Last week’s item about the “strange and pretty ridiculous goings-on” at Permanent TSB struck a chord with a reader called Robert. Last week we wrote about how Permanent TSB paid a direct debit that left our reader chronically overdrawn.

Robert banks with Ulster Bank “and recently got caught up in the major computer glitch that they had. It all started on June 15th and since then I was left without a salary for a few weeks,” he writes.

“Anyhow, I have two standing orders. One goes to my local credit union and the other one, for €80, goes to BoI every week. When I realised that these were not going to be met I phoned BoI and my credit union out of courtesy to let them know. The Credit Union were okay with this, and at that stage so were the bank, who said, ‘Thanks for calling to let us know.’ Things changed on July 14th when I got a call from BoI. I was on the Dart so couldn’t get into any long conversation, but basically the woman said to me that I was missing two payments and I would need to get it back to normal.”

He said he had already contacted the bank to explain the situation. He had gone into Ulster Bank on a number of occasions and was assured that these payments would catch up and not go down as missed payments. “The lady said that this probably would not happen and I would need to lodge two payments in the branch. I said I couldn’t do that as Ulster Bank had promised me they would be paid, and then there would be a possibility of my paying double, which I couldn’t afford. The lady said again that I would need to make the two payments. I said that the last time I had checked my account there was only one outstanding. She said there were two, and then said, no, there was another one pending, so it meant one payment was missing . . . and that it might affect my credit rating.”

Again he told her that all he could do was go according to what Ulster Bank was telling him. “I have since written a letter of complaint to Bank of Ireland stating that it was “mean-spirited of them to try to pressurise me into making payments when they knew what the situation with Ulster Bank was, and that a little more patience would have been appreciated.

“I felt very disappointed with their attitude, and all because of one €80 missed payment that wasn’t my fault in the first place. If I owed €80 million and just said I didn’t have it, I might get away with it.”