@askhalifaxbank Halifax Current Account overdraft charges - Is it too late to do anything?

[lhmcr1]

This is a new thread following on from the sticky about the above subject about challenging the Halifax about the overdraft charges.

As Hfx customers will know these charges have been taken for over 12 months now, I am wondering if it would still be possible to go back to the old structure and close the account, or is it too late?

My points are:

1) I have another current account that I can have salary paid into etc...

2) I am currently being charged £2 a day by Hfx for being overdrawn which becomes on average £60 per month.

3) If I did manage to go back to the old interest on O/D method and have the account closed I would still have to make a monthly payment plus the interest, would this be the same as the £60 charge but taken in a different way?

4) Has anyone successfully closed their account after the new regime came in and got some of the £2 a day charges back because they did not agree to them?

Any help, thoughts or comments on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[BankFodder]

by and large, current account charges are probably not reclaimable unless you can show that the charges are the result of some unfair treatment by the bank. If you can show that there was unfair treatment which caused the charges then the charges would be recoverable.

 

How much are the charges that Halifax have been taken from you? I don't mean the total, I mean how much is each charge individually. If the charges are are pegged at an unfair level, then I have one or two ideas about getting them back, that you would have to be up for a very serious scrap.

[lhmcr1]

Bankfodder,

They are the £2 a day overdraft charges, not penalty charges, I am sure I read in the sticky that someone got them back as they asked Hfx for proof that they agreed to the new terms, which Hfx couldn't provide.

Are your ideas on getting penalty charges back similar to the Govan Law centres current arguments btw?

[lhmcr1]

I have read through the main sticky thread about the Hfx charges regime and looked at bookworms, bigyeti and bigdebtors complaints to Hfx and am still unsure if it is too late to make a complaint and ask for proof of agreement and get overdraft daily fees back. My concern is that as an example:

Halifax agree to revert to the old interest on overdraft outstanding T&C's which means roughly £30 overdraft interest and possibly £50 per month to reduce the overdraft ( it will really be reducing by just £20 due to the interest) which means I am paying £80 instead of £55 on average (the O/D fees with the £5 reward deducted) so paying 325 more on closing the account.

[lhmcr1]

No replies?

Has anyone negotiated an overdraft repayment with the halifax?

If so what did they request per month and what interest rate was given?

Any help and/or advice would be greatly appreciated as i really want to know if it is worth pursuing.

[lhmcr1]

Hmmm. Still no replies, has everyone deserted the CAG forums?

Was hoping to get a few pointers on this one, maybe not.

Still, any help would still be greatly appreciated.

[lhmcr1]

I have just had a frustrating conversation with Halifax customer relations about the £1/£2 per day charges saying that I did not agree with the new T&C's and due to personal circumstances is the reason that I have not been in touch sooner. As previously stated my concern is the length of time passed since the new T&C's came in and whether there is a come back to the Halifax saying they can change the T&C's any time as was stated at account opening. Another forum member has successfully claimed after going down the "I didn't agree" rout but they appear to be no longer visiting the forum.

Any help with constructing a letter or with regards to any other pointers would be greatly appreciated.

[ims21]

Hi there

 

As we know, refunds on current account charges are pretty much a non-starter given the outcome of the court case. An exception might be where they can be shown to be against the banking code or some other regulation.

 

However, anyone wanting to take this on nowadays would need to be prepared for a real fight and would need to have a watertight case.

 

That would take the claimant an awful lot of time and work.

 

I suppose you could try it with them and send them a "nice and polite" letter explaining your thoughts and requesting a refund. If they agree to refund some of it then, in my opinion, that would be a bonus.

 

Personally I think it will go nowhere.

 

ims

[baldness]

What can you say about these jokers eh ?

 

I have been on de dole for 3 years.

 

1000 od

 

Run account well ie very very few infringements.

 

Went 56p into an unauthorised od - yep got by the debit card [problem] where they dont stop you w/d ing 56 p when they have authorised a card transaction. start racking up the £5 per day instead of the £30 that is just about manageable on 240 quid income a month.

 

Well ....

 

Telephone staff have NO ability to refund o/d charges

 

Customer Service / complaints staff - yep the ones that if pushed for 30 mins cough up a complaint reference then they try your phone twice and you never hear from them again. - have no ability to refund o/d charges

 

They have no customer retention team

 

Now i am clearly a reasonable on paper hardship case.... unemployed 3 years .....under 3k a year income ....

 

So if they wont refund me voluntarily, freeze interest, give me a different account to pay my dole into etc ....

 

Anyone else is pretty much .. probably .. wasting their time ...trying to be reasonable with them. I have v been a good customer for 20 plus years .... had high paying jobs etc ..

 

Now I am off .. they can swivell.

 

I am asking for interest to be frozen, putting in the old FO complaint .. and I'll take the hit on my credit rating.

[lhmcr1]

O.K. so trying to reclaim the £60 a months fees will probably go nowhere but I would like to hear any suggestions about getting out of the £5k plus overdraft.

Would trying to ask the Hfx for a low cost loan be an idea for example?

All sensible suggestions welcome.

[ims21]

Hi

 

As mentioned before, I think a claim for charges on a current account is a non-starter unless you are going to claim under the hardship rules.

 

I have a bit of a question over the terminololgy in your post about "getting out of".

 

Can you expand on this please?

 

ims

[lhmcr1]

ims21, when I say a way out I mean a way to leave Hfx as my current account provider and go elsewhere that doesn't charge around £60 a month for being overdrawn, the problem is that I can't see antoher bank matching the overdraft I have with the Hfx and if I just went to another provider I would still have to pay Hfx chages as well as an amount to reduce the O/D.

[labrat]

have been complaint about these as well

 

tried " your taking benefit money i didnt think that was allowed"

 

tried " your charging charges on an overdraft that is all charges"

 

they aint bothered

[lhmcr1]

Seems a shame that there is no way out of the Hfx O/D, yes, I was stupid enough to go that far into it and I have now learnt my lesson, I just resent Hfx charging £60 for the O/D, ah well, wonder if I can do some ebaying!!!!

[lhmcr1]

Well, I have looked at other current account options and it looks like I'm stuck with Hfx, unless anyone has any ideas?

[lhmcr1]

I have finally sent a letter to Halifax about closing my account due to the further increase in overdraft charges from November, I received a letter saying that they won't freeze the charges.

Is there anything I can do?

[lhmcr1]

Anyone have any ideas?

[lhmcr1]

Could do with some help here folks, the Halifax say the account charges can't be frozen and come November will be going up to £90 per month, how were accounts with overdrafts closed and the interest rates frozen when the new charges structure was brought in in 2009?

[Jumbodave]

I'm a Halifax customer and most of the time keep within O/D. Due to circumstances beyond my control have got into some financial difficulty. Getting charged £2/day for my O/D and £5/day if I go over the limit. What takes me over the limit? Their charges which hit at the same time as everything else leaving the a/c on the 1st of the month! Instead of managing the £60 monthly charge I get hit with maybe £70 - £80 per month. This is charges on charges as I see it. Is this legal? I can't change from HX as my credit rating is screwed because of my circumstances so I wouldn't get an O/D anywhere else. The increase in charges that is coming next month is 50% Can they legally increase their charges by such a huge amount. This means I will be paying not £70 but likely to be in excess of £100/month. This will be a downward spiral for me as things stand at present!! On a £3k O/D I believe the new charges will equate to approx 40% APR! How about legislation under 'unfair relationships'? Has anyone looked at 'Right of Appropriation'?

 

I welcome comments and suggestions

[rhoti]

I'm a halifax costumer and went overdraft over £4000 in two accounts, i went in to the branch and asked to see a manager and explained to him that i cannot afford to pay £60 a month as my circumstances have changed so he offered me a fixed loan which is a lot cheaper and less charges to pay, but you have to take some proof of your earnings and expenses to make him believe that you not able to re-pay them back.

[baldness]

I can update you all on this.

 

As per my earlier post, I started to incur the £5 per day charges on an overdraft of £1000 whilst I was unemployed. I went 56p into unauthorised overdraft after several years paying the £1 charge and prior to that the fixed %.

 

I wrote to them 3 times and got no reply.

 

I stated they needed to freeze interest / charges on my account because I was long term unemployed.

 

I continued to receive default notices etc with the overdraft mounting up each month with no activity on the account.

 

When i last looked they had added something like £1000 to my £1000 od making a "debt" of £2000 plus.

 

After 3 recorded delivery letters and no reply I figured I had done my bit and could show a court I had made reasonable efforts to deal with Halifax.

 

Now they have stopped adding charges and sent the debt to a debt recovery firm who try to pester me every once in a while.

 

I am not recognising the debt and it will go away after 6 years. If not I will appeal to the ombudsman. Only yhing stopping me now is that I don't see the point because the "debt" isn't directly affecting me right now

 

I had no difficulty opening another account that gives me a debit card and I should have done it years ago instead of paying the daily fee to Halifax when I was on the dole for several years.

 

I heard of someone that found that that Halifax don't completely cancel your debit card after they have told you in some standard letter that they are cancelling your card / freezing your account etc.. Thats cancelling, not threatening to.

 

Like me youd assume that you couldnt use it to buy groceries or withdraw from cash machines and I suspect youd be right.

 

However, I understand months later, amazon can get paid using a such a card (somehow) and thus they will deliver goods to the card holder..I presume on smallish orders under say ....£100. No check seems to be being done with the card issuer. Once the goods are paid for and delivered it isnt immediately obvious where the fault lies and whilst im sure it is covered in small print somewhere Halifax may end up adding some real debt to the made up debt on a persons account.

 

All very annoying. Halifax cant even organise stopping authorising use of your card by certain online retailers months after they have informed the card holder the card has been cancelled and months after you have been in dispute with them over an account thats in unauthorised overdraft and they have frozen...

Edited August 12, 2013 by baldness

[lhmcr1]

Just a note if reclaiming from Halifax/Lloyds Banking Group.

 

They will state in their reply that an independant assesor has shown that it costs more than £12 to deal with overlimits and late payment.

 

They will also submit this as a defence if you take them to court, causing the case to be thrown out.

 

As this information is " commercially sensitive" you will be unable to see it.

 

So it looks like reclaiming will no longer be possible.

[dx100uk]

others have tried this trick

it does not work

 

the 'assessment' has to be approved by a letter from the FCA

 

dx

[lhmcr1]

So how do you stop the county court judge from throwing it out?

[rebel11]

It's total rubbish, Halifax will say anything to hold onto your monies. Tell them once they provide you with the requested information on what it costs them when you send a CPR 31.14 request, that will blow their defence out of the water, tell them that the courts don't take kindly to having false information put before them form institutions that deal with members of the public on a daily basis.

 

Just a note if reclaiming from Halifax/Lloyds Banking Group.

 

They will state in their reply that an independant assesor has shown that it costs more than £12 to deal with overlimits and late payment.

 

They will also submit this as a defence if you take them to court, causing the case to be thrown out.

 

As this information is " commercially sensitive" you will be unable to see it.

 

So it looks like reclaiming will no longer be possible.