Has your overdraft been cancelled?

fellini

As always, what we comment on in the forum is the tip of the iceberg as to the depth of what is really going on. Some banks are worse than others, but HSBC is right there with the worst of them....but they say what comes round goes round.

HSBC The local bank because its good to know whats going on whereever you are. (paraphrase)

Does the local marketing hype apply to HOUSEHOLD FINANCE then in North America when they couldnt wait to jump in on the sub-mortgage greed trip and suffered billions of pounds of losses. Its no coincidence that loyal customers have been a the butt end of HSBC desperately trying to claw losses back, and even more coincidental that the grab back began when theNorth American losses were revealed, which they originally denied were as huge as subsequently found out to be.

15 year relationship with said bank. overdraft renewed then withdrawn, then renewed and withdrawn again. Why do you think they have taken all autonomy away from local branches. Hmm! good to be local isnt it.
upto 20 calls per day from around the world from India to south east asia to dallas, texas. No doubt this is harrassment of the worst kind from the bank i wouldnt trust any of my money with ever again. it remains to be seen how the new customer protection scheme visa via the banking system works out when it comes into play end of year.

I firmly believe we should have let the banks go to the wall, and start again, maybe with some better standards of professionalism and customer care. They say the real acid test of customer care is what a company do when things go wrong. Well now we know what type of co. we are dealing with.

Cumbrian_Male

It is not the first time this has happened, prior to HSBC taking over Midland bank, the Midland got their fingers badly burned in the US mortgage market back in the early '80s.

LAURAJANE_3

I have banked with the Halifax for about 6 years, and for the last two years had an overdraft facility of £3,000. I was overdrawn by about £2,800, but then managed to get myself back into the black. Being a responsible person, I requested the Halifax to reduce my overdraft facility, to say £1000. They informed me that my request had been denied. I thought this must be a mistake, as I had requested a reduction! Then to my amazement, I found that they had taken away my overdraft facility completely, and were going to charge me because I had slipped into the red by £11.

I phoned the Halifax and they couldn't give me any proper answer, they just said overdrafts are reviewed every year, and they had decided to take mine away. They did not inform me they were going to do this. When I asked them what they would have done had I still been in the red, they couldn't answer! I have written to complain, and had a standard letter back which did not address any of my queries. So I wrote back to ask specifically why they did not inform me they were going to remove my overdraft completely, and what they would have done had I still been overdrawn. I currently await their reply.

claireylvsad

• Current account provider: Halifax
• Overdraft limit before change: £800
• Overdraft balance at time: had just been paid so was not in overdraft
• New overdraft limit after change: £200
• Whether this happened at an official overdraft review: yes
• Any charges: no
• Whether you were notified: NO!!

I've had the worst weekend ever...checked my bank fri night to notice that halifax had reduced my overdraft by £600 with no prior warning and taking money I desperately needed. I called them as soon as I saw and they could not help so went into the branch yesterday morning where they could not help me either. They did check my account and said it was fine and I have had no charges for over a year. I was told to call customer services again and all they said was that I should have had a letter (which I didn't!!!) and that they were going to send me one out. It is a lot of money as I have just started a new job and had to wait 6 weeks to be paid (moving from weekly to monthly pay) and as soon as I got paid they took most of my wages away! The customer service is awful and now i'm stuck for another month with no money :-(

I am really not sure on the best way to complain I feel like I'm going to not get very far as i've never had a problem with my bank before.

Cumbrian_Male

You stated you were in credit yet they are "taking money I desperately needed" and "they took most of my wages away!"

Your balance still remains the same, they have only reduced the amount of their money you can spend. If you are constantly overdrawn then you need to budget better and if necessary go over to the debt free wannabe board and post a statement of affairs where you will get the help you need to live within your means and repay any debts you may have.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, my son is the same he sees it as his money and not a debt. Well it is a debt just like a loan but unlike a loan it is repayable on demand.

kibblerok

MABLE wrote: »

I have banked with Lloyds for over 27 years and in all my time with them and provided you play fair they will give you anything within reason. As I advised on an earlier post I have an overdraft facility with them for £10,000. They wrote to me stating as they wanted to reduce the facility because I was not making use of it. However the letter went on to say if I wanted to keep the existing limit they would not change it.

There has to be a very good reason in your case that Lloyds withdraw the facility and I am certain it is nothing to do with the credit crunch. Also with my credit cards not one company has said they are reducing my limits and yet we are always reading on hear that some posters are experiencing limits being reduced.

My advise is always keep within the terms and conditions and whatever bank you are with they will treat you right.

I had a letter from Lloyds also.

Rarely used overdraft reduced from £2000 to £1700 always kept within the terms and in credit - a couple of days this year had the account been overdrawn. They wouldn't budge and only when I cancelled my account would they offer to put it back.

I cancelled the account anyway - im not going to have a bank dictate to me what they will offer.. I will simply take my business to a bank that keeps quiet and does what is asked of them.

Not surprised to see crooks Halifax and HSBC amongst the most numerous and and aggressive in this thread.

cheesedoffwithdebt

This happened to me a few years ago with the Co-op Bank- I had a £500 od facility and used the account for my regular bills ( gas, elec etc) paying in 1/12th of my outgoings each month, sometimes in credit and sometimes in the red.
They withdrew the facility without telling me, then started chucking charges onto the account when I hadn't even realised there was no overdraft. I kept trying to pay it off and every month they kept adding more charges- in the end I went to the Ombudsman and within a week they had repaid all their charges to my account which then was in the black. They were obstructive, and not clear in any of their messages to me, most of which were conducted online as the account was with smile their internet banking service.
I'd never misused the account- but I don't trust any of the banks to be honest, as people say they will throw overdraft facilities at us,and whether intended for short term or not sometimes it's not possible to repay the facility as quickly as you might like to - the FSA have just produced a paper called Treating Customers Fairly-I wonder what the banks will do to prove they are co-operating with this?

SOPHIEK_3

Wanted to share my story re the sudden withdrawal of our overdraft.

• Current account provider - Abbey
• Overdraft limit before change - £500.00
• Overdraft balance at time - in credit
• New overdraft limit after change - £0.00
• Whether this happened at an official overdraft review - no
• Any charges - none so far
• Whether you were notified - initially, yes

My husband and I received a letter from Abbey at the end of February saying that our joint account overdraft was going to be removed at the beginning of April. We'd had our account and £500 overdraft for 18 months with no problems. We made an appointment to go and speak to someone in Abbey about it. We asked the lady we saw why our overdraft was being removed but she told us she didn't know and that Abbey never gave a reason for doing this. Not very useful! She wrote a letter which she faxed whilst we were there, appealing against the decision and said we'd receive a letter ourselves about it.


I checked my account online 2 weeks ago and saw that our overdraft had been removed. We'd received no letter following the appeal so this was unexpected. We made another appointment at the bank and got to see the same lady we'd seen before. She checked and said that Abbey hadn't commented on our appeal and that once they'd removed our overdraft there was nothing else they could do. We couldn't appeal again and we were told that if we opened another account with them and transferred all our direct debits over they could see if we could apply for another overdraft! She said getting this back was very unlikely though. They still gave us no reason at all for withdrawing our overdraft facility.


She also saw a message on our account to say that when our switch/visa debit cards expired in September we were not allowed to be issued with any more and would only be given cash point cards instead! I was absolutely incensed! FURIOUS in fact!


The bank clerk did say that all of this might be to do with our credit rating. So, I went home and signed up with Experian to check our rating. Everything on there was absolutely fine. No missed/late payments on anything. I even rang up their helpline to double check but she assured me our credit rating was fine.


We've exhausted all possibilities and Abbey will STILL not give us any reason for these sudden changes to our account and cards.

CharlieT79

Lloyds have changed my overdraft from £1350 to £350 they gave me a months notice luckily I hardly ever use it so it wasn't a problem.

charcaul

Current account provider: Lloyds TSB
Overdraft limit before change: £2150
Overdraft balance at time: -£1800
New overdraft limit after change: £200
Whether this happened at an official overdraft review: Not sure!
Any charges: Not yet but my mortgage was returned unpaid and a couple of other DD's

Sounds awful but it is good to hear other people are in the same boat. I received a letter from Lloyds advising that my overdraft would be removed on 19th April. i spoke to them to reinstate but they refused explaining that my only option was a loan! Not wanting to get further in debt i declined at that point to look at my other options. Seeing that i didnt have any, i called them back to arrange a loan to pay my direct debts which they refused blankly because they cannot issue a loan to pay bills (they were ramming one down my throut the week before). So long story short i am waiting for a loan from Halifax to pay my mortgage which will take a year and an extra £167 to pay off.

Thought i was doing the right thing paying off my credit cards before my overdraft......