Ulster says no - I say cheerio!

The Ulster Bank are crap. Simple as that. Rubbish at what they do. Complacent in a finally competitive banking market. Arrogant to their customers. And keen to rip them off at every twist and turn.

As of this moment, I have two current accounts (one of which I pay over €100 a year for the privilege of them minding my money in), one mortgage and a credit card from the Ulster Bank. I've already cleared the horrendously expensive loan account I held.

As of Monday, I'll have none of these things, hopefully.

Because the Ulster Bank are a bunch of shitehawks, and I've had enough of them living off my money and providing nil customer service.

I had a loan account with them for a car. The APR was well over 11%. Yet the bank were offering new customers the opportunity to borrow at 5.2%. Never mind customer loyalty, or the decades I've banked with them. I could go shove myself when I asked for my loan to be switched to the rate they were offering to dogs off the street. So I cleared the loan immediately.

I have a mortgage too, on a house with a low loan-to-value ratio. This means you get a lower interest rate. Only not with the bank that likes to say no. They want me to go out and spend hundreds on having the house professionally revalued before they'll consider dropping the 0.2% differential.

And this while they waive such requirements for new customers, and even bung them a grand as a bribe. A grand of course, they've made out of mugs like me.

Their credit card rates are particularly appalling. On my earnings, I should have been offered what they call their Zinc card years ago. This is the equivalent of a gold card - higher limit, lower rates for good customers. Did they offer it to me?

Did they fuck. They'd rather I stayed on their pissy rate. So it's been cut up and the balance transferred to the Halifax which charges less than half the Ulster Bank rate AND 0% APR on transfers for six months.

Now, you might be thinking what a mug I am for putting up with all of that for so long. But I'm the same as most people. I don't want to have to think about my finances too much. I'm complacent and just let things mosey along.

But when I recently had to urgently transfer funds overnight to another bank account, and paid the Ulster Bank a significant fee for doing so, and then they didn't do it, I got really annoyed. I got more annoyed when I had to go to the branch in person and sort out their mistake.

When I had to send funds abroad to pay for a holiday, and they didn't arrive for well over a week, again despite my having paid extra to ensure a quick electronic transfer, I got even more angry. Now they're threatening my fucking holidays!

But the final straw came yesterday when I had to rise from my sickbed and get a cab to the bank to pay an emergency tax bill. I got to the branch with minutes to go before they shut at 4pm.

However, the lard arse on the door had already locked it and refused to let me in, even though I was waving the time in his face. I called the branch manager from outside the door. She insisted to me it was past four, and during our conversation, I could hear the four o'clock news beginning on a passing car's radio.

The manager suggested that I could wait outside in the pissing rain for a half hour while she checked the CCTV tapes to see if they'd shut the doors early. I asked would she then let me in to pay my bill if it was established they had. 'No,' she said, of course. So why the fuck would I bother?

Wandering back into town I passed the permanent TSB. They were still open. So was the ESB. So was Halifax. I don't know who will get my current account business, but probably it will be one of them. I'll check the excellent Ask About Money website to see who are doing the best deals.

Probably your bank are shitehawks too. The Bank of Ireland and AIB have both been caught ripping off their customers in recent times. I recommend you pop along to Ask About Money and compare the rates and products there to whatever rip-off rates you're currently suffering from.

Then go to your bank and tell them to shove it. And move all your accounts. Like I'll be doing first thing on Monday morning.

Dosh and Dali

So, I've just got into the house after dispensing the last of my paltry underperforming SSIA dosh (bloody Ulster Bank!) on servicing some of my spiralling debts, and I log onto breakingnews to see what's going on in the world and suddenly I find myself in an alternative universe.

I'm still not sure where I took the wrong turning through dimensions. Most likely when I boarded the Luas an hour ago, as Dublin pedestrians were unusually and uncharacteristically pleasant to me on my journey home.

But it's only just now, plugging into the world online, that I am truly convinced that I have entered some surrealist state of existence worthy of Salvador Dali's fevered imagination.

Let's peruse some of the headlines I just read:

The Government has paid €3.5 million for some War of Independence memorabilia. What? Like we don't need any hospital beds or school places anymore, that we can now afford to blow millions on some prison sketches? What cabbages have we elected to Government?

A fire broke out at a British nuclear plant that is already nearly fifty years old today. But hey, that's no problem, folks, even though they had to shut the creaking reactor down, and even though the antique plant is due for closure next year. No radiation, we are assured, could possibly have leaked out.

Point one, we don't believe you, BNFL, because you've lied so often in the past. And point two, close the fucking thing down already! It's well past its sell-by date and is now proving positively dangerous!

Two of the biggest scrota in the music industry, Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Eminem no less, might be about to team up for, God forbid, a rap musical. Kill them now or it will be huge, I warn you.

But the proof that I have fallen through a gap in time and space into some surreal alternative universe lies in this story - An Irish high street bank finally admits that house prices are falling!

Best investment ever

Hope y'all got yer Georgie Best fivers. Because according to some evil shysters on Ebay, the value of Georgie Boy's stock has gone up many times over in a matter of only days.

One looper reckons that a single fiver is now worth eight times as much, plus post and packaging, of course.

But he's only pitching at the market rate, according to these memorabilia mongers, who are banging out the fivers at a mere £38, with post and packaging kindly thrown in.

Basically, according to my simple understanding of mathematics, that approximates to an increase of 700% or so in a mere fortnight. Which would make George Best's stock the fastest climber since a lovesick yeti chased Edmund Hilary up Everest.

Not bad for a lad whose wisdom on financial acumen was best summarised by his famous aphorism: "I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and cars - the rest I squandered."