AIB Appeals Panel rejected my prevailing rate appeal. Should I go to the Ombudsman now or should I wait?

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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This has come up a few times and I want to tease it out a bit.

This was my initial view:

Advantages of making a complaint now
  • You make sure that your argument is made and made the way you want it
  • The sooner you start the sooner you get a decision
Advantages of waiting
  • If the Ombudsman upholds a complaint already submitted, the lender will probably redress all the affected customers, so you won't need to complain to the Ombudsman.
  • If the Ombudsman rejects the early complaints, you will be able to see his reasoning and tailor your complaint accordingly or decide that there is no point in submitting a complaint.
  • If the Ombudsman is rejecting all complaints,then you may decide to go to the High Court. If you get a final decision from the Ombudsman, you are effectively barred from going to the High Court
  • There is an argument that if the Ombudsman rejects your complaint but later upholds someone else's, the lender may not redress you as you were rejected by the Ombudsman. I don't think that this is a likely scenario.
  • It might help to Ombudsman by avoiding clogging up the system. (We saw what the Independent Appeals Panel did - they just issued the same response to everyone irrespective of the argument,although it's unlikely that the Ombudsman would do that.)
 
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Because of delays in the Ombudsman Service, there may be no downside to submitting your complaint now

If you submit your claim now, it will take about 6 months before they get to the first stage which is Mediation.

That will drag on for a couple of months.

When the mediation fails, the complaint will go to the Investigations and Adjudication Team. At that stage, you will be asked to if you want to make any other submission.

So it probably does make sense for everyone to submit their Ombudsman complaint now.

The lenders have said that they are not enforcing the statutory time limits to appeal to the Ombudsman. But that might change.

So if you put in a complaint now, you make sure that you meet the 6 months deadline and you go to the top of the queue.

If, in the meantime, the Ombudsman upholds a complaint and the bank decides to apply it to everyone in the cohort, then you have lost nothing.

If the Ombudsman upholds a complaint, but the bank refuses to apply it to everyone in the cohort, then your complaint is already in the system.

Brendan
 
Hi Brendan, I have followed all the advice given on this forum to date - to be honest I would have been lost without it. Thank you for all the information.
I am at the stage to Appeal to the Ombudsman - is there a format for the complaint or anything that can assist with putting this together?
Thank you,
TM
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Hi trillium

When did the Appeals Panel turn down your appeal?

Brendan
Click to expand...

I am also at this stage, my appeal was rejected in July and was just getting the documents ready yesterday to open case online with the ombudsman but if there was already a template created for the cases then that would be great
 
Hi Brendan,
My appeal was deemed unsuccessful in July. I am in a similar situation to coolaboola12 above. Any assistance with a template would be hugely beneficial as I am a bit lost now.
Thanks you
 
trillium said:
Any assistance with a template would be hugely beneficial as I am a bit lost now.
Click to expand...

Ask and you will receive...

AIB - A template for a complaint to the Ombudsman on the AIB Prevailing Rate issue

A few people have asked for help with making a complaint to the Ombudsman, so I have drafted the attached template which you can use. It is based on the simple argument that AIB did have a prevailing tracker rate - it's just that they did not offer it to customers who were entitled to it. This...
www.askaboutmoney.com
 
The Ombudsman said yesterday that he will be making a decision on the prevailing rate cases within weeks.

I would guess, and it's only a guess, that he would probably like to include as many as possible of them in his digest of decisions to be published in January.

So I am now swinging back towards holding off making a complaint until you see the outcome of the existing complaints and the reaction of AIB and the Central Bank if the complaint is successful.

Having said all that, as I have drafted a template for making a complaint, it's not too difficult to submit a complaint.

But if that argument fails, it would be easier to submit a complaint based on something else rather than changing your argument mid-stream.

Brendan
 
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