AIB and your personal information

I have been looking into trading my ‘05 Ford Fiesta in for a ‘03 Toyota RAV4. The Toyota dealership has been very helpful but I did get a bit of a fright this morning when they contacted me and gave me quite detailed information on my AIB car finance. They knew how much I was paying per month, how much I still owed, the total interest and a lot of other financial details. I hadn’t told AIB I was considering the RAV4 and all I had told the dealership was my mobile phone number, my name and the registration of the Ford Fiesta. With just those three bits of information they managed to call up AIB and find out everything.

I’m not angry. The dealership was just trying to be helpful and to be honest I appreciate them doing all the leg work for me. But I am surprised AIB would give out this kind of information without first asking my permission. I realise the dealership has to cover itself and make sure any car they are considering is fully paid for and not stolen. But I do think this kind of information should only be available to them after I’ve spoken to AIB. If I refuse the dealership access then obviously something is up and they should walk away from the deal.

The problem is it seems as though anyone could get my car registration, phone up AIB and find out how much I owe.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 11:11 am and is filed under Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Aidan Finn 1 year ago 1 point
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I'm a bit shocked by this. I'd always assumed that the bank couldn't give anybody *any* details about your finances. I presumed that in a case like you described it would be up to you to get the required information from the bank and then give it to the car dealer.

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Ken 1 year ago 1 point
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Wow. I'm pretty shocked that AIB would give out your information so easily to a third party like that. It's a bit frightening that anybody could call them claiming to be whoever and get hold of such personal and private info.

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http://www.themenace.com

Olivier Ansaldi 1 year ago 1 point
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At the very least you'd expect the bank to contact you to get your approval!

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Bernie Goldbach 1 year ago 1 point
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AIB is not the only bank passing details concerning debt limit into dealers who are part of their financing networks. With a name, birth date, current address, current employer name, and home phone number, I can get current debt levels of people who may not appreciate the reach of the persuasive tone of voice by trusted accomplices.

In most cases, you never know that your records have been accessed by the curious eyes of another.

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Paul Browne - Technology and P 1 year ago 1 point
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Reminds me a little of the programme RTE ran about estate agents a while back - the one where the estate agent was able to ring up the financial advisor and know *exactly* what you could pay (so that they could ring the last penny out of you).

A car might not be as big a purchase as a house, but same principle.

What are you doing buying an SUV anyway? :-)

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Paul Watson 1 year ago 1 point
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I'm buying a small sail boat Paul and need something that can tow and handle slip ways. Also I am part of the ACSE sailing crew and we are always fussing around for a car to tow her. Then there is the whole Africa Trip in the next few years and Fi and I need to get more familiar with a 4x4 and a RAV4 is a reasonable way to start (it won't be a RAV4 going through Africa obviously :) )

It won't be our daily car. Fi has a Focus for the daily commute while the RAV4 will be used for proper means, not just as a Chelsea Tractor.

Also, funnily enough the RAV4 is only a few mpg less efficient than my outgoing Ford Fiesta. You'd think it would be much worse but as we are all learning, size and appearances are not the way to judge a car when it comes to efficiency.

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Jonathan Brazil 1 year ago 1 point
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That's pretty much the way it works alright. Sadly enough it kind of has to work that way - as Joe Soap on the street needs to know/be able to find out if there is any finance outstanding on your car if you're selling it. It's not just dealerships. I ran a credit clearance check on my last purchase by calling the lender that I was informed was dealing with it and they gave me confirmation over the phone that there was no outstanding credit due. Without the ability to find this out you get landed for the balance on the loan if you're not told and the seller does a runner. I am a bit surprise that they we're privy to your repayments but I would guess that they simply found out the duration of your loan and amount outstanding then worked this out again rather than AIB passing it on. But then again it is a credit record thing and your ability to pay X per month is important to a financial institution when summing you up for a nice little box to categorise you. :)

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Paul Watson 1 year ago 1 point
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Good points Jonathan. I still feel AIB should have contacted me first. If I refuse to divulge the information to the dealership through AIB then the dealership can refuse to do the deal. It should be a joint process.

Speaking of which, I wonder how much you have left owing on that Z3 ;)

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Jonathan Brazil 1 year ago 1 point
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Thankfully enough zarro - been a busy bee for the last few years of savings. :)

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