Halifax - Grrrrrrr

fuzzipeg

"I think you'll get a lot further by explaining that you wrote to close the account - but they didn't reply - and that you accidentally failed to cancel the DD and accept a bit of blame for that. And then seek to get them to refund some charges out of goodwill."

We did do this initially (though saying that we assumed the account had been closed), and they originally agreed to waive 2 charges. But these were never waived, and the account has snowballed in charges. I offered to pay the first charge and the outstanding £12 but this has been refused.

"Your assumption that the Halifax calls were sales - and failing to contact them instead - is honestly pathetic. Companies like Halifax don't go making repeated sales calls to a wrong number without good reason. If the MiL had simply provided them with the correct phone number, this would all have been resolved a long time ago."

I'm afraid I disagree with this - in the past we have received sales calls repeatedly from both the Halifax and Lloyds (when I was a customer there). As we assumed we no longer had an account with Halifax at the time, we had no interest in receiving calls from them. With hindsight, this has proved to be an error of judgement.

(It also should be noted that the 'phone number they were ringing should have been removed from the account four years earlier when Mr Fuzz left home...)

andyrules

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

I'm not sure of the timeline as you haven't made it clear. But it sounds like you got married, moved house, and failed to notify Halifax of the new address or telephone number - hence the statements going astray and the phone calls to the MiL's house.

It is scarcely Halifax's fault for failing to get in touch if you didn't provide them with the correct details. Presumably you started getting statements again once you had - effectively - notified them of the change of address by writing to them from your current address.

The initial transaction which caused all of this problem was a DD which you'd failed to cancel with the supplier involved. That wasn't Halifax's fault either - given that they apparently never received the "close my account" letter, and certainly never acknowledged it, there was nothing wrong with them paying the DD.

I think you'll get a lot further by explaining that you wrote to close the account - but they didn't reply - and that you accidentally failed to cancel the DD and accept a bit of blame for that. And then seek to get them to refund some charges out of goodwill.

Your assumption that the Halifax calls were sales - and failing to contact them instead - is honestly pathetic. Companies like Halifax don't go making repeated sales calls to a wrong number without good reason. If the MiL had simply provided them with the correct phone number, this would all have been resolved a long time ago.

I thought that at first, but then remembered when I left Barclays I was inundated at work and home with calls from them - they always missed me as at work I had to call back - they never left a name and each time I called no-one had a clue what they wanted. None of the messages on my home phone left a name, just call centre number. My branch were at a loss and did an update of details for security, still the calls came. The branch phoned on my behalf and they couldn't get to the person making the calls either! I never did find out the cause, they eventually stopped. The switched account was closed and I still have one account with them.

ps fuzzipeg - record and save all letters till this has finished.

fuzzipeg

andyrules wrote: »

ps fuzzipeg - record and save all letters till this has finished.

Aye! Anything from here on in gets the recorded treatment, and we've had responses from every other letter (except obviously the offending original!) so we know they got them.

The impression I get is that there are a number of departments dealing with this, hence the confusion (the guy in complaints, the internal debt people, and now the debt collection agency). It would explain why a couple of charges were waived and then not, and why the charges are still being applied since the account was in dispute (we're half expecting charges to continue to be applied even though it's with the debt collection agency).