JOE PATTON,
Madam, - I received a letter yesterday from the Bank of Ireland, with which I've had a trouble-free account for over 20 years, informing me that because my current account has been €1,000 overdrawn for the last three months, it was closing my account and withdrawing all direct debit and other banking facilities.
The bank has adopted this peremptory attitude despite my protestations that I will clear the overdraft by the end of June, and am perfectly willing to pay the interest that will accrue in the meantime.
Considering that the sum involved is so paltry in comparison with the bank's massive profits and the losses incurred by its main competitor through the activities of the rogue trader John Rusnak, I was surprised at its attitude. But I shouldn't have been - because banks are notorious for ignoring a drowning man's cries for help and then offering him a life-belt when he steps ashore.
Is it any wonder that so many people experienced a feeling of schadenfreude at the bank's expense a year or two ago, when an official inadvertently transferred £250,000, instead of the same number of pesetas, to the bank account in Spain of a customer who subsequently declared his intention to keep the money? - Yours, etc.,
JOE PATTON,
Hillcrest Walk,
Lucan,
Co Dublin.