Bank of Ireland Reviews 

Recently got approved for a mortgage, however an issue made by the broker nearly made the house sale full through. However a wonderful lady called Jodie went above & beyond our expectations. She even called the next day to make sure we were ok. Having never used BOI before this has given us faith that they are a customer focused company . thank you very much Jodie

Dear Bank of Ireland. Since you don't have any way of me sending you this review, I'll go through this website and ask them to forward.

I had to ring the fraud line since someone siphoned off my CC details and the bank flagged an unusual payment. So far so good. That worked well, the customer service people were helpful and knowledgable (I ONLY had to wait for about 20 minutes for someone to answer the phone). They cancelled my CC as requested and went to issue a new one. Which I'm still waiting for. Almost two weeks and counting for a replacement card is terrible customer service. There is no excuse, fees are first rate and so much higher than in other jurisdictions (like Germany for example where I have a current account) that I expect an equally first rate service. This isn't it. Fleecing customers and then have them wait around - no wonder so many customers head elsewhere.

The absolute pits of the world

I have two platinum credit carrds with this company. One for coporate and one for personal. I clear the account on the spot every month. Been with them for years. I applied for an increase on my personal card as I had a big trip coming up and had to front load one of the cards. I got nowhere. They asked for my bank statments. i sent them to them They could not read them properly. Did not read them. They never call back and on the one occasion they did, I missed the call so I just gave up. I see from the reviews here everyone gives up. These guys should have their banking license withdrawn. Does the ombudsman not read these reviews?

Card policy is disaster !!! Stay away !!!

12 minutes on the phone and guy hadn’t even verified my details. I gave up! He was not only explaining what he was going to ask me for each question, he was telling me what I shouldn’t say. Unfortunately he couldn’t understand plain English so I had to repeat everything time and again. I hung up problem not solved as,if it took nearly 15 minutes and he hadn’t even started the normal verification, how long and difficult was the query going to be?
Don’t outsource your client service to people who can’t understand English spoken at a normal pace!
And now my debit card is still blocked and causing a huge problem.

Bank of Ireland have been pretty much a joke when it comes to customer service for a fair few years now. Now, they are verging on criminal in their ability to deal with customers. They have farmed out their customer service to a far flung country. If the person you are talking to can understand you, and you them, that is a real bonus. It is not the operators fault. They have purposely given them no control and a script to work from. I would say if there was an Olympics for terrible customer service they would win Gold every four years. Whomever is in charge of this should pick up a phone and call their own company. Its is shameful. The overpaid person looking at Customer Service data in their Dublin office and displaying it so as it looks reasonable to their superiors so they can get their bonus should be fired immediately. Stay away from Bank of Ireland if you value your sanity and have any self respect.

If you need a loan please don't apply. Been almost a week waiting for an answer, still no updates. On the tracker shows stage 4 to 6. I've just rang then and they need a bank statement. Only bank account I have it's bank of Ireland, I explained that to them, they still need their bank statement from my side. That's a joke

Slow slow slow... unresponsive.... unaware of customer service or needs
Useless apps
Zero service
Giving this company 1 star because that's the lowest rating

The agent, Vitor, from the lending team, who helped me yesterday was very patient and efficient.
Thing is sometimes some employees who answer to phone calls to answer queries can answer as if the costumer was bothering, so it's very nice when once is pleasant and professional as that young man.

The basic services are working well and calls to customer service are handled competently. As a free "Golden Years" account user, I cannot complain about the costs. The website does not give the T&Cs for large cash withdrawals.
The usability of remote banking is poor. Before transferring money, one must dismiss lots of patronizing messages. The account statements are useless, missing essential information about the beneficiary and payment references. Yes, you can get them on a special request from the customer service.
The "payment reference" does not have enough space for a standardized number, which can be up to 25 characters. The weird Swiss QR IBANs do not give the appropriate error message. I had some issues with state confusiong: the merchant terminated the transaction but the bank was unaware of it. I had to reissue a payment with a different account. The 3 out of 6 PIN digits are a bit of a joke. I see the point that an eavesdropper cannot get all PIN digits, but as the PIN is asked several times during a session with different digits, an eavesdropper has ample opportunity to get them all.

Applied for a credit card on the 12th of June. Their website states a “24 hour approval”, but did also warn that there are delays due to high volume.

It took them 6 days to finally ask for documentation, which I provided on the day of the request. Then 4 days later I am told that my application is with the cards team and they’ll be in touch if they need any more information.

It has now been a week since then. My application tracker has been stuck on stage 3, a phone call was useless as I was told there is no timeline, and nobody responded to me when I messaged them in the app.

I’d be grand if it was a couple of days, up to a week. But two weeks is a bit much.

They also had the absolute cheek to send me an email on last Monday advertising their credit card with a “24 hour approval” - WHILE I AM ALREADY WAITING TWO WEEKS FOR APPROVAL!

Absolute joke.

6 weeks and numerous calls later still waiting to hear back about my loan application, there were issues with the documents I uploaded but didn’t get any communication about it

Appauling website and app functionality.
I am a business customer that uses BOI for payroll and other services, the quality and clunkiness of the BOI website apps and network of apps is not straightforward, it's time-consuming, and extremely frustrating. As a business owner, wasting time on services that have no reason not to be optimised for a BANK IN THIS DAY AND AGE is crazy. The difference in the usability of Revolut Business and BOI is ridiculous. I only began banking with BOI because Revolut Business does not (yet) offer products such as loans and overdrafts, but now that my business is up on its feet and doing well, I see no reason to continue with them. It is a shame, as I would rather be supporting an Irish bank, but unless their virtual platforms are optimised very quickly, they will lose a large customer base. I say my opinion not to tarnish the BOI brand, but because it seems urgent that they sort out some extremely important points. Furthermore, if BOI are reading this and can inform me of valid reasons as to why they offering services the way they are, I would be very glad to remove this review.

Ridiculous having a call centre in India Bank of Ireland profits are criminal - over a BILLION - so why can't they employ local staff to speak to customers, like in the old days I worked in Bank of Ireland for 32 years Retired 20 yrs ago And OMG how things have changed there so drastically for the worse What on earth is their objective? They don't want to see customers, they don't want to hear them on the phone, they just want customers to do as much as possible online including applying for a loan The fat cats at the top of course are ultimately responsible If a business is good it comes from the top Equally if it is bad it comes from the top Greed is one of our biggest problems in the world today I doubt if they intend to change for the better any time soon Not enough customers are complaining in writing They talk but don't put it in writing So can the situation get any worse than it is?
My latest problem with BOI started a few weeks ago when I phoned a charity to make a donation by Visa Debit Card I was told that I'm not registered for online banking & this was needed for verification purposes I do telephone 365 banking This was the first time this problem arose I always pay my car & house insurance over the phone with no problem This is a new problem
So I called in to my Branch 43 Eyre Square Galway & spoke to a lady at the customer service desk She constantly went into an office behind her & told me that the Manager was unaware of a problem such as this or any change in making payments over the phone The Manager of course never showed her face The young lady tried to fob me off by telling me to ring number on back of my card I said I had come in for them to find the answer She then after going into that office again said they would pass it on to their "Investigative Team" & would let me know in a few days I got a very polite phone voicemail in a couple of days saying their "Investigative Team" hadn't solved anything for me Such a waste of time!! Seems they couldn't care less
By chance a few days later I was speaking to a very helpful manager in Homeland Athlone Pat about an item I wanted to order He informed me that there is a new system, a new layer of security whereby I needed to register for online banking in order to pay large amounts of money over the phone And BOI Manager was unaware of this But when I worked there if we didn't know we found out from another department
The end of the story is that I was ordering a clothesline from Amazon last week - first time - very slow process However, at the end of it I was told I wasn't registered for online banking So had to abandon
I phoned India & was helped by a very very very patient lady called Ananya She assisted me through registering for online banking & then said she would stay on the line while I again tried to order the clothesline (I have two phones) So I managed to successfully order my clothesline This whole phone call was one hour long This was the second phone call with Ananya Sfe had to call me back because I needed a break from first call due to stress In all it took about 2 hours to order my clothesline BOI is a complete SHAMBLES in some areas at least I'm not moving because I would imagine all the major banks are more or less the same regarding customer service - i.e. BAD, while making as much profit as possible

BOI Raheny is always out of service, to say again 16 June. Coolock BOI lodgement service out of order also toda 16 June. Pls review your weekend services. Very frustrating when trying to lodge money for safety purposes.

Very helpful in relation advocacy issues. Father had to go into a nursing home once we provided medical evidence to the bank of his care needs. The bank paid the nursing home directly from his bank account. PTSB would not help us at all with this issue insisting that we would have to go through Ward of Court Process to access funds. Bank of Irelands Bereavement Support Unit have also been very helpful recently.

Applied for a loan 5 weeks ago. Bizarrely was asked to bring documents into branch. Was then told loan agreed in principle. That was 2 weeks ago and still nothing. Don't get me started on their Tracker. Useless, a child would have done a better job. Went to Avant instead and money in bank 2 weeks after applying. The biggest insult is that I have banked with BOI for nearly 30 years. Avant and Revolut will eventually put them out of business. Don't waste your time. BOI are not interested in your business.

I contacted them to sort out an issue with my Air Lingus Credit Card and someone called Nicola was incredibly rude to me before transferring me to “customer service”. I called the number on the back of the card so it’s not my fault it hasn’t put me through the right department, instead of just putting me through to the correct one, she was giving out to me and saying what I wanted to do was not possible, barely letting me speak. It was so “not possible” that a lovely Customer Service Agent called Darragh sorted out my issue within 2 minutes. I’m giving the bad review because this is the second time I have had a problem sorting out an issue over the phone with them when with AIB I’ve never had an issue in the last 9 years. If it wasn’t for Darragh being so kind I was going to give 0 stars! Please
Improve your customer service reps as it’s already stressful enough to call the bank about something.

If there was zero star I would use it. Transfer takes days! No services at branches, no people to help us, machines always broke, Anyway. Avoid!!! move to any bank, forget BOI

services at the level of the Middle Ages. transfers from your own account to the card online take a few days, but should take a few seconds. I had another online bank account which I opened 20 years ago and even then the services there were at a much better level. Many online banking tools that have been available in many other countries for a very long time are missing.