Bank of Ireland Reviews 

Trust me on this do not use them , I'm stranded in Australia meant to be in the Philippines, lost thousands on flights because they decided to freeze my account, if travelling abroad use revolute, never a moment trouble and all transactions fully insured, avoid boi,

At Approx 16:10 30/12/2022.

€350 of my daughters money was held by antiquated pass machine in place outside Bank of Ireland Bank Place Ennis. Bearing in mind this was 10 mins past closing I took a chance and tried ringing the door bell a few times as we didn’t know what to do or where her money was gone. The machine said contact a staff member.
I was ringing customer service when a lady opened the door.
Politely I tried to explain myself and what was going on. I had to step forward a foot to be heard over the wind.
I was met with complete ignorance. The woman who answered the door escalated the situation very quickly, was instantly on the defensive I was berated for speaking to a person that way although I never once raised my voice or postured in any way. All I did was ask how the issue was going to be resolved and could we wait on the step of the bank until we knew the outcome. She kept telling me she couldn’t let me in the bank. Not once in the entire brief conversation did I seek to be let in the bank. I understand that for security reasons I couldn’t be let in. I had no issue with that at all. I was given little or no opportunity to explain myself. I was accused of speaking to her in a poor tone, I believe she said “don’t speak to me like that, don’t you dare take that tone with me.
After 25 years of working in customer service I know precisely how to deal with such scenarios. I appreciate it was after hours. It was 5 degrees outside, cold, starting to rain and windy. I was doing my best for my upset daughter and was treated like something unappealing on the sole of this woman’s shoe. I was left reeling from what I perceive to be a completely unprovoked and unnecessary verbal attack upon my person and character and I have taken it very personally. I was left standing outside your premises humiliated, confused and embarrassed for trying to help my child. I have tried all my life to treat people with respect and courtesy wherever and whenever I can. I cannot fathom what it was that set this woman off but I am flummoxed by her melodramatic and unprofessional behaviour towards me.
I cannot believe this is the sort of crap that passes for good customer service in a bank. I am now actively exploring other banking options. My account has been open less than 9 months. I banked with Ulster Bank since the age of 6 and in 38 years never once had so much as one single issue. I can see now i have made a mistake selecting your bank over your competitors and I will rectify that in due course.

If I could give Bank of Ireland 0 stars, I would.
Their banking online system and apps are terrible for Business or Personal accounts. Looks like they want to save money on hiring skilled IT staff and give the job to that "13 years old nephew" who knows computers to do. Terrible.

This is by far the worst financial institution that I came across. They refuse to close the user's account by intentionally adding imaginary fees without giving any explanation. If there is a fee in your account, forget about closing it. Worst customer support service on the planet, they mock you on the phone, laugh at your face and hang up on your calls saying the call dropped.

The only way you can close an account is through their application which is garbage. You are also unable to screenshot that you have submitted the form for account closure because the app does not allow screenshots.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS BANK!

Standing in a queue for over half an hour at the Culmore road branch in Derry! Two cashiers on duty!

Good morning...I was speaking to Laraine this morning. She talked me through the process until my problem was sorted. She also said she'd ring me back if we got cut off. She put me completely at ease. Thank you Lorraine and happy Christmas...

I was a Bank of Ireland customer for almost my whole life. I switched to a different bank a few months ago and now realise just how backwards BOI really is. For starters their mobile app is clunky at best and downright unusable at times. It's very buggy and even though they seem to update it fairly regularly it never improves. Until a few years ago you couldn't even add a payee using the app, you needed to log into the actual website through a browser and then go back to the app. If you are paying for something online and need to authorize the payment on the app, you need to know to be logged in beforehand otherwise the app just sat on a blank screen. This was particularly annoying when my girlfriend was trying to order a Tesco shop online using my card.

The most annoying thing about BOI for me is the fact that you can only transfer money to a different account between 9am to 4pm, Monday to Friday. I'm sure this was more common in the old days but in 2022 it's very backwards and frankly embarrassing when trying to pay someone like a plumber or builder. It made for an awkward situation when I bought my car in a private sale, as the only day the seller and I were free was a Sunday, and I had to come back the next morning because the payment took so long to go through. They also started limiting me to sending new payees no more than £1000 for 48 hours after adding them. I actually had to create a Monzo account simply to pay my house deposit and builders etc. I rang them to ask why this happens, and they said it's just an anti-fraud measure they put on everyone, and there's apparently no way to remove it.
Raising a dispute requires printing out a form online, filling it out and posting it to them. Again this feels very old fashioned to me as a lot of other banks let you do this online or over the phone which is much quicker and less hassle.

When I moved house, I changed my address using their app and got a confirmation that they had updated it. However, my credit card statements kept getting sent to my old address. I rang them to ask why, and apparently you need to change your address separately for a credit card, even though it was a BOI credit card. It's stupid things like this that pushed me over the edge and made me switch.

The only reason I Havant given them 1 star is because every time I've had to talk to someone in a branch or over the phone, they've actually been friendly and helpful. But due to how overly complicated they make everything compared to others, I don't know why you would want to switch to them.

If I could give a minus 5 stars I would there customer is service is non existent use live chat at least 6 times asking the same question they didn’t bother to reading and kept replying with stupid answers. Called and asked for an email address for someone at the Shannon branch they couldn’t give me one. I was they they would call me that was over 3 days ago heard nothing. Called today spend twenty mins on hold only to be cut off, no one called me back spent another 20 mins only to be told they will call me back

I sold my house and it took almost 4 weeks for this bank to send the money to my account. Why so long? What were they doing holding my money for so long not telling me why.

I have mortgage with BOI. Last month I applied for the change of date. It was changed to end of month from December. But they did not take the direct debit online payment for November. I was wondering they will take both next month or something. But to my surprise I received a letter from mortgage debt management team this morning as I did not make payment last month and my account is on arrears. I called the debt management and explained but he still asking me about my financial stability question. When asked him it was not my fault and it would affect my credit rating he was vague by saying it’s just one Mia payment. I asked are you going to fix your problem. You did not tell to make manual payment for November. He keeps saying it’s just one off.

Honestly one of the worst banks I have ever dealt with. I have my mortgage with bank of Ireland and was due cash back after 5 years. When I finally got through to there customer service , I was told TWICE, the money will be in after 45days. Then when it didn’t arrive I followed up to be told I wasn’t getting it as I never set up a current account, I was never told to do this and apparently it’s in the 10 pages of T&Cs. Now as a result the money I have been waiting to get me through Christmas isn’t coming. Bank of Ireland you are a joke. I’ll be moving my mortgage asap. Also your phone service is crap, takes me 5 minutes before I can get to the correct line to speak with an adviser, who then puts me on hold to speak about lunch (forget to play the music) stay clear!

App AND Customer service are useless... Doesn't allow me to add a payee to pay to another bank's credit card, the MOST BASIC of tasks... But here the fun starts. I had to call them, some guy answers, one of those who 'yeah yeah' you but you kind of know they're not really understanding the problem. Fine. He said i will receive a paper with details of the payees and that i should call back to activate on the phone. 5 days for the letter to arrive, btw. Once arrived, the details in it were almost all incorrect. Btw, this Ross signs himself as 'SENIOR customer service officer'.. No comment. So i call them again, a lady answers, for 20 minutes i explain to her the situation..., and in the end? After i provided her the iban code of the to-be payee, she asked me to provide the sort code and account number. Now, if you work in a bank you should know from day 1 that these infos are already part of the iban code. Right. We end the call upon her requests i go on to double check my payee's sort code and account nimber. I call back. A lady answers who seems to understand, yet using a tone like i'm the thick one who cannot explain myself... Fine. She said i'll receive a new letter, this time with correct details IN A COUPLE OF DAYS... 5 full business days have passed, no sign... And i'm not even sure they got it right... Will update. I'm with them only cause my previous bank is closing. My advice is: stay clear of them! It is so frustrating to deal with INCOMPETENCE + ARROGANCE at the same time that i will eventually move to another bank.

Would happily give them no star. I have been on the phone three times to three different people to try allow me set up/ open my bank of ireland app. I have just transferred from another bank and have created new user id and have had to change my pin each time as the app will not accept my pin,it keeps locking me out of my account and I have not been able to access my banking information since I transferred banks, two months ago. Today,I was told to change my pin (once again) and asked to set up a 6 digit pin, then after doing so (three times) the operater told me that I have been inserting 7 digit pins, which I haven't as I have the digits on the screen in front of me. After all of my frustrations, having to spend 20 minutes with each operator on the phone, I'm told that there must be a technical problem and that I'll have to call again in 30 minutes as the technology is not working. This means I will have to go back to square one ALL OVER AGAIN and go through every slow step to finally get someone to listen to my problem. How ridiculous this is and thr person on the phone dis not have the ability to solve my problem but just kept repeating to call them back.

I wish I never used this bank! Make sure you read everything they add stuff in the paperwork. Watch the collateral clause if you own it they want it. My loan officer in aberdeen idaho bret crowler was my wolf in sheep clothing.

Impossible to get hold of. Would not allow me to register online then when eventually did still have to phone the worst call centre in the world to complete the process. So obviously don't want you to contact them online either. Withdrew all mortgage deals and help and just ignoring your customers. read the other reviews and deal with someone else

As Marx said, the role of the authorities in a kingdom is to support the rulimg class ie those with power. The central bank serves the client bank and vice versa. The customer is purely that, one with petit worth and little individual impact. The less enforcement of rules, the lower down the pyramid the mal service permeates.

After having no choice of being moved over from Bristol & West years ago I have had issues with BOI. But I have to admit this last 3mths has pushed me to the brink of despair. Rang and asked how much I owed for my final mortgage payment in Aug, was congratulated for making last payment and was told my Title Deeds will be in the post and it will take approx 6/8wks. Received a random piece of paper requesting where these documents need to be sent too, completed form and waited, and waited. Come Nov I got abit worried and spoke to young lady on fone who stated I should have received letter confirming all mortgage cleared and how to get my title deeds apparently I had to apply from land registry as BOI don’t keep deeds. So I duly contacted land registry had to pay a charge of £54. Tried to contact BOI as I found on there website information stating I had to write to The Vacates Team in Dublin, they will send deeds out and there’s no charge. Tried all day today hanging on fone only to be cut off twice when I reached number 2 in the queue. So just out of curiosity I rang back and pressed a different option to “make a payment” would you believe it I got through straight away. She couldn’t put me through as there is a 90min wait time and they finished at 5pm. Try doing the online form, it keeps saying there’s a error ? I honestly jumped for joy when I made that last payment but you know what they still get it wrong, still unsympathetic and still don’t help. Bring back Andre he was the only one in BOI who actually talked sense and did what he said he was doing.

contact
been sitting on hold for an absolute age
why don't you just get more staff? I have better things to do with my time
appalling
just got through however advisor asked me which department and then informed me that there will be a wait of 20/45 mins
just not good enough

Wish I read the reviews before opening two accounts for my teenage sons.
Taken 5 weeks to open an account. Had to open it online as you can’t do it instore. Said they sent emails but hadn’t and weren’t in junk Mail. Eventually got emails after calling twice. Email instructs you to activate your account by calling BOI. Called them and after being passed through, no exaggeration , 5-6 messages with 5/6 options to choose from, I am told your account is active, you don’t need to call us. Got the cards and it gives instructions on how to activate with your pin. Should send the pin first, then the instructions may be of use. Tried to sign up on 365 online. Hit the button to register and nothing happens. It’s like walking into a brick wall every time. Banking was never this hard.

I'm starting to hate banks more and more. Its my money, I should be able to spend and take as I please.
Crypto is the way forward.