08708503492 number

annievtaylor

I have a basic account with the Halifax and today the calls came in three times...i do not answer my phone to people I haven't given my number to. Why would they be calling me...I don't owe them anything and have no overdraft etc???

bathgatebuyer

At my worst I had about 15 calls from this number a day (Halifax current account, Halifax credit card and a Sainsburys Credit Card when I was out of work). Each time I would answer, "Hello..............hello.................hello................" and then it would ring off. Eventually a mate answered my phone and told them to f*** right off. His slendidly diplomatic means of disuading HBOS from calling again seemed to work a treat!!!

Apparently it is programmed to keep ringing and ringing until notes from a call are recorded on their system.

bathgatebuyer

And, you're not the only ones:

"A single parent who planned to sue a major high street bank claiming they harassed her about an overdraft has settled out of court, it was confirmed today. Alison Turner was seeking an injunction against Halifax plc and wanted damages for what she claimed was stress and anxiety caused by them repeatedly contacting her.
The mother-of-two forced the bank to agree to clear £775 off an overdraft bill in January after complaining the charges were unlawful. These were subsequently removed on March 13.
Ms Turner's solicitor, Nash and Co, said on January 23 that the bank had agreed to stop contacting their client, and the solicitor sent a letter saying all correspondence should go through their offices.
But the bank allegedly tried to contact Ms Turner 33 times, by phone and letter, between January 27 and March 13.
Ms Turner said she felt bullied by the calls saying they were "unprofessional and disrespectful". Nash and Co said they were in breach of what Halifax agreed and constituted harassment under the law.
A legal action was launched seeking an injunction, damages and costs. "The constant calling reduced me to tears at times," Ms Turner said, after launching the court action in April.
The case had been due to be heard before a circuit judge in the Exeter county court on Monday.
The details of the settlement have not been released and both Ms Turner and her solicitor have said they cannot comment on the terms.
A Halifax spokesman said: "We did settle before it went to court but in terms of the details, that's between ourselves and Ms Turner."
33 times? Is that all?! :rolleyes: Quaduruple that and then you're up at the numbers of time they used to contact me in a 4 week period.

And more:

"A lung cancer patient has gone to court to stop his bank contacting him about repayment of a loan after he was called 762 times in ten months.
David Lloyd, 61, and his partner, Annette Edwards, 57, owe the Halifax about £5,000. Because of Mr Lloyd’s illness, which is now in remission, they ran up an overdraft and got into arrears with their repayments.
The couple, from Manchester, claim that they were called 184 times in August last year and 169 times in September – an average of more than five calls a day.
When they changed their number the bank turned its attention to Ms Edwards’s daughter. She received between 60 and 100 calls on her mobile phone in four months.
function pictureGalleryPopup(pubUrl,articleId) !! var newWin = window.open(pubUrl+'template/2.0-0/element/pictureGalleryPopup.jsp?id='+articleId+'&&offset=0&&sectionName=UK','mywindow','menubar=0,resizable=0,width=615,height=655'); } Mr Lloyd said that pressure from the bank had harmed his recovery, made him less capable of working, gave him a phobia of telephones and left him with a stammer.
The couple started logging the calls from the Halifax after The Times reported how Alison Turner, a single mother from Plymouth, went to court to stop the Halifax from “bullying” her over debts last year. The case was settled out of court.
Mr Lloyd contacted Miss Turner’s Plymouth-based solicitor Neil Mercer, who is bringing an action under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. He said: “We never denied we owed the bank money but they called us four or five times a day, day after day.”
Mr Mercer, of Curtis Solicitors, is also pursuing a civil claim for damages for personal injury. The bank is understood to argue that it did not harass the couple.
Mr Mercer said: “The actions of the bank have driven my clients to the depths of despair. They have been damaged psychologically by [the Halifax’s] course of conduct.
“If this harassment case forces the Halifax to stop contacting my clients and makes the bank behave more sympathetically with customers at difficult points in their lives, then my clients will have achieved their objectives.”
The bank has given an undertaking at Exeter County Court that it will contact the couple only via Mr Mercer.
The couple are also in dispute over insurance policies against sickness or job loss taken out with the loan.
Mr Mercer said: “The amount the bank was pursuing was never clear because my client had insurances with the Halifax. He believes he would never have fallen into arrears if these had been activated in time.
“After I was instructed in June the bank contacted my clients a further three times. The bank has now given an undertaking to the court that they will not contact them again.
“Mr Lloyd is presently in remission and had recovered sufficiently to go back to work part-time but has developed a stammer and a problem with telephones.”
A spokesman for Halifax said: “These are purely allegations brought by the customers and no court ruling has actually been made against us. It is also important to stress that we have stopped all contact with the customers except through their solicitors until the matter is resolved.”
The phobia of phones sound incredibly familiar - I can feel my heart race every time my house phone rings.

Lennon

I spent a bit of time working phone collections department (now in the fin diffs department!). (not halifax)

As others have said it runs off an automated dialler which calls you up then connects you to someone who is available to take the call. If you want to speak to someone you will have to wait at least a couple of seconds, if you keep hanging on and it doesn't automatically disconnect, someone will answer eventually. I don't know the legality/laws of this but from time spent running the dialler as far as we were concerned were were legally allowed to ring a persons phone 5 (i think! just had a memory lapse) times per day for each account they held with us., between the hours of 8am to 9pm. If they answered we wouldn't ring back again.

Another thing is we have hundreds and hundreds of accounts where people are on a dmp with the CCCS but no paperwork has been received, the CCCS have the wrong account number and it's not come through or something is missing. (probably thousands for payplan !) It obviously depends on you and who the creditor is but it may be worth speaking to see why they are calling... most of the people who work in collections departments are complete nupties and a glass of water has a high IQ but you might find out if it's been declined or if it's just not been received. I know we would just put a hold on the account for 4-6 weeks if someone was with the cccs but no speak and would just keep getting calls.

squirrel_pigeon

hutch488 wrote: »

I was getting up to ten phone calls a day asking for somebody I didn't know. I kept telling them it was the wrong number but the calls kept coming. I then asked to speak to the supervisor, Lewis. This is a company called Albion based in Leicester. He told me that they are a debt collecting agency on behalf of other banks. They have to send off a form via a spreadsheet to remove the details from their auto dialler within 24 hrs. When they call, just ask for a supervisor!!!!

Albion Collections are HBOS's 'internal' collections agency so if you owe money to Halifax or Bank of Scotland it will be to do with that.

adzcoolest

Hi, I have just started to get hang-up phone calls from Halifax myself!! :mad:

I have just started to ignore them now. Hang up on them before they hang up on me!!

SortingIt_2

Hi there,

I have had exactley the same problem with Halifax - constant calls one after the other between the number and withheld numbers for more than a week. I couldn't answer as I was either at work, on a train etc. Anyhow in one hour I had over 15 missed calls. So, being brave I finally answered a call which was late in the evening and spoke to a woman (very very rude!) she asked if I could make the payment I said no as have no money and in a DMP with payplan she then got shirty and said that she wanted another financial statement - I have only been on a dmp since November!! I said I would ask payplan and then requested that all calls be made after 7pm as I am at work or commute etc and she hung up!! The cow!! Anyhow immediately after that I had another call re halifax loan from a guy, same conversation however he was not at all rude to me.....then again literally hung up and then another call from another guy re halfiax loan (2) who actually apologised and said that he didn't realise I was on a payment plan and apologised for calling!! Since answering those calls I have never received another call from them again ......yet!

All calls were from their halifax collections team - if you do answer just stick to your guns and there is nothing they can do. However they are very rude sometimes and also they don't stop calling. They kept it up for over a week with me before I answered and sometimes rung one after the after the other so the phone was continuously ringing....nasty.

bathgatebuyer

SortingIt, I can't stress how much this number was the bain of my life when I was out of work. I ended up having to switch my mobile and my house phone off when they were calling all the time. I was looking after a terminally ill relative and could not have their peace and sleep disturbed by the phone constantly going. Eventually, when my father died, I reconnected the phone to call the GP and ask him to come to certify the death, and as soon as I put the phone down, it rang and it was the Hellifax. "I'm sorry can you call back another time, my father has literally just died and I'm arranging for the GP to come over.....".

"Can you make a payment today?"

Ironically, I once sent them a cheque to cover a payment and they returned it to me saying that they didn't know what it was for - I'd attached it to a letter and written the account number on the back. When they sent me a letter indicating that they would serve a default notice against me because I'd not made a payment, I went ballistic at them down the phone. I'd sent in a cheque, and they'd returned it! They accused me of lying about the cheque even thought I gave them a reference number for the correspondence. Even when I successfully reclaimed just under £4K in back charges from them, they accused me of lying by refusing to blieve that I had correspondence from their Customer Services people agreeing to refund the money. The day before it went into my current account, some cheeky little **** phoned me up to ask for me to make good my overdraft. When I told him that £3,800 was being credited to my account by the Hellifax before the week was through, he accused me of lying. I have never been so angry in my entire life.

Truth is, as much as the Halifax are poor communicators with their customers, their communication between departments is even worse. However, that does not excuse their Collections people being rude. I have had silent calls left on my answer phone when I can hear conversation their agents are having with people in the background and the way they speak to people is disgraceful. In debt or not, you are still a customer. Personally, once I've finished with a PPI dispute I have with them, I will never EVER have any dealing with that shower of muppets again. Luckily, I've managed to convince two members of my family to move their mortgages from them too, so treating one customer badly has cost them half a million in mortgages.

moogyboobles

:mad: this number is getting right on my peripherals. So unbelievably rude. Despite having a joint account they have a few times hung up on me midsentence when asking for my husband (when I am the account holder too). They don't listen to a word you say, it's as if you are talking another language. I sent them a letter from CCCS, which is a very temporary deal as the £70 I owe them will be paid in full next month and they know that.
Still they continue to ring and be rude. Now I just play this back whenever they call http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU got to get some amusement out of this!

I tell you what else annoys me...they lie! I ask if they are 08708503492 and they deny it everytime. 1471 never lies!

Easy_as_ABC

This is the Halifax and Bank of Scotland Debt collection agency. If you do not have any debts or even accounts with them like me, then call: Telephone Customer Relations on 08457 25 35 19 at Halifax and they can get your number removed. However if you do owe them money then the only way to stop the calls is to pay them back.