Halifax Reward Accounts - Debit Card - What did you do with yours?

harriko

hey there. At the moment I have two reward accounts and they both come with debit cards. The problem is I know for sure that I will never use it and I they have to be activated. So there is a risk of someone gaining the details. Does anyone know if you can cancel the card and keep the reward account?

opinions4u

You could ask them to cancel it and not replace.

Alternatively, why not just shred the card?

cash-magnet

They have also sent me letters saying "our records show that you have not activated your card - you must do this in order to be able to use it".

Its not a threat from them. They are just saying that IF you want to use it, you must activate your card. I have no intention of using mine so have not activated any of my cards.

I don't use any of the cards that came with all the accounts I have to just get a high rate of interest (Abbey-5%, Abbey-6%, A&L-6.5%,A&L-6%,LLoyds-4%). They all get stored in a plastic bag and never get used.

masonic

I can't remember activating any of my cards (why would I?), but then I used one to buy some travel money to avoid paying a fee on another card. I've still got the original letters the cards were attached to and the letters containing my PINs, none of which mention activation.

opinions4u

masonic wrote: »

I can't remember activating any of my cards (why would I?), but then I used one to buy some travel money to avoid paying a fee on another card. I've still got the original letters the cards were attached to and the letters containing my PINs, none of which mention activation.

Card activation is usually based on the risk of somebody intercepting your mail. In other words, if they think there's a bent postman between dispatch and your post code then you'll be asked to activate!

It's a little bit more complex than that ... but all part of a risk assessment exercise.

harriko

opinions4u wrote: »

You could ask them to cancel it and not replace.

Alternatively, why not just shred the card?

Shredding the card is good but criminals are getting smart these days. They could make a copy of the card by obtaining your details.

I have not called them up to cancel yet as they may ask these is no reason to have the account and cancel the whole thing.

McKneff

theres an ideal opportunity to get two lots of rewards, get your £1k into the account you are not going to use, transfer it into the other after a few days. Hence you are using both cards but getting 2 lots of £5 per month.

scaty

Hi
On thisHalifax reward account, I notice Bank of Scotland offer a similar deal. pay in 1 grand per month and you get £5. So oscillate 1 Grand monthly between BOS and Halifax and you get 12% pa interest? Yes, no? help me it's too good to be true.

Jeff the boy

opinions4u

scaty wrote: »

On thisHalifax reward account, I notice Bank of Scotland offer a similar deal. pay in 1 grand per month and you get £5. So oscillate 1 Grand monthly between BOS and Halifax and you get 12% pa interest? Yes, no? help me it's too good to be true.

You can have up to 3 accounts (subject to credit scoring) e.g. 2 with BOS and 1 with Halifax.

masonic

scaty wrote: »

Hi
On thisHalifax reward account, I notice Bank of Scotland offer a similar deal. pay in 1 grand per month and you get £5. So oscillate 1 Grand monthly between BOS and Halifax and you get 12% pa interest? Yes, no? help me it's too good to be true.

Jeff the boy

You can have up to 3 reward accounts and there's no need to keep the £1000 in any of them, so you can keep it in a savings account and cycle it through the reward accounts once a month to get even more interest.

Milarky

To activate a Halifax Reward debit card you must deposit £100 and leave this at least one day (i.e. 'overnight') before withdrawing - that's all

[Actually that's what you would do to have the card issued - not 'activation'. If you didn't want a card issued, therefore, you would simply make sure you never had an overnight balance greater than £100. My previous Halifax current account was opened for about 18 months in this way before I had any card issued as I recall]