Halifax - interest unfrozen- help!

[flower5]

I have Halifax credit card which has £8000 outstanding. 6 month ago following CAB advise I sent Halifax a prepared Statement offering them £23.00. They accepted my offer and froze interest on the account. When 6 months gone buy and I had a few phone calls, as usual, and was asked to increase my offer. Unfortunately I couldn’t. Halifax action plan was – we will accept the same money but interest will go back on. I sent them a letter (got template from National Debt Line) saying that I stop my payments and will re-install them only when Halifax agree to continue freezing interest. My partner saying I am stupid and I need to pay them what I offered. I don’t know what to do. Anyone please help!!!

[flower5]

I have Halifax credit card which has £8000 outstanding. 6 month ago following CAB advise I sent Halifax prepared Statement offering them £23.00. They accepted my offer and froze interest on the account. When 6 months gone buy I had a few phone calls,as usual, and was asked to increase my offer. Unfortunately I couldn’t. Halifax action plan was – we will accept the same money but interest is back on. I sent them a letter (got template from National Debt Line) saying that I stop my payments and will reinstall them only when Halifax agree to continue freezing interest. My partner saying I am stupid and I need to pay them what I offered. I don’t know what to do. Anyone please help!!!

Edited June 20, 2008 by flower5

[Fred Bassett]

I have Halifax credit card which has £8000 outstanding. 6 month ago following CAB advise I sent Halifax prepared Statement offering them £23.00. They accepted my offer and froze interest on the account. When 6 months gone buy I had a few phone calls,as usual, and was asked to increase my offer. Unfortunately I couldn’t. Halifax action plan was – we will accept the same money but interest id back on. I sent them a letter (got template from National Debt Line) saying that I stop my payments and will reinstall them only when Halifax agree to continue freezing interest. My partner saying I am stupid and I need to pay them what I offered. I don’t know what to do. Anyone please help!!!

 

Flower,

 

This is standard Halifax tactics to try and get you to pay more.

 

Have you sent them a CCA request? This is a request by which you establish whether or not the debt you have with them is enforceable. It will cost you £1 (use a postal order) but could yield some surprising dividends, i.e. if the credit card is more than a few years old there is a good chance that they haven't got an enforceable agreement. That doesn't mean that the debt goes away but it does put you in a much stronger position.

 

You can also send a SAR request in which you ask them for details of all of their dealings with you, including all charges on your account, some of which you might be able to reclaim.

 

Have a look in the templates - there should be links there for both. Don't panic, as I said, this is typical of Halifax.

 

I'm off to bed now - slightly ****ers at the moment because of midweek guests, but if no one else comes along, I'll try and catch up with you tomorrow.

 

Regards.

 

Fred

[IdaInFife]

Obvioulsy national debtline is a great help but IMO I would have kept paying them trather than trying to hold them to ransom. When you rec'd the letter from Halifax, if you send a response back with inc/exp sheet showing that not poss to pay anymore they normally would continue with what you had before.

 

When did you stop making payment?

When did you send the ND letter?

 

 

Follow Fred's advice as it can give you a bit of time to think what you want to do and to see if it would be enfoceable.

Idax

[balloon1435]

Hi flower5,

 

Firstly welcome aboard.

 

Banks generally work on a 6 month review period with accounts that fall behind, whilst dealing with my creditors most of them stopped all interest on the first time of asking. Unfortunately not all of them did, one in particular completely refused to stop the interest but did offer a reduced rate as " a good will gesture"

 

First thing to note, banks want you to fall behind. More interest can be applied! and certainly when they have given you a respite from interest charges being applied (that you agreed too) they are very slow at coming forward to you at the 5 month point to negotiate a new freezing period.

This is entirely up to you.

 

As an example, I refused to pay the minimum monthly payment until they at least accepted my minimum payment and consider the interest. However, I did maintain payments of £1 every month without fail. Not sure it it done any good but I had piece of mind that regular payments had been made, no matter how small.

 

balloon1435

[flower5]

Guys thank you so much.

I didn't pay them for one month, but send the letter right before that.

So, you suggest I should pay even if they charge the interest on top.

By the way. I used to pay them £23 a month. Just before all of this started I received their letter saying: this is our debt policy - if you would offer less than £10 we would organise a low cost life long repayment programme, but because you offered more than £10 your arrangement might be fixed only for 6 months and only can happen once in the account life and now interest is back on.

I will send them letters which Fred suggested, question I have do I pay them or not. I was thinking going back to CAB and getting another statement where I can offer them less than £10. My financial picter is weaker anyway and this will be the true story.

Any suggestions please?

[PGH7447]

offer them a £1 and support this with an icome and expenditure form showing incomings and outgoings

[flower5]

hi balloon

Thank you so much. I think I will continue to pay £9.

I received a letter this morning from Halifax saying that if my initial offer would be less than £10 than they would set me a low cost life ling repayment programme but because my offer was £23 I only could have a brake for 6 months. So I will pay them under £10 following their own policy

xxx

[manc1976]

My OH has the same issue where they are now adding interest and also a late payment fee EVERY month.

 

I recently sent them and I&E and am waiting to hear back.

 

What they are also doing in our case, is taking money from the Credit Card to pay off the Bank Account arrears!!!

[balloon1435]

flower5,

 

Good news, if they are prepared to do that for you it can only be good.

 

Worthy of note is as I said earlier, make sure you keep tabs on review dates and such. Income and expenditure details are worth more to you than them and it might be worth while in 5 months or so, increasing your payments to £9.10p (showing willing)

 

Good luck and keep the forum informed.

 

balloon1435

[balloon1435]

flower5

 

Forgot to ask, have you incurred any charges (overlimit/late fee) besides interest?

 

balloon1435

[PGH7447]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/halifax-bank-bank-scotland/148805-halifax-interest-unfrozen-help.html

 

double post, try and keep to one thread then you get all the advice in one place

 

Can a MOD join these together please

[flower5]

I am not sure, might be.

Can you advise on which latter I send to ask for all these details, please.

Thx:)

[**Tilly**]

Hi Flower

 

You will need to send a sar enclosing a £10.00 cheque, requesting your statements, these will show any charges,, this usually takes upto to 40 calender days, Keep a

copy for yourself and send it recorded delivery. Good luck

 

1. Data Protection Act, Subject Access Request letter - List of charges

 

 

 

 

Tilly

[flower5]

many thx, will do today. Feel much better now. :grin:

[flower5]

okayyy, I will stick to one place.

[Bookworm]

threads merged.

[1stlifeline]

My other half is having the same problem. We did the incone expenditure thing and they agreed a monthly paymant which he has made without fail. They gave him 6 months interest free but have now put it back on with also a late payment fee. We wrote using one of the CAG templates but never had a reply although they he did get a call from the collections department. Usually he dosnt respond to the calls but they got him at a weak moment and tried to get more money from him, which he refused. However he did make the person aware that we were still waiting for a response to the 'stop interes' letter. The woman said it was impossible to freeze for more than 6 months. They NEVER do it. Strange that, we know someone who has had the interest frozen for nearly 2 years now. Same bank, same kind of card.

[flower5]

I received a letter from them saying if I would offer them less than £10 they would put me on life long repayment plan but because initially I offered them more than £10 they accepted it for 6 months and as you saying it all back on now.

Stick to my thread, please, because this way we can exchange information. I will look at the letter this evening and put it in here so you will know for sure what their policy is. I pay them now £5, going to CAB next Tuesday for a new statement. They seem like more friendly when they get not just my doing by CAB one.

[balloon1435]

Unfortunately, the only policy you can rely being consistant with banks is their inconsistancy with struggling customers!

 

I presume they see it as "what is acceptable" and "accountability"

Surely if all banks publically displayed how they would treat customers in times of need, they would probably expect a glut of consumers trying to exploit their generosity.

 

The one sticking point with assistance is the fact that you agrreed to them applying interest at 29.9% APR! why should they want to cut that tie?

 

Why oh why have we been manipulated so much to rely on banks?

 

balloon1435

[flower5]

I understand and fully appreciate your point . I am at the position now that I have nothing to lose and if they take me to court they rather do it sooner than later. In the court the judge will decide how much I can afford and the interest will be stopped anyway. According to my present financial situation I can only afford £5 a month. So they can stuff it. I stupidly and honestly thought that if I will be honest and try to maintain and do my best they will be sympathetic. BIG MISTAKE!!! So, now they are having my gesture of £5 or they continue to freeze the interest. They can hustle me as much as they want, I am a tough cookie.

By the way my partner tried the tactic of warning them that the conversation is recorded. They hung up as soon as they hear it.

[Fred Bassett]

I had a letter from Halifax at the end of May confirming that "...Interest and Charges have been suspended ON A PERMANENT BASIS". Whether that's because they've passed it to Blair Oliver and Scott I don't know, but they can do it, they use this tactic to try and scare people into paying them more. It makes no difference to me because they will not be getting another penny until such time as I can make them a derisory F&F offer to get this one off the books.

 

Fred

[flower5]

Hi Fred

WOW, so, what did you do?!?!

Do you have any templates of your comunications with them, I can have a look at, please.

[flower5]

one more question, sorry, what is derisory F&F offer?

Thanks a lot for your help.

[Fred Bassett]

Flower, I think the reason they stopped interest was because they realised that they were going to get absolutely nowhere and also, quite probably, because they had passed it on to Blair Oliver and Scott. I'll post the letter up on here later on when I've got a few moments.

 

F&F is 'Full & Final'. I don't simply want to let these things go on without a satisfactory resolution. I want to clear my debts but in some cases that means making my creditors an offer well below the level of the debt. Where they can't enforce the debt and they know it, I'm thinking of offering them about 5% of the total.

 

Regards.

 

Fred