Halifax Won't Negotiate

MisterWriter

Hi all, thanks for reading this.

I have a Halifax CC account. When my circumstances changed over a year ago I reached payment plans with all of my creditors bar the Halifax. They keep replying with a stock letter telling me that I need to supply my financial data via a third party debt management agency. That seemed a little extreme so I tried and failed to negotiate on my own.

I eventually supplied my data using a form downloaded from the CAB web site but they have even rejected this. I think they want me to jump though hoops and go to a counseling service even though the data I've been sending is perfectly adequate and accurate.

Has anyone else had this experience and is there anything I can do? I get the impression they're being deliberately obstructive just so that they can keep applying penalty charges to the account. I've been paying them what I can afford in the meantime.

Many thanks.

dayisgreen

Hi there,

I had a similar problem with the halifax too, I have two CC's with them and I was really struggling to make any small payment due to my being off work for almost a year and when I called to notify them of this, all they kept asking was if I could make a smaller payment (but the charges and interest would still apply). I called to make a final settlement with them after they had added almost £300 of charges and interest to both cards and asked that they refunded atleast a couple of charges due to my clearing the entire balance and they said they would not do this because I never notified them in the first place of my circumstances. I went on to explain that I had notified them of them and they stated that if I had then they would have offered me an affordable payment plan, which was never offered to me.

Anyway, as a result of this, I am now in the process of claiming all my charges back (to which they have said no) so I will be taking the matter further. I have now moved to another bank and closed any accounts I had with halifax. I will also be complaining about the £20 in phone calls I had to make due to their incompetence of updating my details correctly.

I know this probably doesn't help you in your situation but sometimes it can be good to know that other people are in the same boat. But I would agree they are simply trying to add more charges to your CC.

Diggingoutofdebt_2

Have halifax card. £8000 on it. offered them £6500 to clear but they are not at all interested in coming to some sort of a reduced negotiation.

jonesMUFCforever

If you spent £8000 why should they accept £6500?
People who spend £8k and repay what is owed are having to subsidise people like you by having to pay higher interest rates.

Tribulation

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

If you spent £8000 why should they accept £6500?
People who spend £8k and repay what is owed are having to subsidise people like you by having to pay higher interest rates.

The point is, if they cant afford to pay it for whatever reason and end up on some sort of debt management plan, the Halifax will sell it to a debt agency for a LOT less than the £6500 being offered.

The debt collecting agency could insist they keep paying it for the next 30 years until every penny is paid back but in reality that just makes the debt collecting agency a huge profit. The borrower would have paid it all back, the debt collecting agency would have made a huge profit and the Halifax would still have made a huge loss.

Usually the type of credit card borrower described on this forum as the sensible type (pays entire balance off every month) actually makes the bank zero money (and probably ends up causing the banks to loose a little? that's without considering the stoozers). The type of borrower that owes 75% + of their limit, makes minimum repayments every month then after say 3 years find themselves in financial difficulty, such a person offering to make a one off payment of say £6500 on a £8000 debt has probably already made the bank much more than they would be loosing?

I agree people need to be responsible for their debts and repay back what they owe, but only to a point. I became very ill 10 years ago and had to leave a well paid job and had a very expensive mortgage etc. Long story short, I ended up in serious debt and the CAB put me on a debt management plan. When circumstances changed to the point of my wife being able to earn enough to start paying off the debts, we re-mortgaged and paid them all off. But as every one of them had been passed over to a debt collecting agency (some of which were extremely rude and intrusive), I had zero qualms about negotiating the lowest final settlement offers they would accept.

Bottom line is, I could still be paying them back interest free. Instead we did the right thing, got a loan that we're paying interest on to clear the debts (increasing our monthly payments form around £15 to over £200). If the companies had not sold their debts on, but instead suspended interest (which all the debt collectors did) and accept a token payment each month until things improved, I would have been more than happy to re-start my normal payments with interest, making them a nice profit in the process. It was them that decided their easiest way was to sell the debt on, not mine.

michaelvintner

You borrow it, you pay it back, what is so hard to understand about that.

Tribulation

michaelvintner wrote: »

You borrow it, you pay it back, what is so hard to understand about that.

Absolutely nothing.

But as I've explained, it's not as simple as that.

I borrow £10 off of you

Due to unforeseen circumstances I'm a bit hard up for a few weeks, ask you if you mind waiting, I tell you I have £4 I can give you at present, but due to my circumstances I've got no more money.

You say your not interested in the £4, I borrowed £10 and you want £10.

You then offer someone else to give you £2 then they can have my £10 debt.

Your a kind sane person, the other persons a ruthless thug who I wouldn't ever have borrowed money off of at any time of my life no matter how desperate I was.

A few weeks later I have the full £10 to repay you but your not interested any more, you sold it for £2. I have spent the last few weeks living in fear, being phoned up at all times, threats being made etc etc by this thug. Now I'm in a position to negotiate, I'm going to offer him £6 if he goes away and leaves me alone. After the way he's treated me over the last few weeks (and the fact I would never have borrowed off him in the first place) I don't think he deserves the full £10.

He's happy, he's made £4 profit.

I'm happy I've got him off my back.

It all could have been resolved in a much more sensible manner if you had been more accommodating in the first place to my unforeseen circumstances.

Do you see my point?

never-in-doubt

Diggingoutofdebt wrote: »

Have halifax card. £8000 on it. offered them £6500 to clear but they are not at all interested in coming to some sort of a reduced negotiation.

Then write in and offer £10 per week for the lifetime..... see how they like that one! If they refuse then tell em you'll look into unenforcebaility and its likely you'd win as Hfx were beggars for issuing dodgy CCA's pre 2007 (and they know it as well)....

never-in-doubt

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

If you spent £8000 why should they accept £6500?
People who spend £8k and repay what is owed are having to subsidise people like you by having to pay higher interest rates.

Nah, not true and unfounded statement.

We do not subsidise non payers at all, you know why? Cos when we apply we know the rate (in most cases) and if we don't like it then we decline and move on. Therefore the rate has absolutely nothing to do with adverse debtors.

If I offer 5% and you take it, then I have loads of bad payers and try to increase your rate to say 10% then you know what to do if you don;t like it - move to another card issuer!

Sorry, but that is the hard facts of the matter. The reason the APR's are so high at the moment is based on a whole lot more than a few million non payers (look at their own internal salaries for a start! Sir Flop anyone?)

anotherpaul_2

Diggingoutofdebt wrote: »

Have halifax card. £8000 on it. offered them £6500 to clear but they are not at all interested in coming to some sort of a reduced negotiation.

You don't say if you are in arrears? If you're not in arrears, they're not interested in settlement figures. If you appear to be able to pay, why would they take less than the full amount?

If you can afford the repayments, making them is probably better than not making them for a while in the hope that they will settle for less. Especially if you already have £6500 of the £8000 you owe them. Unless you plan not to need any more credit for a while.

Pay the £6500 off the card so the interest is less, making it easier to pay off the rest.

udydudy

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

If you spent £8000 why should they accept £6500?
People who spend £8k and repay what is owed are having to subsidise people like you by having to pay higher interest rates.

Though non payers (defaulters) or reduced payers(on payment plan) mean a loss in the year they default or have their interest & charges frozen. These and the other customers who revolve their balance(carry over every month) are the ones that make the bank all the money. if you look at it even in todays circumstances the defaulters have not really reached a very high percentage of all debt owed on cards.

The people costing the banks money(to an extent) are the ones that are always tarting.

Even then the banks really do not lose they just make lesser money. The table below is an example of the two types of people owing £5000 on creditcards for the past two years. and lets say debtor A defaults or goes on payment plan and debtor B tarts(every 9 months).

Debtor A
Initial Amount borrowed 5000
Interest Paid 1690
Charges Paid 0
Repayments of principal 1% p.m 1200
Due to Bank after 2 yrs 3800

Debtor B
Initial Amount borrowed 5000
Interest Paid 0
Charges Paid 375
Repayments of principal 1% p.m 0
Due to Bank after 2 yrs 5000

Assumptions made: Owed £5000 for 2 years on Card; standard rate is 16.9%(is much higher on most cards today); 1% minimum payments; Debtor B is able to tart the full amount every 9 months in effect not making any repayments as such. taken 2.5% as BT fees(much lesser, about 1.5%, if the promo is on purchases)

At the end of 2 years the Debtor A owes the bank only £3800 in principal and has made the bank a nice sum of money while as debtor B has made only £375 for the bank and still owes the whole amount.

who do you think is making the bank any money. even if 20% of debtor A types default the bank would have still made tons of money in previous years and would only lose moeny in the quarter they write it off. Infact if they sell it to a debt recovery agency(which they would) then they would recover some of the amount lost reducing their losses.

Sorry "jonesMUFCforever" its guys like us who make the bank lose money. So lets not cry wolf or keep blaming the other guys. I am sure many of the guys who are looking at defaulting unfortunately have lost their jobs which does seriously undermine their ability to pay even if they had the intention to. There may be some who deserve to be in such a situation, but I am sure not all of them.