Halifax Overdraft - Changes to Accounts £1 a day

[Bigdebtor]

Surprise

 

Have you given HBOS permission to discuss your FOS complaint with a third party? Could be grounds for complaint about breach of Data Protection Act and client confidentiality here?

 

BD

[surprise]

Actually it did cross my mind about DPA. I was watching TV when he phoned and I was cross so never actually got the firm's name, however, I do feel another complaint coming on!

[surprise]

Complaint done. Emailed Eric Daniels and copied in John McFall and my MP. See what they say before making a complaint to the ICO.

 

They'll be that sick of me at the Halifax that they'll pay me to go away!

[Bigdebtor]

They might not notice how annoying you have become as they are so well used to obnoxious people - they employ thousands of them!

 

BD

[surprise]

Received a letter today from the Halifax stating their position remains the same and for me to complain to the FOS. I shall take their advice and complete a claim form over the weekend. If they want to waste another £500 then so be it.

[stacywoodhouse]

I'm going to send this on Monday:

***

Dear Bank,

 

Thank you for your letter dated 20th January 2010. Although you claim you have tried to call to us to discuss my concerns, I quite frankly don't believe you. Notwithstanding my previous letter, the bank statement we received on 15th Jan 2010 detailed the unlawful charge which you unlawfully wish to levy unlawfully, (just to ensure there is no ambiguity).

 

As you have introduced new terms and conditions to our bank account, I wrote to you previously stating that we do not agree to the changes. For some reason known only to you, you appear to have ignored our non-acceptance of the changes to the terms and conditions.

We wish to state our refusal of these unilaterally imposed terms, which we are entitled to do in accordance with your own terms and conditions which state:

 

If you do not agree to the change you can close your account. If you notify us that you do not accept a change, we will take this as notification that you wish to close your account immediately.

 

As we have notified you in writing within that 2 month period, you are bound to take this as notification that we wish to close this account. You say that you cannot close the account because there is a debit balance outstanding. This is nonsense and is a clear breach of you own terms as quoted above.

 

The agreement between you and us was that this overdraft was provided without a charge apart from the interest it attracts, and we have no wish for this to change, nor have you given us a choice in the matter.

 

I reiterate that 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):

 

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) Terms which have the object or effect of –

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

I do not consider the "simplification" you claim is your primary reason for this change to be a valid reason. The more likely reason is that £1 per day is considerably more than any interest made on a debit balance. I will state this as clearly as possible so as you can understand what you are choosing to ignore.

 

Your terms state that you can change your terms and conditions with notice to us should you wish but you cannot bind us to them if we do not agree to them, regardless of whether there is a debit balance outstanding. Otherwise you could introduce whatever terms you like and we would be forced to comply. This is unlawful.

 

Your terms also state that the overdraft is repayable on demand. However, we strongly suspect the reason you haven't chosen to do this is because that the interest on our outstanding balance is considerably less than £1 per day. We fully intend to pay the overdraft back at the agreed rate of 19.5%, with a minimum payment of £10 per week and we reserve the right to make extra payments as and when possible. As we wish to close this account and that we do not accept the proposed charges regime, any attempt to levy the £1 per day overdraft charge without our explicit consent in writing will be disregarded and will be reported to the FOS for investigation.

 

We are more than willing to consider any counter offer you may wish to make should you choose to not accept our proposal. If you do not reply by 31th January 2010 accepting our offer or to propose a counter offer, our offer will be retracted and the account will be formally disputed by us. I feel that this is a fair repayment scheme and I am in no doubt that the court will agree given our income and outgoings. It may be worth considering that if you still levy your unlawful £1 per day charge, the balance would not be paid off until August 2019. It will be a sorry day for justice if a court deems that to be acceptable.

 

In addition to the legislation cited above, we intend to recommend to the court that it investigates whether you may be liable for prosecution under section 4-(1) of the Fraud Act 2006;

 

1) A person is in breach of this section if he—

a) occupies a position in which he is expected to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of another person,

b) dishonestly abuses that position, and

c) intends, by means of the abuse of that position—

i) to make a gain for himself or another, or

2) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

The change is going to hit the people in the worst economic situation hardest, 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 we cannot be sure of this happening, we believe it is no coincidence that since I initially wrote to you, we have received two mail-shots from you offering us a bank-loan.

I repeat just to make sure there is no ambiguity in our absolute refusal to accept this change of charging regime and that we wish to close the account.

 

We await notification of the closure of our account plus your acceptance of, or a counter offer to our reasonable overdraft repayment scheme.

 

Yours irascibly,

 

Us

Hi bigyeti

 

How did u get on with your halifax letter?

 

S

[bigyeti]

still waiting to hear. I noticed that they've stolen £26 off me regardless, but that's now taken it into the red. I believe that it costs £5 per day at that point. Still, I don't care all my ins and outs are with the A&L now.

[stacywoodhouse]

still waiting to hear. I noticed that they've stolen £26 off me regardless, but that's now taken it into the red. I believe that it costs £5 per day at that point. Still, I don't care all my ins and outs are with the A&L now.

yea they charged me £25 arranged OD fee/£5 unarranged OD fee on my single current account which has took me over my arranged OD and £11 arranged OD fee/£75 unarranged OD fee on my joint current account which has taken me over my arranged OD. I dont have the money to be repaying this until at least the end of Feb so you can imagine my unarranged OD fees for this month will be £100+ on each account. Ive emailed Eric Daniels with a simlar letter to yours in respose to their letter I received today from the office of the money grabbing bastard executive. see what they reply if not good then will FOS them.

[surprise]

Yes, same here taken the £26 and charging £5 a day. I've put my complaint into the FOS now and I have said in my letter to them that how long it takes the FOS to get around to dealing with complaints the interest charged will be something like £1,000. Don't know whether they will take the hint and work a little faster! I also copied in OFT, John McFall and my MP.

[jamraz]

maybe we should now initiate a group litigation claim, as everybody seems to be getting ignored by halifax, who still think they can do as they please!

im complaining with the ombudsman at the moment, but halifax dont even seem to be bothered by this.....

[Bigdebtor]

I have already suggested (can't remember on which thread) that we should all send identical letters on the very same day (needs to be planned a few weeks out?) to our own MP's copied to Eric Daniels and John McFall. McFall established Daniels knew nothing of this at the recent Commons Select Committee. Let's swamp him with letters and e-mails and make it top of his agenda!

 

BD

[jamraz]

Maybe The Administrators Can Set Up A New String For Such, And Stick It To The Main Hbos Page?

[bigyeti]

Maybe The Administrators Can Set Up A New String For Such, And Stick It To The Main Hbos Page?

 

 

Wouldn't that just be a DDOS attack?

[surprise]

Following my previous post on being contacted by a Market Research company on behalf of the Halifax I have today received their response. I have now circulated this letter to the ICO, FOS, OFT, John McFall and my MP and shall await the outcome, but to say I'm livid is an under-statement.

Halifax letter 6.2.10.doc

[mikexlr8]

Can't read file -- can you post in another format?

[bigyeti]

Can't read file -- can you post in another format?

 

The file is a Word file and contains just an image of the scanned in letter. If you don't have Word, it may not work in something else

[indebtstudent]

They are actually getting worse if that is possible, I thought surely even they would see how annoying it would be to be contacted and asked how you felt they handled your complaint when you have been utterly fobbed off. Apparently not.

 

The strange thing is they could've gotten exactly the same info by simply reading your letters.

[surprise]

When I first read this letter I thought it just goes to show their mentality to employ a Market Research Company to find out how they had handled a complaint when the complaint was referred to the FOS. They'd have been better off paying me back what they obtained by unscrupulous methods instead of wasting more of the taxpayers money.

[surprise]

Re-scanned picture for anyone who hasn't got word.

Edited February 6, 2010 by surprise
taken scan off as you couldn't read it.

[indebtstudent]

Very true surpised, if the estimate 70,000 people they have lost went to the FOS that's a serious waste of cash. Not everyone will of course, and they will have based thier forcast on that, but even so pushing people towards that is a most bizarre position to take.

[surprise]

Reply received following my emails to John McFall.

 

Thank you for writing to Mr McFall; he has asked me to reply. It is extremely

useful to be kept informed of problems which occur with individual banks, as we

can feed that into our work; for example we raised the question of the new HBOS

overdraft mortgage arrangements with the Cheif Executive of the Lloyds Banking

Group when he came before us. I note what you say about the FOS. However, I am

afraid that the Treasury Committee is unable to take up individual cases.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Eve Samson

Clerk of the Treasury Committee

[jamraz]

whats going to happen if i file an official complaint to the fos for each letter halifax sends me? will each initiate a seperate fee for hbos?

[surprise]

You can only initiate a complaint to the FOS once you have received a final response from the Halifax on any individual complaint.

[jamraz]

...every reply they send says its there final.....so??

[surprise]

If you have received their final response then you need to download the complaint form from the FOS website and copy all your correspondence and send with the form.