One the last occasion they actually informed me that a previous card I thought had expired had actually remained open due to another of these ‘security’ checks remaining pending. On that occasion apparently they could not contact me by phone or mail so I had now have to incur a €30 Stamp Duty charge in having the account closed. There was no mention when I contacted them by phone of actually verifying the ‘questionable’ transactions.

In addition to the obvious dangers of the method by which AIB conduct these ‘checks’ I would be very interested to find out exactly how a supposed suspicious or fraudulent transaction is flagged by their system. On the past two occasions when speaking to them over the phone, I have had to orally approve virtually identical transactions I have genuinely made online over different time periods, to me it seems unnecessary and stupid.

In one sense, I suppose it is good to know that AIB take this seriously (the checking at least, if not the methodology) but I was always of the opinion that the onus was on me, the customer, to regularly check the transactions on my account , and then to report any suspicions or concerns to them, not vice versa, particularly when the process just picks the same transaction type on each occasion and thus the cycle begins all over again.