Ulster Bank Reviews 

What a nightmare bank. I'm in the process of shopping around for another bank. When you lodge a complaint they bounce you around with email addresses, websites. The customer service is non existent. Withdrawals are being taken from my account without my permission and they have informed me that they cannot prevent this!!!

Horrible company I wouldn't recommend as they are a useless bank with no personal skills app is shocking. They charge u a fortune an and all there staff in andersonstown is clueless, banks are biggest reason why the world is in as much trouble as it is shouldn't need banks. Not one this bad anyway.

I have never dealt with such a terrible customer service. I have left the UK and closing my account with them has been impossible. No real human agents to talk to just their online bot which is useless. They use antiquated 1990s methods of verifying identity. For someone who lives outside of the UK, you basically cannot close your account. I have had to contact the financial ombudsman to resolve the issue. Bunch of crooks. DO NOT USE.

We had an UK online savings account through Ulster bank (rec by MSE) and needed to transfer a large sum of money for a house purchase. It took some time!. Ulster are part of the Nat West group but as the account did not come with a debit card we were unable to do this through our local Nat West bank as they could not access the account without the card.
We then had to rely on telephone/robot support!
Getting past all the options and getting to speak to a real person took some perseverance but once there the people we spoke to at Ulster bank were really helpful and patient. Explained what we needed to do (send a Fax!) and went above and beyond to resolve the situation. A CHAPS payment and download of a fax app onto phone and we finally got there! If you bank with Ulster from the UK ensure you open an account with a debit card to save you some sleepless nights!

The lack of flexibility around money withdrawal options is incredible. Offers internet accounts, yet there is no flexibility and options offered are to go into branch.

Ukster bank services weren't working. Rang up to customer services to make a complaint. Person on phone wouldn't take complaint on phone and tolf me had to be done online. I thought this was strange at time but I did it. Then I find out reason why is they have contracted their online complaints department (cora) to India. Unbelievable. The service I've received has been nothing short of shambolic. If anyone has any seven you'll transfer your accou lnt. To a bank with a UK based customer service team as you won't get anything sorted through India. It's a joke. Ulster bank all those profits and you can't even give your customers a UK based complaints team. Should ashamed of yourself.

I had a query regarding my credit card, firstly experienced the usual waste of time with the “ digital assistant” enquiry passed on to customer service, took them over 5 hours to respond, got the default message “we are experiencing high level etc etc” absolutely DIRE customer service. I have been a loyal customer for over 20 years, will now move to an alternative card provider.

Mind boggling experience trying to transfer money out of my account. Blocked twice, had fraud dept. set on me, payments refused and then when everything allegedly sorted out, I find my transfer limit is exceeded because they took my money out then paid it back in again, hence still preventing me from making the transfer (to my own account elsewhere) impossible! Shocking way to run a show.

Honestly the worst experience trying to do simple tasks. Stay away from.

Bank refuses to action request to close account
I have submitted two requests to the bank to close my account and send me the interest owing on my saving account. This process is meant to take 72hrs.

I have received no communication from the bank, my account remains open and I do not have the interest that bank owes me.

There chat bot is useless wont let you speak to anyone.

I have had to raise a complaint to get access to my money.

STAY FAR AWAY! What about absolute disgrace of a Bank. Opened my account gave them enough notice and heads up that my funds will be transferred to my solicitors to pay fees on a house. They then block the account immediately and close it. No conversation no updates and now they are holding onto my funds what a disgrace. Treated awful and complaints team are useless. I do not recommend anyone to open an account with them read the real reviews and open an account elsewhere..

I’d give them no stars if I could…

Owe me £1600 in interest but are refusing to close my account in order for payment to be paid. Tried closing it online twice to no avail. Online chat is an absolute waste of time, told me to visit a branch in Ireland when I live in Yorkshire. Yeah, I’ll just hop on a plane shall I?

AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

This was the most horrible experience with a bank for me by now. Ulster bank is so stuck in the stone age of 90s...
Opening an account was easy. Transferring money was OK as well. But closing a saving account became a nightmare. It was just impossible to close the account because I could not instruct Ulster Bank to transfer remaining £5 to my other (not Ulster) account. Their account closure form simply doesn't have a line to put this info in. Their support in chat was absolutely useless. The best advice they could give was "send us a letter by post or visit a branch". But there are no branches in London! I suspect that the closest to London branch is in Northern Island!
Anyways, after a few weeks of wasted time I tricked the system: I opened a current account and instructed Ulster Bank to close my savings account and transfer remaining interest to the current account. That worked. But then I had to close my current account... And the advice was again "send us a letter or visit a branch"!!! I ended up writing a letter, sending it, waiting for 3-4 weeks and finally receiving a letter confirming that they close my account.
Never again.

Useless, online chat say you can't close and online account without visiting branch when there is not one anywhere near me. online chat useless and no phone numbers easy to find, just got disconnected from online chat, hopeless. AVOID

The online help tells you how to close the account online and there is a link to the page and:-----

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Ulster Back once again excels in the art of being utterly useless. My dad got a cheque *all printed* from the Nationwide and took it across the street to the Ulster Bank where he lodged it with a cashier - he doesn't trust ATMs and can't use them. One week later, he received a letter saying the cheque was bounced because the details were illegible. So that's error number one - the cashier accepted it, scanned it but the scan was poor and the cashier & systems didn't catch it - that's 100% an Ulster Bank issue. I then called Ulster Bank with a generic enquiry about how to remedy this. After *finally* getting through to a real person (by lying and saying I wanted to open a new account but no, I couldn't go online) I was very clear from the outset that the scan of the cheque was illegible based on the letter my dad had received, so what did we need to do to sort this. Naively, I assumed that since the error was by the Ulster Bank, I thought if the cheque was still in the branch they could simply rescan it and fix their mistake. After being told my dad had to go back to the Nationwide, I explained he was nearly 82 and I was unclear why it was his responsibility to fix their mistake, couldn't they just ring the cheque and put it through properly? At which point I was taken on a 40 minute journey to look at his account (to which I have limited access), try to find where the original cheque was (they couldn't) only to be finally told that even if they could find it, it couldn't be rescanned because it would be marked by the machine so my dad would still have to go to the Nationwide and get a new one. I still don't know why they wasted nearly 40 mins of my time and theirs looking for a cheque that couldn't be rescanned anyway. The nice lady on the phone said she thought it was because I just wanted the cheque back but what did she think we were going to do with it if it couldn't be re-lodged? Anyhow, the cheque was for a 5 figure sum and I'm fairly confident that when my dad does spend half a day going to the Nationwide and explaining why they need to reissue a cheque that was perfectly fine that he won't then be taking it to the Ulster Bank. I know few people use cheques but still, this experience just reinforced previous atrocious experiences with Ulster Bank. I've given them 2 stars instead of 1 because the lady I spoke to was very pleasant and helpful and patient when I didn't have account details to hand but on the other hand I NEVER ACTUALLY NEEDED ACCOUNT DETAILS TO GET AN ANSWER TO MY QUESTION. (Which is why I phoned up without having them, it was very much a generic enquiry. )

Very difficult to close a dormant unused savings account. Customer service not possible, by phone and Cora chat is useless too. They waste resources on emailing me on an account not Used in years. One star service, if that word applies

What app locks you out now after your phone doesn't recognise your fingerprint and then makes you re-register? STREWTH!!!!!!!
Answer - Ulster Bank
Horrendous!
Who doesn't pay monthly interest because they haven't worked out how to credit interest monthly?
Answer - Ulster Bank

Horrendous experience trying to withdraw money from loyalty saver account. Incorrect and inconsistent information given to me by several different members of staff. It’s been an incredibly stressful and frustrating process. I’ve been trying to complain using Cora as I was told this is the way to register a complaint and I got chucked out twice after entering the whole sorry saga into the text box. The chat history does not show what I typed so it was a complete waste of time. I am in my 60s and this has been easily the worst banking experience of my life.

Where do I start?! Hmm, not sure customer care is top of their priorities. Customer number not recognised on desktop but worked okay on phone. Then on trying to process the payment the official reference number was rejected. But the poor old UB live operator couldn't understand that lol. Spent 2 hours with what I think was an operator and even they couldn't get the thing to work properly. And as for Cora. If the question wasn't in the AI memory bank Cora couldn't answer the question LOL Did actually speak to a real person at one point who was rather abrupt and not helpful at all, so I'm guessing it's not just the customers who are p#ssed off with the organisation? Worst Bank I've encountered in nearly 45 years. Think they must be still using Windows XP in Ulster? LOL

I was attracted by the 5.2% interest rate which made it worth opening a current account first . I can move money in and out instantly directly to and from this account.
The terms and conditions are that 60 days notice will be given for any interest rate reduction. Not receiving any such notice I was dismayed that the interest rate should suddenly drop to 4.75% . I have raised a complaint that no such notice was received. Depending on the outcome I may refer to the financial ombudsman service in order to claim suitable compensation.
I've had the standard acknowledgement but I have to wait up to another 7 weeks before I can escalate this.
As far as other reviews are concerned about withdrawing funds I've had no issues in this regard, and I was happy with the way the account worked with the exception of this sudden unannounced interest rate drop just over a week ago. Depending on how my complaint is handled will determine how I go forward with Ulster bank