halifax - a bit of a mess

mr218

thought i would share my experience with you guys. It is a bit of a rambling tale so bear with me. if not just go to the last para and i have summed it up.

Yesterday, i was reviewing my credit cards and realised to my horror that my amazon card 0% balance transfer was ending yesterday.

Since i went into a 0% BT with the sworn intention of not paying them a penny, i panicked and realised that if used my online nationwide current account to pay it, it would take a minimum of 2 days and i would be charged interest on these two days. this was anathema to me. so i called up halifax credit card services using the saynoto0870 website using free minutes on my mobile and explained the situation to them.

I asked them for the best way to pay them quickly so that i was not charged any interest. The lady advised me to pay my balance in cash by 4 pm over the counter at a halifax branch.

So i went in the afternoon to my nationwide branch, took the money out in cash and went over to a halifax branch 5 mins away. As usual a big queue was there. Anyway, when i reached the counter, the cashier tried all methods known to her to pay the amount, but it would not recognise my credit card. She said i shoudl call up halifax to find out what the matter was. so i called them from my mobile and the lady at hte other end said that it should work and i basically managed to cut back in the queue to get the cashier to talk to the halifax call centre lady. they spoke , she tried again did not work.

then the halifax call centre lady said it does not work. so you need to pay in a different way. i kept asking her why i was given this advice but sometimes you feel like you are banging your head against a wall as the people keep repeating what they say no matter what you say. i was looking quite nonplussed and i think a bank employee with a cabin asked me if he could help me.

i recounted my situation and all the conflicting advice i got. He explained that halifax bank and halifax credit card are different companies and not all the halifax credit cards are recognised by halifax banks as one of their own. apart from amazon, there are a couple more superstore cards which are not recognised. Well thanks for telling me. This information would have be useful if hte halifax call centre people knew it.

Anyway, i was a bit worried about carrying 1000 quid in person and rushed back to nationwide, deposited the amount back in my account and then used their online terminal to send a payment to my amazon credit card. it should arrive in 2 days time and my interest payment should be minimal.

at the online terminal station, some poor woman had forgotten her purse and cards which i handed back to nationwide. I was reminded of a couple of occasions when i lost my purse or rather was careless with it and was fortunate to get it back intact. so that memory made me feel a lot more happier with my lot and thankful for small mercies.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that if you have a amazon mastercard issued by halifax, then halifax bank will not recognise it as one of their own accounts and you cannot pay into it from their branches.