Halifax Overdraft - Changes to Accounts £1 a day

[bigyeti]

I forgot to mention, I opened an account with A&L and have transferred salary into that. I just called today to have the tax credits and child benefit paid into there as well. But until I know the transfer is complete, I'll not write to Halifax in case they decide to remove my OD and leave me with a hole that'll swallow up any weekly benefits payments.

[180]

Received my second letter today which is obviously a standard template letter.

 

Is there any way I can get OFT/trading standards involved to act on my behalf as they have basically said they realise I feel; I would be worse off but the majority of their customers wont be, blah blah blah.

 

I'm not the slightest bit bothered about these so called customers. I am interested in MY concerns, which thay have yet again failed to adress.

[bigyeti]

This is the letter I have drafted, with sections borrowed from this template here:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/halifax-bank-bank-scotland/226753-complaint-about-halifax-new.html

 

As I've given the Tax Credits people my new bank details, I'm going to make sure that the payments arrive in my new account before I send this off.

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

 

Dear Claire Mortimer,

 

Thank you for your generic and quite frankly unhelpful letter dated 24th November 2009 which failed to address my issues. As you are introducing new terms and conditions to our bank account, I wrote to you previously stating that I do not agree to the changes. For some reason known only to you, you appear to have ignored my non-acceptance of the changes to the terms and conditions.

 

I wish to state my refusal of these unilaterally imposed terms, which I am 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 I have notified you in writing within that 2 month period, then you are bound to take this as notification that I wish to close this account.

 

The agreement between you and I 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. Should you require me to repay my overdraft, I am willing to repay it at the agreed interest rate, with a minimum payment of £10 per week and I reserve the right to make extra payments as and when possible. I feel that this is a fair repayment scheme. As I wish to close this account and that I do not accept the proposed charges regime, any attempt to levy the £1 per day overdraft charge without my explicit consent in writing will be disregarded and will be reported to the FSA for investigation.

 

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):

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 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, I believe it is no coincidence that since I initially wrote to you, I have received two mail-shots from you offering me a bank-loan.

 

I reiterate to you yet again just to make sure there is no ambiguity my absolute refusal to accept this change of charging regime and that I wish to close the account. I await notification of the closure of my account plus your acceptance of my reasonable overdraft repayment scheme.

 

Yours disillusioned,

[coolchris]

Nice letter bigyeti. May I use this as a basis for my reply back to these greedy sods?

[angel_1]

hiya bigyeti

 

have rep'd you thanks for the letter

 

id come on today to look at doing this , to tell you the truth id already started the ball rolling in paying something on a weekly basis from when they told us the terms would be changed in dec 09, but having had their generic letter now from acknowleging my complaint, i am considering my plan b

 

also had a letter from fsa who now refer me to FOS ,, but i believe they wont take the complaint until we have had the Final letter from halifax

 

so my thoughts are if i put something into place to pay off the overdraft on a weekly basis and they do not agree with me, and they wont budge then at that point i will take it to the FOS,,, it s my method in my madness:lol:

 

this is an overdraft id planned to get rid of with the charges claim but i will have to put my now plan b into action and see what happens with my efforts

 

so guys we can only try, keep the faith laters angel x

[bigyeti]

The only problem I have here is that when it comes to paying it back, I don't know who I should make the first payment to. Or do I pay a cheque into my Halifax account?

[Bookworm]

Yes, pay it into your account until such time they might flog it off to a DCA, in which case you can tell the DCA to sod off, lol.

 

Received my template letter too, with a slight variation about sending my chequebook and cards if I do decide to close the account (what part of "CLOSE THE ACCOUNT" is SO difficult to understand? )

 

I'm not on CAG much at the moment and it's going to get worse in the run-up to xmas, so if you need urgent replies, please don't ask me, I can't promise when I'd get round to answering!

 

Keep fighting!

[180]

One thing that has occurred to me is that if they do start to charge £1 a day, could I challenge each and every one of the charges by sending a letter a day to the Halifax saying they are in breach of our original agreement.

 

Should they fail to acknowledge, could I take the matter to court and demand costs of, say £35 per letter if the case goes my way???

[bigyeti]

There is no reason why not. But I think charging them £35 might be a bit steep and smacks of hypocrisy. But by all means charge them reasonable costs for the letter. Work out the costs to you which would include time spent at a rate you're payed by your employer, or if unemployed a reasonable estimate of your going rate, take into account stationary, printer costs, and don't forget to add up all the time spent on it. Including time spent taking it to the post office. Oh, and fuel spent getting there.

[Bookworm]

The rate for a LIP is £9.25 an hour. If you're going to go down that route, make sure you itemise the amount of time as precisely as you can (diary).

[lmd75]

Moving to own thread..

Edited December 1, 2009 by lmd75

[mikexlr8]

So do charges actually start today?

 

I rekon I can pay my OD off on the 4th... are they going to charge me £4?

 

Can I stop this?

 

Thanks in advance...

[angel_1]

hiya all

 

my letter said charges start from the 6 Dec 09

 

have a fun day laters angel x

[bigyeti]

Hang about,

the 6th is a Sunday. The ONLY transaction that has ever happened on my account on a Sunday is the standing order for my mortgage which is deducted on the 1st of each month. Any other direct debits, bank charges, etc is dealt with the next working day.

 

I'm hoping that my next tax credits payment goes into my A&L account next Monday, (and child benefit on Tues), that way they can't just swallow up my cash by removing the overdraft facility.

[mikexlr8]

Well OD all paid off today including 50 bags of 1p. Screw you Halifax and see you in court.

[Bookworm]

OMG, good thing I checked my account! After telling them to close it, they haven't and applied £2.37 interest... If I hadn't checked, that would have kicked off the £1 a day charge once it starts... they really are the pits.

[brucie32]

ok so ive only just found this thread, hello to all, got the same letter as the previous posts, i opened my current account in branch, normal, reason for opening a current account was for ebaying, i had no monthly or weekly income at the time, they have let me over a couple of years take my overdraft facility to 1950 pounds, and again without any constant credit to my account, unfortunately like a good lot of people i got paid off back in april, my overdraft is at its limit and all i am really putting into the bank is enough to cover the interest, when the new charges come into effect it will only put my interest charges up by a few pounds,

2 things i would like to ask

when i opened the account all i had was the standard 100 pound overdraft facility with a halifax current account, the overdraft was done through online banking and they stated that i could go to an overdraft of 1950, where do i stand with online agreements that i dont sign for, does it still work the same.

second, without a job at the minute i cant get a loan to pay off the overdraft, i dont get any benefits because my wife works part time and we get tax credits, what i would get in unemployment benefit they would take off tax credits so i cant claim that to have a steady source going into my bank account, this is my personal account by the way, where can i go from here

personally i think the banks are a joke at the minute with the way they set charges, as someone said before if you are constantly in your overdraft they want to squeeze as much out of you as they can, i just wish someone could snap their fingers and help us all out

[angel_1]

hiya all

 

ive started my own thread see below link and thanked you sigsoldboy for this thread together with bookworm's thread

 

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/halifax-bank-bank-scotland/236216-halifax-charges-6-12-a.html

 

 

i have now the interest of a local councillor who wishes to meet up therefore i wish to document my journey

 

anyway in the meantime keep positive everyone

 

laters angel x

[Bookworm]

There goes an angel who takes no prisoners.

[angel_1]

There goes an angel who takes no prisoners.

 

 

hahhah thanks Bookworm - your initial thread togther with this one truely inspired me and then there was no looking back

 

 

have a fun day all laters angel x

[180]

Has anyone else taken any forther steps as I'm now concerned D Day is rapidly approaching and the Halifax have yet again shunted me into the sideline asnd said that their investigation is closed and the charges will still apply.

 

Are they simply not reading the letters?????

 

What should I do in order to purse the matter in court?

 

Any help would be massively appreciated

[coolchris]

See post 228 from bigyeti. Ive dragged a few pointers out of that and sent a letter back to em basically saying they have not answered a single question I posed in the original letter. Ive also told em to close the account and put terms of repayment of my OD that I can afford. If they dont like it, they can take me to court and let the judge decide how much I have to pay out of my 50 quid a week carers benefit. Assholes.

[nigel_bytes]

Good heavens, they dont give up do they !

Phonecall yesterday on behalf of halifax asking if i wanted over 50s insurance !

My answer was 'Sod off i'm not with that Bank that introduced unfair overdraft charges anymore' then i hung up

[surprise]

They have not responded to me since my second letter of 10th November when I told them I didn't accept their terms and conditions. I have now transferred all payments to my new account so I have just left the overdraft on. I emailed the Chief Executive last weekend and still heard nothing. I am just waiting to see what they do about the interest now.

[London000]

Good heavens, they dont give up do they !

Phonecall yesterday on behalf of halifax asking if i wanted over 50s insurance !

My answer was 'Sod off i'm not with that Bank that introduced unfair overdraft charges anymore' then i hung up

 

 

Hi there Nigel,

 

Why on earth would they have your number??

I have changed my mobile simcards 10 times since...as was £1.00 a simcard.

As soon as I feel a rat around my number....get new ones..

The landline is long gone....can't even remember the year:p

The other day I was asked by one lovely girl at the reception at the gym to have my e-mail and phone number for their records....

I answered that shoud it be for her to call me to take me out then yes to the mob no (for personal matters only) but no to the e-mail.

 

Good luck anyway and don't give up.

 

DD:cool: