Unauthorized Halifax Direct Debit

sweetbutternut

I'm not a Halifax customer and I don't have any dealings with Halifax whatsoever. However, around £30 was taken by Direct Debit from my bank account by Halifax insurance as a first payment.

I never authorized this direct debit and have never had any dealings with Halifax ever, so I do not understand how this could have happened. My bank said that this had happened with a quite a few of their customers, so I wasn't the only one. Firstly, my bank said that it was for a mortgage payment. I do not have a mortgage at all. Secondly, how did Halifax get my bank account details in the first place?

I sent Halifax an e-mail but never got a reply. I am loathe to spend any money at all calling them to complain or spending money to post a letter as this wasn't my fault.

I am fortunate that there was enough money in my account to cover the debit or I would have gone overdrawn!!

My bank has refunded the money, but it's quite scary that anyone can just take money from your account without permission. Has this happened to anyone else?

Becles

It was probably something simple like a keying error when they were typing in the bank details for someone else. I used to work in a direct debit section and no typist is 100% perfect all of the time, so occasionally keying mistakes were made.

You've got your money back, and any charges incurred by the mistake would have been refunded too. I wouldn't worry about it to be honest.

backwards7

This happened to me today - £283 - practically all the money I have in the world - for car insurance. I don't even own a car.

Apparently I'll have the money back within a week. I guess I have to make do until then. I sent Halifax customer services a letter. I also wrote to the FSA.

Because I'm not financially well-off this has really hurt me. It shouldn't be this easy for a company to access your account and take your money.

dunstonh

It may not even be the Halifax's fault. The person that completed the d/d mandate may have written it wrong.

My bank has refunded the money, but it's quite scary that anyone can just take money from your account without permission. Has this happened to anyone else?

This is why the guarantee scheme exists. To cover the tiny minority of transactions that do go wrong. It seems to have worked just as it should in your case.

Swans1912

sweetbutternut wrote: »

My bank has refunded the money, but it's quite scary that anyone can just take money from your account without permission. Has this happened to anyone else?

Sweetbutternut, What bank are you with? Abbey who I am with told me I had to wait around a week for £750ish to get refunded back into my account!

NikkiP_2

backwards7 wrote: »

This happened to me today - £283 - practically all the money I have in the world - for car insurance. I don't even own a car.

Apparently I'll have the money back within a week. I guess I have to make do until then. I sent Halifax customer services a letter. I also wrote to the FSA.

Because I'm not financially well-off this has really hurt me. It shouldn't be this easy for a company to access your account and take your money.

You dont have to wait a week.
Demand it back from your bank first thing tomorrow.
tell them if it is not in your account by lunchtime you will complain to the ombudsman.

dunstonh

NikkiP wrote: »

You dont have to wait a week.
Demand it back from your bank first thing tomorrow.
tell them if it is not in your account by lunchtime you will complain to the ombudsman.

You cannot complain to the ombudsman like that. You have to have exhausted the internal complaints process first.

It is acceptable for the bank to pass the enquiry onto a central processing point that could add a couple of days to the process.

backwards7

This has apparently happened to one of my brother's clients (Halifax again!)

It's been two weeks since the money was removed from my account. Today I visited my bank to ask why I still hadn't been refunded. The counter staff are always very helpful, however it does seem that my problem is being dealt with in the bank's own time. I am at the mercy of someone in a Lloyds TSB service centre. They have to get in touch with someone at a Halifax service centre. What happens after that I don't know.

I understand that I might hear something on Wednesday. So another five days will pass without me being able to access a large percentage of the small pool of money that I live off.

I still haven't heard anything from Halifax, despite writing to them a week ago. At this point I have nothing but utter contempt for them as an organisation.

toeknee77

Just checking for advice on unauthorised direct debits & could not agree more with your comments. I found two transactions over the past couple of months for money taken by Egg Credit Card. I do not have a card with Egg CC but the only reason I spotted the transactions was they were called EC on my statement which I did not recognise. I was then appalled to the DD had been setup in my account when I had not signed or applied for a Egg CC!
If you call your bank, explain you do not recognise the DD & ask for a 'indemnity form' to be completed they will reimburse the money for you which I was told will take 3 days.
I agree it is appalling a DD can be setup so easily from ones account. After all the banks & building societies are very keen to make sure you always you keep PIN & account numbers safe.
When I asked how this error happened at Egg they would not tell me but passed the data to their fraud department I was told?

sophisticat

I am treasurer for a charity and have just opened a statement to find no less than 4 fraudulent direct debits, all for car insurance over three different companies. Barclays have given me the same nonsense about passing this to the fraud department and I expect the money to be refunded without problems. What angers me most is that we had a problem (which I believe to be a geninue error) where ebay attempted to take money last year, and I put a block on any direct debits being set up on our account, as I was told this was the only way we could prevent ebay from attempting to reset their payment information each month. So what's happened to my block? Someone at Barclays thinks they know better than their customers, obviously. I shall be phoning them again in the morning!