Bank of Ireland Calling 200 Bank of Ireland Staff who were on 2 year Fixed Rate who have not been given Redress

TMH2017

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Background : this thread applies to BOI staff who were not previously on a tracker product but moved into the 2 year staff fixed in late 2006 / early 2007 on expectation they would move to a tracker.



More detailed timeline below.


Ø Prior to entering into the 2-year Fixed Rate mortgage contract (late 06/ early 07) Bank of Ireland staff were consistently and clearly told by Bank of Ireland and ICS mortgages staff that, “if you switched to the 2-year Fixed Rate mortgage, you would have the option to roll to a staff tracker at the end of the fixed rate period”. There was never any mention at this stage that a condition of this offer was that you had to be on a tracker product previously.

Ø It was common Bank of Ireland policy in 2006 that all fixed rate products had the option of rolling to a tracker. Bank of Ireland staff were not excluded from this policy. This was confirmed in press releases and mortgage rate sheets released in 2006 prior to the launch of the product which we all relied on.

Ø Furthermore, the Bank of Ireland internal system (Mortgage link) had all staff on 3.95% fixed rate moving to ECB + 0.75% which assured us that this was the nature of our mortgage rate (i.e. 2-year fixed with automatic roll to Staff tracker). This information was freely available to all staff and was only unilaterally changed by Bank of Ireland (by a Product Switch) on the internal system on 11th November 2008, less than 2 months prior to the end of the fixed rate period.

Ø From the beginning of the fixed rate period up until October 2008, all staff were constantly reassured by BOI branch and mortgage staff that this product would be rolling to the staff tracker + 0.75% hence no-one within this product switched out of the product given these assurances (which would be unusual given regular level of switching between different products).

Ø On the 09/10/08, all 2000 staff on the fixed rate product received a communication from BOI confirming that “Staff who are currently on Staff 2-year fixed – currently 3.95% - will roll to ECB +0.75% …. at the end of their 2-year fixed period. …. If you do not respond to this notification (which we did not)your account will automatically default to the Staff Tracker ECB+0.75%”. There was no clarification at that point that your previous rate history and presence of a tracker product would determine what rate you would ultimately roll to (10 years later).

Ø Following the notification on the 09/10/08, a large number of staff on the fixed rate product sought confirmation from the Bank that they would continue to honour the option to roll to Tracker. A number of our cohort were given confirmation by email and via phone calls that we all had the option of the roll to tracker and that we would continue to have this right on 10 October 2008 and up to expiry of the fixed rate product.

Ø In November 2008, less than 2 months before the end of a 24-month contract, Bank of Ireland changed the parameters of the contract removing the roll to tracker provision and amending the internal mortgage system while acknowledging within internal documentation that they had “in error” previously confirmed that they had confirmed to staff that they would roll to the staff tracker product.

Bank of Ireland have provided redress to c. 1800 of the 2000 staff (& Ex-staff) who originated on the 2-year Fixed rate product using the argument that this group were on a tracker product at some stage in the past (not necessarily right before the 2-year Fixed Rate) while our cohort was not and that "they can't treat staff differently than regular customers".
 
Hi , just an update to inform we as a group are still fighting this and are coming up with a range of options to try and get redress for our group. We have a large number of affected staff and ex-Staff but if there are any others out there and are keen to join our group please email to : [email protected]. We are also on twitter @trackerstaff and on Facebook @ Bank of Ireland Staff Tracker.

Separately, as part of our investigations we became aware of a general notice released to all Mortgage staff in Feb 2006 which underpins our argument that we were all told that our fixed rate product would roll to a tracker product.

"It is important to note that all new products (discount tracker and fixed) will now roll to ECB + 1.25%. This eliminates the current scenario whereby all fixed rates roll to the standard variable rate"

This change in policy would have been a few months prior to the inception of our 2 year fixed rate product later in 2006.

Would be interested to see if others have used this document in discussions with FSO or have similar documents had success at other banks ?
 
Hi TMH

Excellent summary.

It is very important for people affected by the same issue to pool their resources. They can discuss how best to complain to the Ombudsman or go to court or whatever. They can also share their responses from BoI and from the Ombudsman.

As this is a very specific group, please do not take the thread off topic by discussing BoI trackers generally. If you are not in the above group, start your own thread.

Brendan
 
From someone who was involved in the AIB Prevailing Rate group, I would advise ye sort out a committee or even a possible meet up. I cannot stress how much strength in numbers is important. Even from a motivational point of view, it can be pretty hard to keep positive the whole time so its good to have others to fall back on when it seems like your case has hit dead end after dead end. From the 6000 in the prevailing group, we had at one stage about 200 in our group and trying to co-ordinate was an eye opener so I would really listen to what Brendan advises on here as we wouldn't be at the stage we are with AIB if it wasn't for his advice and guidance.
 
Thanks - that is great advice. We have already formed a group (of c. 40 out of the 200) and have a number of cases with the ombudsman at present. If there are any others who have cases at the ombudsman please contact us to share knowledge and try to make our cases as strong as possible - email address is here ; [email protected]
 

Just wondering if anyone knows which bank this is , i know a number of staff who got their tracker back have gone to ombudsman to be request to put on ECB +0.75% which was in marketing material and not ECB + last tracker level which they have been put on (which is higher) , be interesting if its BOI who is taking this stance by saying we gave you a tracker but you were not entitled to it ??
 

Just wondering if anyone knows which bank this is , i know a number of staff who got their tracker back have gone to ombudsman to be request to put on ECB +0.75% which was in marketing material and not ECB + last tracker level which they have been put on (which is higher) , be interesting if its BOI who is taking this stance by saying we gave you a tracker but you were not entitled to it ??
It's Ulster Bank.
 
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