This all stems from when Halifax doubled their OD charges in November 2009. I offered to pay back my overdraft at the formerly agreed rate, but they were having none of it. So I said to close the account, but they wouldn't close the account because of the outstanding OD, which I couldn't afford to pay back before the new charges came into effect. So they just started charging the new fees anyway without my permission, so rather than pay £31 a month, I jumped ship. After telling them about 10 times that I didn't agree to the charges, I asked for unequivocal proof of my agreement to the charges and all of a sudden, they reimbursed all the new charges (just over £1100) and said no more charges would be levied. However, we disagreed on the amount owing and after repeatedly telling them their sums were wrong, I gave up bothering. It's now being through numerous DCAs, but nothing still has been resolved. What I want to do is let make them take me to court where a judge will assess my ins and outs and decide how much I can afford and for how long. But I doubt they will, it'll just be one letter after another. Followed by threats of a doorstep visit, which I'll point out to them is not wise. After all the bills, we don't have much spare and exercising my right of appropriation, paying back this debt is of a lesser priority than the guy who comes and jet-washes our wheelie bins every fortnight.

I have 1st Credit chasing me £1420 which is the remains of my Halifax OD after I jumped ship nearly 4 years ago when they imposed their new overdraft charges regime. Given my current financial situation, I doubt I could pay it off except at a pitiful amount per week. What I'd like to do is force their hand and make them take me to court because I'm 99% certain that a judge will either order a tiny payment of a few quid a month or even write the debt off altogether, especially given the grief I've gone through over this so far. I was planning on making them a full and final offer of about 10% of the outstanding balance paid off by standing order at a few quid a month with the condition that no further correspondence will be entered into if they do not agree. And under no circumstances bother showing up at my door. Is this worth trying, and will it work? Regards Bigyeti

I was in the same situation. I even agreed to pay the £1500 overdraft off at the formerly agreed interest rate, they refused. They refused, so I said close the account and we'll agree a payment plan. Again, they refused to close the account until the OD was cleared so they were effectively forcing me to pay their charges. So I jumped ship to A&L. They started piling the charges on until the balance was £2600 in the red so in the end, I wrote to them explicitly asking them to supply signed proof that I agreed to their new charges, they then wrote back saying that they were refunding all the new charges and would apply no more.

I already did this with Alliance and Leicester as it was the only option I had to get out of paying the new charges.

When Halifax decided to change their OD charges from calculated interest to a daily charge of £1 per day, I complained most vociferously because it meant my monthly charges would double as I had an OD of £1500 which we were permanently in because our income closely matched our outgoings. I offered to carry on making the calculated interest charges and would try and clear the OD as I did. They weren't interested, and said that they can change their T&Cs as and when (which they can) providing they gave me notice (which they did). I said I don't agree to the changes so they said I should close my account, but added that I couldn't close my account whilst I had my OD. So in a nutshell, I couldn't close my account because I couldn't pay off my OD. Whilst the account was still open, they would start to apply the new charges which would then cost me approx. another £15 a month. I wrote several times saying I don't agree, that they cannot force me to pay them because I don't agree regardless of whether the account is open or not because I explicitly told them that I wasn't in a position to pay off the OD before the new charges took effect. The only way I could avoid these charges was to jump ship and I moved to Alliance & Leicester who in comparison were a fantastic bank. I monitored the Halifax account and they carried on adding their new charges and then after a while starting complaining that they were building up as they were now charging the £5 per day unauthorised charge. I wrote back repeatedly saying that I am not liable for charges I didn't agree to pay. In the end, when the account was £1600 in the red, I asked them to supply irrefutable proof that I had agreed to the charges. Their response? "As a gesture of goodwill, we have decided to refund the (new) charges to the account and will no longer apply any more." Huzzah! Result I thought, but there was still about £60 I couldn't account for as I was certain it comprised of the charges I had not agreed to. After many months of arguing about it, they refused to budge on it, I thought "F**k them, they can chase me for it properly, I've been reasonable and made fair offers with reasonable conditions. Since I skipped banks, the agreed minimum £1000 per month had not been paid in and so they had been filing a missed payment mark on my credit record. I set up a standing order of £10 per week to be paid into my old account. A few weeks later, I checked the Halifax account and discovered it had disappeared! I cancelled the standing order and checked my credit record. They had filed a default. Gee thanks for that. I then had a variety of DCA chasing me, so in the end I set up another £10 per week standing order. Now to the crux of my post. I noticed mention of BCOB on here. Can I use this to force them to remove the negative marks on my credit record? I believe I have been unfairly treated. It was they that put me on the back foot, giving me no option to take the action I did, which led to default. Thanks in advance, Bigyeti

The bath itself was made in Mississauga, Canada (as stated on the box it came in anyway). I can't find a company there that makes them though.

Yup, switch everything over. At the moment you're paying £60 a month for nothing which I'm sure you'll agree is better in your pocket than theirs. I assume all your outgoings are covered by your income otherwise you're in a position of more going out than what's coming in and your overdraft balance will be increasing all the time. If you can cover all your bills with your income, then just switch everything over and you won't need an overdraft. As someone else said, sort out other bills, switch utilities suppliers, insurers and other such stuff. You can save a fair bit doing that for precious little effort. That will be yet more spare cash in your pocket.

Well basically because I'd switched banks, the account was just dormant and the only transactions were their charges so when thry finally backed off, they just credited the account what they'd taken and agreed to freeze all charges. The downside in all this is that they had been filing bad things on my credit record which has bothered me most of all.

I think I posted my letter to them on this thread somewhere, which basically demanded proof that I had agreed to the new charges. It was over a year ago though so I'm not sure without trawling through the entire thread. However, I was in a position to jump ship and transfer all payments to another account. After which my income was safe and couldn't be interfered with.

Do you really need an overdraft in place?

I have no issue in paying back the overdraft, my main concern is what they're doing to our credit record. We're in a 5yr fixed rate mortgage with Halifax which ends next May, we went into our current bank to see about switching early and if it wasn't for Halifax trashing our credit rating, we would have been accepted and would be paying about 80pcm less. That means of course that other banks won't accept us and Halifax themselves wouldn't offer us another deal next year which means we could be paying full whack. I'm going to chase them on this with the Consumer Protection from Unfair trading Regs Act 2008, particularly Part 2, S3 3) A commercial practice is unfair if— a) it contravenes the requirements of professional diligence; and b) it materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the economic behaviour of the average consumer with regard to the product.

Halifax are really becoming irksome. Although S.74 does apply as it is a current accout overdraft, is it still counted as a regulated agreement? Surely there must be an agreement of some sort or another, otherwise they could claim I owe any amount they choose to pluck from a hat.

All this aside, Halifax are filing a blemish on my otherwise spotless credit record on a monthly basis. In my proposal to pay off the balance, I required they put my credit record straight. They say they cannot agree to it as they are obliged to. They are still amending it even now after they agreed not to add any more charges. I applied for a mortgage with Santander in December in order to take advantage of the low interest rates, and was turned down for this reason. This has cost me in the region of £80 per month or so. I want Halifax to remove these entries urgently. What's the best way of forcing them? Will I need to take them to court?

If you haven't categorically agreed to their new charges regime when they changed them last February or whenever, then they can't bind you to a contract. To my knowledge, silence does not constitute agreement - just because you didn't tell them you don't accept the new charges, it doesn't mean you agree to them. They'll claim that in the T&Cs it says that they can change them as and when providing they gave you notice. Which they probably did in a letter that just looked surprisingly like a letter asking if you want an ISA or something, which tends to make you ignore it. Dump Halifax, open an account somewhere else and have ALL your ins and outs go through that. That way they can't take any other cash off you. Write to them asking for unequivocal proof that you agreed to the new charges. That's what I did, and they refunded all of the charges and said that they would not apply any more. If you've not done so already, read through this entire thread.

I actually started to switch accounts before the letter came, and set up a SO to pay off the direct debit. Then the letter came so I wrote back and told them I don't agree. I sent 5 letters before the charges actually started, by which time we'd gone, cancelled the SO and maxxed out the OD. Overdrafts are covered by the CCA as it's a rolling credit agreement, and works in exactly the same way as a credit card. There was a court case that determined that. Coutts vs Sebestyen, as mentioned here http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?31515-CCAs-and-overdrafts They sent the first request back saying there isn't an agreement for this type of account, so I sent it back saying 'yes there is' and mentioned that case.