Thread: Complaint about Halifax new charges regime, template letters here.

Ok, here goes, no 1.

Work in progress, and do tweak to your purpose, don't just blindly cut and paste. Some of you may get the higher charge than £1, change that. This is not one size fits all, it fits mostly. OK?


Make sure you READ it and UNDERSTAND it. I know it sounds obvious, but you'd be shocked as to how many just copy blindly and fall on their backsides when they get a reply.

Halifax
Customer Relations
PO Box 548
Leeds LS1 1WU

[Name]
[Address]

[date] [sort code/account no]

Dear Sir/Madam,

I refer to your letter/leaflet of [date], in which you advised that my regular overdraft would be subject to a £1 per day charge from December 2009.

I wish to state my refusal of these unilaterally imposed terms. The agreement between you and me was that this overdraft was provided without a charge apart from the interest it attracts, and I have no wish for this to change, nor have you given me a choice in the matter.

I am in a situation where I can not just pay off my overdraft and leave, which effectively leaves me at the mercy of your iniquitous charges.

Please be advised that I am reporting the matter to the attention of the Office of Fair Tradings, as I believe your actions:

• Contravene the Consumer Protections from Unfair Trading Regulations Act 2008 and are in fact prohibited under Part 2, section 3.-(3)(a) and (b): "(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."

• I also believe your actions contravene the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999, section 5. (1) to (4):

5. - (1) A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

(2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term.

(3) Notwithstanding that a specific term or certain aspects of it in a contract has been individually negotiated, these Regulations shall apply to the rest of a contract if an overall assessment of it indicates that it is a pre-formulated standard contract.

(4) It shall be for any seller or supplier who claims that a term was individually negotiated to show that it was.

and I also refer you to

Schedule 2 "INDICATIVE AND NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF TERMS WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS UNFAIR",

1. (k) enabling the seller or supplier to alter unilaterally without a valid reason any characteristics of the product or service to be provided.

I don't consider the "simplification" you claim is your primary reason for this change to be a valid reason.

Furthermore, I don't believe that your changes pass the test of transparency, as you have failed to give clear examples of what that daily charge equals in terms of the interest rate this equates to under typical amounts. Indeed, I believe that translated in a percentage, those rates would put your average loan shark to shame. Please feel free to correct those figures, but this is what I have seen reported:

£0.01 Overdraft: 3,650,000%
£100 Overdraft: 365%
£1000 Overdraft: 36.5%

Furthermore the change is going to hit the hardest the people in the worst economic situation, as those who can afford it will leave in droves whilst those stuck in the living-in-the-overdraft trap will be the ones worst hit, unable to leave and hit for those fees month after month after month. In a lot of cases, it may lead people to try and raise additional funds by taking on consolidation loans to pay off the overdraft, when they may not be able to afford it in the first place, which would amount to irresponsible lending and/or a breach of the OFT's guidance on Unfair Business Practices 2.6 (b) "pressurising debtors to sell property, to raise funds by further borrowing or to extend their borrowing". Whilst I can't be sure of this happening, it is not inconceivable that quite a few of your customers will turn to you to find a way to solve the issue and may get talked into additional borrowing against common sense and OFT guidance.

Finally, I believe that this very material change to your terms and conditions is a direct breach of the fsa waiver to which you agreed, in that you are not supposed to alter your T&Cs in a manner which will disadvantage your customers whilst the OFT v Banks test case is ongoing.

I reiterate to you my absolute refusal to this change of charging regime and await your proposal to resolve this issue.

Yours faithfully,

[sign]
[name]

CC:

OFT
FSA
[your MP]

No 2, to OFT:

Enquiries and Reporting Centre
Office of Fair Trading
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX.


[Name]
[Address]
[date]

Dear Sir/Madam,

Please find enclosed a copy of the letter I have today sent to Halifax Bank. I know the OFT doesn't deal with individual cases, but I believe this blanket approach towards their customer base does come within your remit.

In this particular economic climate especially, this unfair money-making exercise is going to create even more poverty, more vicious circle of charges begetting charges, all this in a period when the consumer is unable to seek remedy due to the fsa waiver. Meanwhile, banks such as Halifax happily flout the very same waiver and unilaterally impose their changes on their customers at a time when they are not supposed to.

This is a request for the OFT to immediately start investigating Halifax Bank's disgraceful behaviour.

Yours faithfully,

[sign]
[name]

Enclosed: [copy of letter no 1]

thanks bookworm your are a star

HOLD THE FORT!!!

I have just thought of something else to add to it as I was musing on the implications of the change. Don't copy the template yet!!!

Ok, good to go. Sorry about that.

Excellent letter bookworm, just one thing though, in your example of interst rates you have got £100 listed twice with 2 different rates.

Ooops. My bad. Correction on its way, I actually copied that form another post. Proves what I said about not just copying and pasting, lol.

Any maths genius about who can check the numbers? :-|

Thank you Bookworm and everyone else too for this

huge thanks fab as always

wonder if any national paper would be interested to persue this,

just carry on everyone and lets make some noise!!!

have a sunny day all laters angel x

hiya all

have signed the government petition and now we can do facebook, fab

well remember when that lady spoke out about marks and spencer charging more for bras because more material and she did a facebook page, that worked a treat marks and spencer bowed down

so hey maybe this is the way to go too, fab idea gerrybhoy

laters all angel x

It's on watchdog right now