Should i have been notified

Mrsmoneypenny

February 19 2009 my husband bought something from Amazon.

When paying for it he asked me should he use his visa card. I said yes.

He then went and used the wrong visa. Instead of visa credit he went for his own visa debit card (Halifax).

Two days later (21.2) when i checked our account online (something i have normally done religiously every SINGLE day for years - but sods law didnt that day) I saw that he had used the Halifax card and had gone overdrawn £4.17.

I immediately transferred £5.00 just to cover it.

23 Feb transferred another £50 into the account.

On 6 March 2009 Halifax applied an Unarranged borrowing fee of £35.00

6 March I wrote to Halifax to ask for a refund of the fee and to point out to them that they had not written or used my preferred method of contact (email) to notify me.

Yesterday I had a letter to say they were investigating the matter, still no letter to inform me of the charges.

This morning I checked that account and they have taken another £28 out of the account as a fee. At the moment it does not say what type of fee this is.

This has now taken the account overdrawn (again) by £20.17.

This has also been done without previous notification by any method.

I have transferred £20.17 into the account.

I shall be contacting them today by fax.

I now feel that they will charge another £35 for the account being overdrawn yet again.

This account has been open for eight years and this is the only time this has happened. We have four Halifax accounts, none have ever been in the red, two have money put into them on a regular basis and two are just left ticking over.

I feel as if this is a vicious circle, I have heard of this before when the only thing keeping people in the red are the charges that a bank applies.

Does anyone know what the £28 would be for, whether i will now be charged another £35 unarranged borrowing fee?

natweststaffmember

Asked and answered on CAG. I think the £28 you perhaps should have been but not the £35

Mrsmoneypenny

I know there are probably a lot of names we, as customers, give to what banks do when they charge an overdraft fee when it was the bank own fee that made you overdrawn.

But does anyone know what the banks name for it is. I suppose easy pickings, sweeties from a baby. But do they have a real name for it, I can then put it in my next letter/fax to them.

Cheers.

esmerellda

Unarranged overdraft fee (See note 3)
A fee we charge for every month in which you at any time have an unarranged overdraft.
£28 (up to once a month)


You get charged it once a month where you have gone into unauthorised overdraft. So first month for going over by the £2 odd, second time for the charge putting you back in unauthorised overdraft.

salieri75

Mrs Moneypenny, I'm very interested to hear about your case. I have a Halifax account on which I've been charged over £200 in fees over the last couple months. During this time I have not received my May and June statements nor any of the 6+ notification letters that I should have been sent. As a result I failed to pick up on the fact that the account was slipping into unauthorised overdraft.

The Halifax checked the have the right address on their system and just told me to take this up with the Royal Mail (which I know from past experience will be utterly pointless). However I am deeply suspicious that I have not received one single piece of correspondence from the Halifax during this time but have not noticed probems with letters or parcels from anyone else.

Granted I should have chased up the missing statements or checked my balance more closely then the problem would not have spiralled with charge after charge but I generally keep a good cushion in the account so don't worry that there won't be omney there. Of course this £200 cushion has been taken out in fees.

I am actually quite worried that the "letter" is being sent as an email although I am not set up for online banking/email notifications/paperless statements etc.

If anyone else has had a similar experience with bank correspondence (esp from Halifax) not being delivered I would be very interested to know.

Thanks

esmerellda

salieri75 wrote: »

Mrs Moneypenny, I'm very interested to hear about your case. I have a Halifax account on which I've been charged over £200 in fees over the last couple months. During this time I have not received my May and June statements nor any of the 6+ notification letters that I should have been sent. As a result I failed to pick up on the fact that the account was slipping into unauthorised overdraft.

The Halifax checked the have the right address on their system and just told me to take this up with the Royal Mail (which I know from past experience will be utterly pointless). However I am deeply suspicious that I have not received one single piece of correspondence from the Halifax during this time but have not noticed probems with letters or parcels from anyone else.

Granted I should have chased up the missing statements or checked my balance more closely then the problem would not have spiralled with charge after charge but I generally keep a good cushion in the account so don't worry that there won't be omney there. Of course this £200 cushion has been taken out in fees.

I am actually quite worried that the "letter" is being sent as an email although I am not set up for online banking/email notifications/paperless statements etc.

If anyone else has had a similar experience with bank correspondence (esp from Halifax) not being delivered I would be very interested to know.

Thanks

have you asked halifax if they have been emailing you instead?

salieri75

I've only spoken to one customer service advisor so far who just confirmed that the address was correct. The thought about emails came to me later. I've written a letter setting all this out as I'd rather keep a written records than a phone call that may or may not have been recorded for training purposes! Will report back....