Halifax debt and their approach to people

churchrat

hi
I think that contacting banks etc to tell them that you are going to be facing a problem in the future can be a very BAD idea. I know that most on here will tell you to keep them informed, but in my experience that just gives them a "heads up" that here is another punter they can start to hassell.
I found very little difference in attitude from the companies we informed of our impending doom and the ones we did not. Some were helpful some were not. Telling them made no positive contriution to our circumstances.
Be interested to know what others feel about this.
churchrat

lxpeanut

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. They don't really help themselves do they making peoples lives miserable.

I've had mixed dealings with Halifax I have three debts with them a loan, an overdraft and a card. Each one has been treated differently. The loan was really straight forward accepted payments and stopped interest almost immediately. The credit card were good after a couple of months of arguing with them. Stopped charges and interest for 18months. They then started adding interest at a reduced rate but refused to pass it to their debt collectors until had been paying interest again for 6 months. With my overdraft they were terrible and didn't answer letters and wouldn't discuss it with me even when I went into the branch until I went over the limit then they added some charges and passed it to their in house DCA. I've found it so much easier dealing with debt collectors. One things for sure I'll never be a customer of theirs again.

It might be worth asking what their policy on reduced payments is. They told me that their policy for credit cards is to accept reduced/token payments for 12 months. Unless they've changed this in the last few months then they are just being gits and pushing you to pay. They did this to me for a while then eventually sorted it out.

lxpeanut

churchrat I also tried to talk to my creditors before I ran into trouble and found them totally unhelpful. They just ignored me but then again all my debts are with Helifax. It was only once my accounts were a few months in arrears did I start getting a response even with CCCS on board.

marko2002

They way I see it guys is it doesnt really matter what we do, if you owe money they will come after you, and if you can't afford to pay anything or at least a little then it's a life of constant phone calls and threatening letters but I'm going to be totally honest and say that it really doesn't worry me anymore. I'm not saying my responsibilities have gone, I'm saying I have tried, tried and tried some more to make these people listen to me and to let them know they WILL get their money if they give me breathing space. Because I have priority debts I cannot afford to mess with these and they will come first. I've also explained to them that in a few months these priority debts will be clear and I can then start making arrangements to pay theirs. All my requests for information regarding the freezing of interest and charges have basically been skirted around. I've now also looked into bankruptcy as to be honest my credit file is now in tatters anyway so the chances of me getting credit in the next 6 years is slim and it's not even as if I would want it anyway!. On doing a bit more research into this subject I've concluded that it can actually be worth asking the creditor to bankrupt you. This way the matter is taken out of everyone's hands and dealt with. It's not really something I'd like to do and not for any other reason than to have my name publicly displayed but if it meant the Halifax would then listen I think it would probably bring a great deal of relief to both me and my wife.

Hopefully it won't come to that but if they do start pestering me again I think I'll put it to them!

Deep_In_Debt

Hellifax have been vile with me. They finally sold my debt on in December but it took them nearly a year to do it. Guess they just wanted to try and grind me down as much as possible. But it didn't work as I wised up to them. I complained to the necessary bodies about them and Hellifax went quiet for about a month and kicked off again until I complained again and so it went on!

I had total harrassment from them - they once rang me 4 times within 30 mins on my mobile, 20 mins later rang me 3 times on my work phone! 7 times in less than an hour!

Deep_In_Debt

I stopped answering the phone to creditors after a while. I've got caller display and got to know all their numbers after a short while as they all rang me regularly enough. I'm on a dmp with CCCS and have been for a year so as far as I was concerned, there was no point in speaking to them as I was giving them all I could afford and they could see that so I let them ring me and leave robotic messages on my answerphone (which promptly got deleted!) as I guessed it was probably costing them more money with their constant harrassment than I acutally owed them!

My ex OH went BR 2 years ago and he tried to set up payment plans with all his creditors to avoid BR and by now he would be well into paying them back everything but instead he was forced into BR because of their behaviour so they lose out as they get virtually nothing from him now instead of the full amount they could have got.

shamac

This programme on radio 4 this week was about bank harassment and gave some sound advcie about how to fight back HTH
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/items/01/2009_06_wed.shtml

Fairycake_2

I've actually been in dispute with HBOS for 15 months now since they decided to change the rules and only allow 12 months interest free on credit card debt and declined to tell their account holders about the changes (even though they carried on accepting my payments for three months after the year anniversary!).

I have tried to be fair in not asking for money to be written off or go bankrupt but I wonder who was the stupid one? If I had taken out an IVA, they could do nothing as the agreement would have been set in stone and yet when you opt to pay back every penny you owe and just ask for help by them taking off the interest what do you get? Harrassment.

I have had threatening letters, phone calls, been asked to get a loan(!), asked if I can borrow money from relatives... :mad:

One minute they are telling me I'm in arrears, then next I'm not so they won't pas it over to their DCA... :mad:

I am told that they are no longer accepting my £33.50 payment, then I am told that there is an agreement in place to accept the payment until April this year... :mad:

My minimum monthly repayment is now at over £200 even though there is no interest being added (this was my one victory so far, I got the interest and charges refunded and the interest is still not being applied)... :mad:

They contradict themselves in correspondence when I have written to them asking for clarification. :mad:

You have to be completely dogmatic with them.

I am at the point where I think "well do your best because I have been fair with you". I keep telling myself they will never take this to court because (a) I am paying a fair amount each month, (b) I am still making payments to them despite everything and (c) the judge will take all that into account.

I have now got the Financial Ombudsman involved but unfortunately due to the amount of people asking them for help, it is a long drawn out process.

Thank God for this forum, without it I think I would have gone a bit mad! Even just knowing there are other people out there with the same battles is a comfort! :beer:

Locke

The amount of junk mail I get from them through the post is unbelievable, usually around 2 letters every week.:mad:

Is there anyway I can get them to stop without closing down my account? I've got a 5.9% life of the balance on their credit card so I don't want to move.

Miss_Marple_2

HBOS are extremely bad for harrassment, although I thought they were improving.

Halifax were successfully prosecuted for harrassment of an elderly couple, and from experience I can say BOS are v.v. bad.

They used to phone me many times a day - one day it was 13 times. I just ignored it, or kept my mobile off (fortunately they only had my mobile no). I made an official complaint, which I have to say was dealt with very quickly and have not heard from them since ( this is why I assumed things were improving, but judging by the above stories - obviously not !)