AIB apologises to new tracker customers for cancelling direct debits

AIB has apologised to about 40 customers after their direct debits were cancelled following the movement of mortgages from Ulster Bank, which is in the process of exiting the Irish market.

“We are aware of a small number of customers whose direct debits were cancelled when their accounts moved to AIB following our purchase of Ulster Bank tracker mortgages,” a spokesman said.

“We are contacting any customers who had a direct debit cancelled to confirm we are working to resolve this error.”

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The spokesman said the affected customers would not suffer adversely on their credit rating due to the error.

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“We have alternative mortgage repayment methods in place for these customers,” he said. “We want to assure our customers there will be no customer detriment and no credit rating impact where customers’ mortgage repayment is temporarily delayed due to our error. We apologise to our customers for any concern this issue has caused.”

The error is the second from AIB in recent weeks after it was forced to issue a statement saying customers will not face higher-than-expected increases in their mortgage repayments in the coming months, despite the bank writing to some borrowers of just such a move.

ECB rate increase

The lender apologised to a group of tracker mortgage customers who had been recently notified by letter of a sharper-than-expected increase in their monthly repayments from October due to an apparent previous error.

However, the bank said that letter had been wrong and those larger repayment increases would not take place.

“A letter issued after the July ECB rate increase [resulted] in customers being notified of an incorrect monthly payment change scheduled to take effect in October,” AIB said at the time.

“Customers will not face repayments greater than they had originally expected following the ECB increase,” it added.