Use Revolut as my main bank, but my account is frozen and I can't get them to fix it

PGF2016 said:
Pick the two banks with the lowest fees and have some money in both. Then if one goes rogue (like in this case you) have a back up option.
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No point on going cheapskate on fees and then duplicating not only them but all the nightmarish bureaucracy associated with opening an account.
 
T McGibney said:
No point on going cheapskate on fees and then duplicating not only them but all the nightmarish bureaucracy associated with opening an account.
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The hassle of opening an account is a lot loss than what the OP is going through.

And even if there were 2 good banks it would be a good idea to have two accounts for redundancy. Even good systems go bad from time to time.
 
DannyBoyD said:
In the meantime OP is looking for help.
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Thank you Danny, I appreciate your kindness x
Every one of you is right though. Revolut is not suited to primary banking needs. I whole heartedly agree about KBC, would describe in the same way. Really great banking app (great interface and was really snappy), good customer service over the phone if any security threat etc and no quarterly fees if you deposit over €2,500 p.m. We were spoiled, but really it's what we should all be getting in 2023.

Sounds like awful experience with EBS, sorry to hear that!

My local credit union (Link CU) are looking pretty good to me for a current account right now. Can actually speak to someone who will get on the case if you have a problem.
 
That sounds like a case of ‘rinse and repeat’ to me.

Instead of going with a fly-by-night half-bank or a Credit Union offering current accounts (for how long ), go with Bank of Ireland or AIB.

The lesson is, sadly, avoid new entrants.
 
KBC: agree, that an app was great and the customer service opening hours much longer than the Irish banks had. I always was surprised about the customer service knowledge and swift accurate responses over the phone and chat. I absolutely loved their chat working even at night (not just to report lost card, but for any general questions too).
PTSB: my local branch are incompetent and slow, made too many errors just while opening my account. Customer service are incompetent, gave me a false information over the phone about my branch opening times and gave me a wrong date for my appointment (emailed me this which I showed in the branch who apologised and admitted the mistake, but still asked me to come back another day as they didn't have available staff - this was last year). Their app is terrible, online banking is outdated. Can't login to the app with a fingertip, need these funny numbers. Their app is simply outdated.
AIB: customer service used to be better, lately they are arrogant and either lazy, tired or unmotivated, opening ours, as any other Irish banks', are inconvenient, app is just average (but not better than KBC's), fees if used as the main bank are dear. However, fee structure is convenient in the sense that AIB can be used only for a wage and then Bunq, Revolut or EBS for daily transactions and direct debits - this way AIB would be one of the cheapest option, but having two accounts in two separate banks would give more options.
EBS: no banking via the app, online banking is so basic that I laughed, need a lot of patience opening an account in branch - a bunch of paper. Need to be very understanding, patient and respectful to the staff who has to deal with this 15-20 years old system daily. I feel sorry for them. It's free, so I was very grateful and polite for their time helping me. Setting up access to the online banking is a free circus, but I liked it, because it's free. It was fun and also funny. I don't want to complain about EBS, because I pay them nothing, and my expectations are equal to zero - exactly zero I pay them for service.
BOI is not for me - I hate absolutely everything about them. My partner has BOI. So many times we had issues with them. Their biggest problem is that many of their new features are built on their ancient system. There are certain yhings what you can't get in their online banking so you need to send them a text using their messaging system, similar to the Revenue.
I see no reason to pay PTSB or BOI their fixed monthly fee for banking.
I think that AIB is the best to be used for salary and then Revolut, Bunq or EBS for daily expenses and direct debits. AIB has no monthly fees: there is a quarterly 4.50 Eur fee plus 20c for each online or POS chip transaction, tap is free. It also costs to send and receive (!) money into your AIB account - thats 20c. So just to use an AIB to get a weekly wage into your account is (4.50/3)+(0.20×4)=2.30 Eur per month. If you move money to your Revolut/EBS once a week for daily transactions, that would be 3.10 Eur per month with AIB which is still twice less than PTSB or BOI.
The only thing about PTSB is that you receive 10c for each transaction when you use PTSB bankcard meaning that it can reduce your monthly 6 Eur fee. But I personally don't use my bank card 30 times a month so AIB + EBS/Revolut works the best to me. There's another advantage using AIB with EBS - AIB issue Visa debit cards and EBS issue Mastercard. I believe, Revolut will also be changing cards from Visa to Mastercard gradually. I prefer having two different types of cards in case if one of them has system failures and can't be accepted in store - we've seen that happening a several times within a few years' time.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
That sounds like a case of ‘rinse and repeat’ to me.

Instead of going with a fly-by-night half-bank or a Credit Union offering current accounts (for how long ), go with Bank of Ireland or AIB.

The lesson is, sadly, avoid new entrants.
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I take your point, though if we don't want just a 2 horse race, we have to give others a chance, right? If Revolut were responsive and cared about resolving my problem I would probably have persisted. But if you ghost me and hold onto all my money, that's the end.

LinkCU have had a SEPA approved current account option for about 8 years now and they have continued to upgrade and innovate. Plus the friendly local faces (for which I would be willing to pay the €4 per month *edited to correct ) care about resolving issues for their customers / shareholders. Main branch is also 5 mins from my home.

I also looked into the post office, but research told me they are having a lot of issues, so I think I'll side step them.

BoI are so behind in terms of technology, I know too many customers who struggle with them, I just couldn't go there after KBC.

I have my own personal reasons for not chosing AIB, though I agree it is the best of the main banks. But again, I think AIB has not developed much in the last 20 years. They still use those little plastic calculator things to generate unique access codes and it would seem like too much regression to go back there.

After local closures, the nearest AIB is 30 mins away for me. If opting for a bricks and mortar institution, might as well choose one with local presence.
 
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PGF2016 said:
Or maybe the other way around?
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I don't think so. It stands to reason that if we all participate in a race to the bottom by avoiding fees like the plague (and I'm also guilty as not charged by PTSB for years) then we can expect poor customer service.
 
Reactions: jpd
ArthurMcB said:
Great info in this thread. Im going with the revolut/aib combo package so
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A fair combo choice.

Yes, really great post from @GrossOrNet.
Would like to say thank you for all responses with great advice and support. Really mean that, will sleep easier tonight (thank you Brendan especially! ).
 
The problem is that moving banks is a shocker and the customer service of disruptors like Revolut is terrible.

If, for example, Santander came into the Irish market offering the sun, moon and the stars, I’d ignore them based on past experience because the chances are they’d be exiting stage left in reasonably short order.

Similarly, you can’t rely on Revolut when anything out of the ordinary puts you into a dogfight with a chatbot.

Pay BOI €6 a month and live with it. At least you know they’ll see us all off.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
Pay BOI €6 a month and live with it. At least you know they’ll see us all off
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Theres no way id pay boi 6 a month (72 quid a yr!) For their awful customer service. Id 100% go with revolut instead. Im not enthused about going to aib either but i calculate theyre best of a horrible bunch.
 
ArthurMcB said:
Theres no way id pay boi 6 a month (72 quid a yr!) For their awful customer service. Id 100% go with revolut instead.
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Why would anyone think that they should get a banking service for free?

My AIB account is about €120 a year in fees. For which I get access to a cash machine, direct debits, credits, lodgements, online payments.

Seems like good value to me.

A lot of people who chose "free" banking with ptsb ended up paying for it multiple times over by taking out a ptsb mortgage at much higher rates than AIB.

Brendan
 
SharonC said:
I was lulled into a false sense of security by recent positive press on what a good option it could be for those looking for a new current account solution.
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Their marketing is very good, and their app is unrivalled, but if you look in the weeds you'll see that they are absolutely plagued by governance & management issues. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them go to the wall in the medium term. They only generated a profit for the first time in 2021 on the back of the wild west of crypto trading so there's a good chance that now all the free money is gone that they'll run out of road before they can become sustainable - they had a good 2022 but I don't trust their figures given their accounting irregularities and proclivity towards short cuts. They are a tech start-up learning how to become a bank on the job.

I use Revolut for day-to-day transactions - mainly discretionary stuff like takeaways, gambling, nights out - but I never have more than 2 or 3 hundred in the account. I would suggest opening an account with AIB, BOI or PTSB and having Revolut as your back-up that you can top up as you go. Revolut is handy to have as a back-up debit card on holidays and to send money to friends etc. but there will always be a risk of your account being randomly frozen. They will never hire enough support staff either so unless ChatGPT4 or some other AI revolutionises their support customers will always find it difficult to resolve basic issues.
 
ArthurMcB said:
Theres no way id pay boi 6 a month (72 quid a yr!) For their awful customer service. Id 100% go with revolut instead. Im not enthused about going to aib either but i calculate theyre best of a horrible bunch.
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This attitude really baffles me. €6 a month for everything a current account offers is an absolute pittance.
 
Seems like a lot of on going work and hassle to avoid not huge fees.

If think the op should wipe the app from his phone and re-install it.
 
The point is not - paying 72 quid a yr.

The point is - paying 72 quid a yr to boi given how woeful they are.

I dont mind paying for a half decent service but i do mind paying for boi.

Id go revolut (for discretionary stuff, transfers, fx) and id go aib for salary and bills.

Aib and boi both crap compared to kbc. Lets call a spade a spade. But aib slighlty better.
 
KBC turned everyone's heads but for all the promises where are they now. That's the actual spade.

The traditional banks stripped their services to compete. They learnt the lessons of pared down services to max out profitability.

So here we are picking through the pieces of what's left after the fling. There's no going back to the past.
 
KBC is like a former partner who was great craic and superb in bed.

None of that matters, BECAUSE THEY LEFT YOU.

I pay Bank of Ireland the paltry sum of 20c a day to look after all of my money and facilitate payments. Everything works fine, I can call someone if I need to do so, and I know they’re committed to Ireland.
 
24601 said:
They are a tech start-up learning how to become a bank on the job.
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Customer growth is something like 30% a year for the last five years. Compounded, that's huge.

That kind of growth is feasible in a lot of tech activities but for something as high risk as banking and payments it's hard to onboard so many customers without corners being cut. I just don't think you can automate KYC effectively as much as they do, and if they start lending at scale I don't think automated underwriting is without issues either.

So I think in 20 years the neobanks will be as boring and safe as incumbent banks today, but I think there will be at least one failure along the way. I don't keep anything more than low three figures in Revolut either.
 
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