“You should be up there Johnny, up in that spotlight, singing the blues with the best of them. Instead of giving away money in the Bank of Ireland.”
I try to stay away from banks where ever possible, and so far I have been largely successful in that. Today, however, I needed to get a small loan out, so I rang the BOI.
<Bank> The repayments on that will be €148.55 per month
<Me> Alright, whats the interest rate?
<Bank> uhh
<Bank> uhh *cough* 11.5%
<Me> Hmm… I was expecting lower than that.
<Bank> OK, ok – how about 7.9%. The repayments will be €142.67 per month
As I said I don’t have a lot of dealings with banks, and in general I’m not one for haggling, I usually pay the asking price. But this seemed outrageous to me, that if I hadn’t idly mentioned the interest rate then I would be paying back a considerable amount extra. Are the people who sells the loans getting a percentage commission? I have seen the exact same thing happen with car insurance quotes – dropping hundreds off the quote there and then if you question it. I have a bad habit of assuming that these kind of things are regulated, roughly fixed prices, when in reality they are hugely inconsistent.
2 Comments
that rate sounds too good to be true, i’d be very surprised if that’s what you got. what is the amount borrowed /repayment period to work out the actual rate. did they try and stick you for payment protection, that’s another favourite scam.. have a look here for a list of their rates http://applications.boi.com/markets/LoanRates. AFAIK NIB offer one of the lowest rates around at 7.4% (i’m paying 9% on my BoI loan)
Ya they tried to sneak in the rust-protector and anti-static spray too. Thanks for the link.
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