Arrrgh, the Irish bureaucracy and the things it causes.....

Ahahahahahhahahahahah.  She phoned back, the account is open, I'll get all the stuff in the mail in the next week or so. 

And to get an Irish Bank Draft for the Daughter I have to physically go to Donegal to the bank to pick it up.

Well, I was wanting to go over there anyway to look around, so it looks like my next big adventure in a month or so will be to go to Donegal.

Ahahahahahhahahahahah.  She phoned back, the account is open, I'll get all the stuff in the mail in the next week or so. 

And to get an Irish Bank Draft for the Daughter I have to physically go to Donegal to the bank to pick it up.

Well, I was wanting to go over there anyway to look around, so it looks like my next big adventure in a month or so will be to go to Donegal.

Wow what an adventure! Your daughter must know how much you love her to keep jumping through the layers of bureaucracy. I hope you have a nice trip out of it.

Yeah, it's been insane. And there's a 90% chance it's not going to work. But because the outcome would be so staggeringly in her favor if it DID work, it's worth giving it a go.  I wish the Irish government would just take a money transfer or something, but no, it has to be a bank draft drawn on an Irish bank.

I had been wanting to go visit Donegal anyway. My father's grandmother was from there, and I've done a lot of genealogy research on that branch of the family. I can only for sure go back to the late 1840s, which is in the middle of the worst of the big famine of the era, but, rather surprisingly, my genealogy DNA test results peg me as being genetically most similar to people from that area. Out of all the great-grandparents, only one (who I know about) was from that area. So for me to have that much DNA from her - out of 8 ancestors of that generation I got her DNA the most - is kind of intriguing. And the Daughter needs a rest - this dissertation has her up way late at night, working, every night. So when she turns it in, we'll travel and see what there is to see over there. It'll be a nice chance to rest.

ANNNNNND, the stuff came in the mail. But it's not the "welcome to your new bank pack" and the debit card I was told to expect. It's a 'fill in this information  so that we can decide to open or not your account" pack.   

The summary sheet of info they have in with it is so riddled with errors that it almost doesn't look like it's me that's applying! Jeezus H. Keyrist.And they are asking me to "pop into a branch" with proof of identity and residence documents. Which were sent at their request via certification at RBS here in Glasgow.

This is getting really, really, really old.  My experience with Irish organizations has always been that it's a crap shoot as to whether or not they are competent, and  I'm now out of patience with Ulster Bank.

It's time to say "enough."  The Daughter will either have to wait until we are tossed out and have to go to Ireland for a while, to apply, or until one of us visits Ireland on a vacation. I'm not spending literally hundreds of pounds to go to pick up a 175 euro bank draft.

YES!!!!!!  I wrote a letter of complaint to RBS H.Q. explaining what had been going on and asking if they could help in any way.
They just phoned and they are going to get a Bank Draft on an Irish Bank and send it to me!  I should have it next week.

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YES!!!!!!  I wrote a letter of complaint to RBS H.Q. explaining what had been going on and asking if they could help in any way.
They just phoned and they are going to get a Bank Draft on an Irish Bank and send it to me!  I should have it next week.

HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fantastic!  But maybe don't count your chickens until they're hatched? 

Yeah, I know. Seriously, I know.

Now I have to find out if the Irish government will accept all the certified documents if the certification was done in late May and June (more than 30 days old). If they'll take them, we don't have to go back to the JP to have it all witnessed again. Fingers are crossed.

It's not going to work anyway, but since there's a sliver of hope, we have to give it a shot.

So, I walk the document to be faxed to RBS to the library (it's closer) to use their fax. They no longer have that service. Directed me to Ryman's, about 10 minutes down the road. Walked down to Ryman's to use their fax. It's broken. I could take the bus to city center and maybe the Ryman's down there has a working fax. (God forbid they offer to call and check, or give me the number to call and check, first.)

Uh, no.  Soooo, having to walk by my branch of RBS on the way home, I gritted my teeth and went in and asked them to fax it to the home office. I sat on their couch for a half-hour while they did that. Apparently it took two people to do it, because the number was not on their list of pre-programmed fax numbers and they had to have someone witness everything before they would fax the document to their own head office.

The guy came out, gave me the fax proof of transmission, and asked why I had not come into the branch and just asked for a foreign bank draft.

I give myself gold stars for not taking his head off. He was nice, and he was trying.

I explained that I HAD been in the branch THREE SEPARATE TIMES and been told they could not get me a draft on an Irish bank, in Euros. And that, because of the delay, the paperwork we had ready to send (except for the draft) became obsolete while we waited, and had to be completely redone. And, of course, taken to the JP Court to be re-witnessed, etc., via the train to Paisley. And now one of the references listed on the paperwork may well be dead before Ireland gets around to checking the references.  He was appropriately horrified, and said they really only see a couple of that kind of requests a year. He didn't go as far as apologizing for the bank staff being a bunch of f***ups, though.

So that bank draft had damned well better show up in perfect condition, as ordered, next week or I will be raising hell again with their complaints department. AND switching banks. Which I will probably do anyway, once I get this all sorted and sent. I have had it up to the eyeballs with very nice (and sometimes not very nice - I haven't forgotten that snide comment about "putting kids in cages") people working at RBS who don't know their own business, and, thus, damage mine.

I wonder how Bank of Scotland is? They have a branch very near our place. I'll have to have my social security direct deposit switched to them - which means I guess I have to open the BoS account prior to closing the RBS one for a month or two, and then get all the direct debits re-set up again with BoS?

I have my fingers and toes crossed this saga is over next week!

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Well, hopefully we'll mail everything off on Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. Then sit and wait for six months to hear it's been rejected....

So, the bank draft arrived yesterday from RBS. It was to be made out to the Secretary General, Department of Justice and Equality. It is made out to "Secretary General, Department of".

Whatever. I'm sending it as it is. My bet is they'll cash it.

And Ulster Bank. On Friday I got post from them asking for my tax residency status. And another request to provide proof of address and nationality. The latter set of information was verified by RBS when I sent the materials to open the account to them. They sent a certified copy of my passport and also my council tax letter and RBS bank statement. The tax residency status info has been sent to them twice already - once with the original application, and once since then.

Today I have drafted a letter to the bank branch manager instructing them to close the account. I wouldn't trust my money with them on a bet, at this point. I'd never see it again.  Thank goodness I haven't transferred anything into the account!

If I have to do anything in Euro I'll use my USA Capital One cards, as there is no foreign transaction fee on them.

Jeezus H. Keyrist this has been a royal pain in the patootie!