Hi,
Things have changed for the worse since THIS post.
My mother has had an unfortunate situation with BoI which I would like to get some advice on:
My mother and father had €300k invested in joint names in the BoI Guaranteed Evergreen Bond since about 4-5 years ago.
Early in the New Year, unfortunately my father passed away.
While visiting the bank in the aftermath to sort out other day-to-day accounts held jointly (basically to get them transferred into her name only), she was informed (without prompting) that the Evergreen bond would now be paid out in full to the original value as my father had died. Prior to this, the value of the investment had dropped approx €12k.
She was delighted and, as she had previously thought the bond had another 2-3 years to run, duly signed the forms to release the funds at the bank given to her by the account manager.
A couple of weeks later, BoI Life sent a letter to the extent that as she was encashing the policy early, there would be a 2% penalty on the €288k.
Her amount of €300k has now had €18k reduced from it.
Now, she only approved the release of the funds due to the information provided by the bank. They admitted their fault in this (verbally only, in front of my mother, myself and another sibling) and assured us that this would be sorted out.
It hasn't. They had another meeting with her subsequently and told her basically 'tough'.
I, and my siblings are livid. My mother is in her late 70s, was grieving and acting on the (erroneous) advice given to her by bank officials. She has lost a large sum of money and on top of everything else, this is causing her additional stress at a time of her life when she should not have to worry.
What can she do? Ombudsman ? Solicitor ? Has she a leg to stand on here ?
Please help/advise.
Thanks,
T.
Things have changed for the worse since THIS post.
My mother has had an unfortunate situation with BoI which I would like to get some advice on:
My mother and father had €300k invested in joint names in the BoI Guaranteed Evergreen Bond since about 4-5 years ago.
Early in the New Year, unfortunately my father passed away.
While visiting the bank in the aftermath to sort out other day-to-day accounts held jointly (basically to get them transferred into her name only), she was informed (without prompting) that the Evergreen bond would now be paid out in full to the original value as my father had died. Prior to this, the value of the investment had dropped approx €12k.
She was delighted and, as she had previously thought the bond had another 2-3 years to run, duly signed the forms to release the funds at the bank given to her by the account manager.
A couple of weeks later, BoI Life sent a letter to the extent that as she was encashing the policy early, there would be a 2% penalty on the €288k.
Her amount of €300k has now had €18k reduced from it.
Now, she only approved the release of the funds due to the information provided by the bank. They admitted their fault in this (verbally only, in front of my mother, myself and another sibling) and assured us that this would be sorted out.
It hasn't. They had another meeting with her subsequently and told her basically 'tough'.
I, and my siblings are livid. My mother is in her late 70s, was grieving and acting on the (erroneous) advice given to her by bank officials. She has lost a large sum of money and on top of everything else, this is causing her additional stress at a time of her life when she should not have to worry.
What can she do? Ombudsman ? Solicitor ? Has she a leg to stand on here ?
Please help/advise.
Thanks,
T.