Gooders, thanks for this useful information! I was going to do some research to discover what exactly *Manual Intervention* is about, to help paint a clearer picture. But you have done that for me, excellent! Amazing how the attitude of the Banks change when you are not buying *products* from them ... I'm an undergraduate of Law and understand the Law of Contract and UCTA etc ... but I need to familiare myself with the finer points. Actually it amazes me how the Banks or their Risk Advisors use legalese to help cloud the understanding of any correspondence from their institutions, thus making it as difficult as possible for the average man in the street. Once again thanks for your advice! UG-GR

Finally, after almost 40 days I have received a reply to my letter for subject access request from HBOS. [Halifax] Simply they say that duplicate statements have been ordered and will be sent out. BUT .. they then go on to say * I regret HBOS plc is under no statutory obligation to record information on manual intervention of your account* - *I am unable to assist further with your request* Does anyone know if it is actually and technically a Statutory Obligation to record manual intervention of bank accounts and does the fact that HBOS is registered in Scotland have any further legal implications? It seems like an abrupt and strange sort of letter and I suspect that HBOS does have to record this information?? Can anyone advise me please?

I've just received a recent mobile bill from T-Mobile to discover that they too have put a £3 charge on there for not paying by direct debit. I find this totally ridiculous and restricts customer freedom of choice. Could you imagine if suddenly everyone was suddenly surcharged by any company that issued an invoice for services, simply because they didnt pay by direct debit? Actually I dont remember being offered a choice of payment, nor the notification of a charge if I refused to pay by DD. I've paid my bills upon invoice for about 6 years now. Rip off Britain or what?

I started my chain of action to reclaim charges from Halifax 19 Feb 07. Mailing a SAR request to Halifax, PO Box 101, Leeds HX3 0TA giving 40 days to complete. Called them today 21st March and they say have no record of request/letter/cheque etc etc ... they asked which address I used. Told them used address that I'd always used for setting up new DD's and other mail previously. The person in the Belfast call centre, told me that he'd never heard of the address that I'd used???? told him that its printed on the face of all my cheques that Halifax gave me to use!!! Eventually after about 18 mins, I got given another address to write to: Nexus - Halifax PLC, PO Box 548, Leeds LS1 1WW. They are not one bit helpful at all and I asked whose address is printed on my cheques then? The answer was *I cannot answer that question for you* !!!! Unbelievable... I have written a further letter today, expecting the compliance to be within the original 40 days. [i'm a Law undergraduate and cant believe how lax the bank are!]