Have Your Say

The strange case of the missing interest

A reader who would like to be identified only as Thomas from Dublin got in touch with a serious complaint about Allied Irish Bank.

“A few weeks ago I got a print-out of my recent transactions for my current account,” he writes. “There was a credit of 0.25 per cent listed. On checking this I found that it had not been credited to my account. It is added every quarter but checking back over previous statements I noticed that my account has never been credited with this interest.”

He went to customer service at his branch on Grafton St and after about half an hour waiting he was told that he had to use online or telephone banking to qualify for the interest on his current account.

“The customer service staff member said he had never heard of this rule before. I applied for the online banking facility and I received a letter from them with a registration number I had to phone in to AIB.”

He called the number and, as a by the way, he explained why he was registering for online banking in the first place. “She told me it was ridiculous and said there was no such criteria for receiving interest.”

He went back to his bank and was told by another customer service rep that she had never heard of this rule on interest but after checking his account and the terms and conditions she confirmed “I was not entitled to this interest because I do not use online banking. I will be closing my account with AIB.” We contacted AIB and the company could offer little by way of defence of this policy, other then to fall back on the fact that its terms and conditions stated that as long as customers met its phone and internet banking usage requirement “interest will be earned on any cleared credit balance up to €1,000 on the personal bank account.”

More queries about pension levy refunds

Last week we carried an item about a former public service worker who was struggling to get her pension levy returned to her. She had worked in the public sector for 18 months but in February her contract was not renewed. When you join the public sector you begin paying into the public sector pension, and if you work in the sector for less then two years, the pension is repaid to you. She received her repayment in May but has yet to get her pension levy repaid. Revenue initially said the repayment should come from her employer, Dublin City Council, but she has written to them and hasn’t heard anything back.

She then got correspondence from Revenue which said: “Please note that there is no refund due in respect of the Pension Levy Deductions made on your income from Dublin City Council.” We contacted Revenue and a spokesman confirmed that she should be due a refund and that it should come directly from her employer, so she was advised to follow it up directly with them. Revenue is also looking into the circumstances surrounding the issuing of a letter which appeared to contradict this position.

It prompted another reader to get in touch with a similar problem. “It’s the first time I have seen anything written about the topic, but believe me there must be lots of former public servants who have similar issues,” she writes.

“In my own case I worked with Galway County Council from October 2007 until June 2009, when my contract was up and was not renewed as a result of the embargo. When I was leaving I requested clarification from personnel in regard to the pension levy as, like your correspondent, it made no sense whatsoever to me to be paying a significant amount for something that I knew I was never going to benefit from”.

A full year on and she is none the wiser. “I have rung my former employer a number of times, but have not got any clear answers or indeed any satisfaction. Perhaps you might consider looking into this matter further, particularly given the numbers losing their jobs in the public service on a daily basis.”

We contacted the Revenue again. A spokesman said that an internal inquiry was underway to try and establish why one of its officers wrote the letter. He said that while it is true to say there is no tax refund due from the tax man as the pension-related deduction is not a tax, no one from Revenue should have written to our reader expressing an opinion and he apologised for any confusion caused.