A Kildare-based scout troop had more than €2,000 withdrawn from its AIB account and diverted to Revenue because of an administrative error, with the bank warning that it could take months for the money to be returned.
Between last June and Christmas, a monthly direct debit of more than €300 was taken from the account belonging to the 13th Kildare Clane scouts troop and used to pay the taxes of an unrelated individual.
The misplaced direct debits were only flagged when the troop tried to pay its annual fees to Scouting Ireland in January.
One of the signatories and troop leader Ruairí Hamaltún said that, until recently, the troop relied on monthly paper statements and when they looked them over each month, the direct debit “didn’t raise a red flag”.
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Mr Hamaltún said that normally there would be a substantial sum left in the account after paying their annual fees, which is used to subsidise various activities over the course of the year.
However, when they started the payment process this year, they realised it would effectively empty the account. When they looked in more detail at what had happened to their funds, they found the irregular transactions.
“We found a recurring payment to Revenue,” he said. “I think it was for local property tax and the payments were being made from our account in a different person’s name. It seems like they incorrectly entered our Iban number instead of their own – it was maybe one digit out.”
The scouts called into their local branch, confident the administrative issue would resolved quickly but were told it would be considerably more complex.
First, they had to instruct the bank in writing to stop the payments and then, they were told, the bank would have to raise a disputed charge with Revenue.
“They said it could take weeks or months to get the money back, Mr Hamaltún said. “That’s left us with nothing, less than nothing really. If we pay our fees on time, which we normally do, we get a 10 per cent rebate but we’ve missed that and that’s €500. We now have no money left.”
When contacted, an AIB spokesman said it was investigating what had happened. “We have contacted the customer to take the steps to resolve this matter as quickly as possible and will ensure our customer is fully supported and has sufficient funds,” he said.
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