forum Askaboutmoney.com, warned that those who don’t repay the sums withdrawn during the incident could end up with damaged credit ratings as a result of large, high-cost unauthorised overdrafts. Bank of Ireland had earlier warned customers that any money withdrawn would be debited from their accounts.
“If people were caught up in a moment of madness last night, they need to go straight back in and lodge that money back into their accounts because if they don’t they’re going to have a damaged credit record,” Mr Burgess told the Irish Examiner.
“Similar to people who have unpaid student loans or credit cards dating back to when they were young suddenly discovering that they are blocked out of the borrowing market for things like mortgages five or eight years later, people who tried to withdraw this money will essentially end up with a large unauthorised overdraft.”
Mr Burgess said while there may have been customers who had innocently made an ATM withdrawal while unable to access their balance during the incident, which also saw the Banking 365 App fail, those who had heard about the issue on social media and tried to capitalise on it were involved in “pure, unadulterated theft”.
He said:
Bank of Ireland made an error but thousands of people tried to exploit that error and rob money from Bank of Ireland.
“There were two issues here. Some people went to their ATM innocently yesterday afternoon, not knowing there was a problem, and they went to withdraw cash. Those people are not culpable.”
“The thieves are the people who heard there was an issue, thought they were getting free money, and sucked the money out onto Revolut cards from their Bank of Ireland accounts.”
Meanwhile, Dermott Jewell, advisor to the Consumers’ Association of Ireland (CAI), echoed Mr Burgess’ call to banking customers to repay the money as soon as possible, but also warned that Bank of Ireland needed to use a “reasonable” approach with any customers who may have been unwittingly caught up in the incident and called on the bank not to apply fees in instances where the consumer was being affected through no fault of their own.
Mr Jewell said there may be many legitimate reasons, such as payment of rent or a deposit on a large purchase, why consumers may have withdrawn a lump sum of money within the timeframe of the app failure, without access to a method of checking their balance.
“If they’ve made an honest mistake in a situation not of their own making, then they must be extended goodwill and in such cases I think the bank should facilitate a short-term overdraft facility, even for a few days, and I would even argue that that should come at no cost to the consumer in terms of fees and interest.”
Consumer trust in Bank of Ireland may have been significantly damaged both by Monday’s incident and a failure earlier in the summer, Mr Jewell pointed out.
Customers were denied access to funds in their accounts earlier this summer when Bank of Ireland’s online systems crashed for most of Friday, June 30.
“The bank now have to re-establish some form of trust and go to greater lengths to explain exactly what happened, so there won’t be customers going, ‘why shouldn’t I take my money to some other bank,’” Mr Jewell said.
