Please help me solve my Halifax Hell

[jonni2bad]

"I refer to your letter dated XX/XX/XX (Default Notice). Please be aware that I formally dispute the debt and will shortly be commencing legal action for the recovery of an as yet undetermined proportion of the figure notified.

 

You are advised that any further action in regards to this matter will be met with separate legal action and this letter will be provided in evidence."

 

Send it by SPECIAL DELIVERY.

[kydcarmen]

Thanks jonni2bad, I will be writing the letter tonight and posting tomorrow along with the s.10. Will keep you posted. Thanks for all your help.

[kydcarmen]

Received another letter today from halifax, stating that my account has noow been passed to the debt recovery department due to the default notice. They want me to supply them with an expenditure sheet and confirmation of my income.

 

Do i supply this or just write to them informing that I will be disputing the charges?

 

I have already sent a s.10 letter and a letter to their legal department concerning the default notice.

[kydcarmen]

Letter received today from halifax stating:

 

Statements have been ordered and be sent under seperate cover and that HBOS can't assist me with my request for information relating to manual intervention on my account as they are under no statutory obligation to record this information.

 

Anyway i will just have to wait and see how much they owe me when the statements come and as for manual intervention, well its just what i expected they would say.

[kydcarmen]

Ok, well received this letter today, any advice as to what i should do next would be appreciated.

 

Section 10 of DPA 1998 does not apply where consent is given to the use of data for the particular purpose concerned, or where it is needed to perform a contract to which the data subject is a party. ( Please see schedule 2 of DPA)

 

When you opened the account you agreed to be bound by our account conditions. These give us the power to impose charges on customers' accounts and for the services and facilities that customers use. Customers are told about these charges in line with both our account conditions and the banking code.

 

I appreciate that you are unhappy with the amount of the individual charges that have been applied to your account. However, there is no dispute over our right to make charges or the circumstances in which we impose them.

 

Consequently section 10 does not apply to the circumstances of your request.

 

Well that is their response to the s.10 letter!!!!

 

Anyone else had a letter like this?

[jonni2bad]

Keep it in case you have to go to court, it could be more relevant then.

[kydcarmen]

Received 36 letters today, my statements, postman thought it was april fools......lol

 

well gone through my statements and i have a few questions.

My account with halifax is a student account with an overdraft, so what do i do about the interest they debited? Do i add it all or just the interest i was debited when the charges took me over the overdraft limit?

 

Also i have some charges for £2.50, £10, £12.50, £15, £28, £30 and £35. I don't know what these charges are for as statements just say 'Charges as notified' so when it comes to the schedule of charges, what do i state they are for, as i have no idea!

 

Can anyone advise me?????

[jonni2bad]

Interest - if it is clear that charges forced you into a position of having to pay interest and you would not have done otherwise, I think it is perfectly fair to reclaim it.

 

Charges - I suppose it does all depend what they were for, but if you were not paying for any 'services' on that account, then reclaim them. In fairness, the ones at £2.50 may well be a lot harder to reclaim since they are more likely to be closer to the actual costs incurred (all depends what they did for you though). Certainly those at £10 or more seem unreasonably high.

[kydcarmen]

Thanks jonni2bad. As it was a student account with an interest free overdraft i don't think that i was paying for any services, well not that i was aware anyway.

 

Unfortunately I have no idea what the charges were for as it doesn't state this on the statements i received, so i am just going to try and claim all charges of £10 and above and the interest debited when the charges took me overdrawn. That alone still comes to about £3000, thats good enough for me.

 

I see that you are having trouble with a default notice jonni2bad, i am having a problem too. Could you suggest as what i should do, i sent the s.10 letter and halifax replied with the letter shown above in a previous post. What should my next step be?

 

Also should i mention the removal of the default notice in the prelim letter or not, if so how should i word this within the context of the prelim letter?

 

Help please!!!!!

[jonni2bad]

To save me some time, can you let me know....

 

At the date of the default notice, what were the level of charges imposed?

The value of the default?

Did you receive proper notification?

Overall total of charges?

[kydcarmen]

Hi, jonni2bad, the letter i received is as follows, dated 26th July 2006:

 

Default notice served under section 87(1) of the consumer credit act 1974.

The terms and conditions of the account state:-

"Unless we agree that you can do so, you must not use your account or allow anyone else to use it is this would make your account go overdrawn or go over your limit."

You are in breach of that condition because, without our agreement, you have used your account or allowed someone else to use it so as to make your account go overdrawn or over your limit.

To remedy the breach you must pay into your bank account the sum of £233.78 before 24th August 2006.

I have a £740 overdraft on the account as its my student account

[jonni2bad]

Repeat....

 

At the date of the default notice, what were the level of charges imposed?

[kydcarmen]

Hey jonni2bad, what do you mean by the level of charges?

[jonni2bad]

OK, looking back you probably don't have the list of charges yet..... when they arrive, put them into a spreadsheet and then you'll be able to let me know how much you had accumulated in charges by the date that you were defaulted (rather than just a total of charges in the 6 years).

 

Does that make some more sense now?

[kydcarmen]

Hey jonni2bad, the amount of charges is £2749.50 (not including interest charges) by the date of the default. It seems that halifax have stopped all interest and charges since 31 July as I haven't had any charges since then.

[jonni2bad]

OK, that's fine.

 

The Prelim and LBA in the Templates Library both contain text for the request to remove defaults. You certainly have a case for doing so.

 

Those parts are in red so that anyone not affected by defaults knows what parts to remove - you will, of course, be keeping them in.

[kydcarmen]

ok well i sent the prelim off today, but altered one that i used for natiowide which didn't include the default section. Shall i just include it with the lba, as i have also sent them a s.10?

[kydcarmen]

Ok letter received today from HBOS:

 

Thank you for your letter dated 7th August 2006.

The reason your account has been served with a default notice is that you are approx £265 over your overdraft limit and only £15.00 has been paid into the account since march 2006.

Your account is now with our debt recovery agents Blair Oliver & Scott. please contact them on 0870 240 5138 for any information regarding future procedure.

Please find enclosed a leaflet explaining our procedures. (Personal Customer Complaints leaflet).

Should any of your concerns remain unresolved please let me know what you like me to do to put matters right (like I haven't told you already). We are keen to resolve your concerns, if we are unable to do so we'll provide you with details of how you can contact the financial ombudsman.

If I do not hear from you within the next 8 weeks I will assume you are satisfied with our response to you letter.

Ok so they have fobbed off the s.10 and also my letter to their legal department. Anyone have any suggestions as to what is the next step?

[DazNorthants]

I would suggest you write to Oliver Blair and tell them you are in dispute with the Halicrap over the amount outstanding.

 

They should they bounce it back to them

[kydcarmen]

Thanks Daz, are there any templates on here for this kind of letter as i am not much of a letter writer.

[jonni2bad]

No, but just keep it simple and you'll be fine. Something like....

 

Re: Account Number XXXXXXXX

 

Please note that I consider the debt to be formally disputed and I have made the Halifax aware. I am currently in the process of resolving this matter and will contact the Halifax directly until the matter is resolved.

 

*****************************

 

On the other matter, wait until you send the LBA and include the removal of the default.

[kydcarmen]

thanks jonni2bad, i appreciate your help and advice

[kydcarmen]

Ok well i rang Blair Oliver & Scott for their address as halifax didn't include it in the letter and it seems that i'm not on the system yet. Nevermind, got the address and letter informing them of dispute will be posted monday.

 

I HATE HALIFAX......LOL

[kydcarmen]

Letter to Blair Oliver & Scott

Blair Oliver & Scott

PO Box 66

Rosyth

Fife

KY11 2WG

I have recently received a letter from Halifax plc stating that my account has been passed to Blair Oliver & Scott and that any future procedure concerning my account I am to contact you.

 

Please note that I consider the debt to be formally disputed and I have made the Halifax aware. I am currently in the process of resolving this matter and will contact the Halifax directly until the matter is resolved.

What do you think?

[jonni2bad]

spot on.