MSE News: Anger over new Halifax overdraft fees

opinions4u

rb10 wrote: »

the account gives you a free overdraft (of up to £2500) for two months of every year, and you don't pay a penny for the privilege of this.

You should get a job in their marketing department for that one!

Excellent way of looking at the whole thing.

oakhouse13

There were clear warnings when Halifax launched this account. Which? published warnings having evaluated the terms, as did John McFall, chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, interviewed by the BBC. The advice from this website as published in the Daily Mirror, 17th February 09 was a Halifax Reward account was a way to 'beat the banks' -
'
£ FREEBIES
.
Halifax is offering Reward Current Account holders a monthly £5 pay-out if they pay in £1,000 each month.


Freebies never are free. If an account is paying out a freebie someone is paying for it. I remember posts at the time Halifax launched this account detailing how to open six accounts per household. To pay out this level of interest to one customer, many other customers will be charged high penalty fees.

~Jem~

OMG will half the people on here SHUT UP & THINK?!!!!

'Vote with your feet', well thanks for the advice, if i could do that i would be doing wouldnt i? And having £5 interest by switching my account is hardly going to dent the £30/£31 i will now have to pay.

Regardless of wether people agree with this or not, the timing is disgusting. People would have been relying on their overdrafts to see them through Christmas. The amount of notice given is also disgusting. Im around £750 into my overdraft and only get paid that amount, so will hugely struggle. I have finally gotten my credit cards down to a half decent amount but it now looks like i will be using them more.

I cant simply switch or get a loan as my credit isnt exactly perfect. Like others have mentioned, when credit card companies do this we are given the option to close the account and repay at the same rate. Halifax should offer this option to everyone, they would still make money!

It makes me laugh that in the brochure it states 'Why are you making these changes?' We want to make banking clearer and simpler for our customers.

Yes i see it more clearly now - you just want to make as much money as possible from us!

Good luck to those who will struggle like me to pay the overdraft off, the sooner we all do it and close the account, the better.
Hopefully if enough people move from Halifax they will realise!

chambta

FreeD wrote: »

originally posted by Extant



15k basic but comission on sales of insurance/mortgages/personal loans etc can easily turn 15k into 35k. Don't know why you bother even trying to justify what banks have done and what they are doin now this isn't supposed to be a 2 way dabate we are all in the same boat and are all paaying the price some more than others.

Not easily at all. Very few retail branch staff get anywhere near 35k. In my role possible but at a guess 1/50 doing my role it get it nationally.

Inactive

It seems to me that a lot of people have been using their overdrafts as long term loans, clearly that was never their intended use, they were always designed, as far as I am aware, as short term emergency funding facilities.

Any bank can call in an overdraft at short notice, so this kind of long term usage, is always going to be risky.

The bottom line is, people are spending the banks money and are now moaning about the charges that they impose.

Simple cure, budget better, stop spending money that you do not have, that way you will not need an overdraft.

Don't tell me that there is nothing that you can cut back on, I simply will not believe you.

opinions4u

~Jem~ wrote: »

OMG will half the people on here SHUT UP & THINK?!!!!

There have been a lot of suggestons giving people ideas on how to maximise these changes to their own advantage.

'Vote with your feet', well thanks for the advice, if i could do that i would be doing wouldnt i? And having £5 interest by switching my account is hardly going to dent the £30/£31 i will now have to pay.

Better than nothing though. If you feel that you're between a rock and a hard place then at least take the fiver.

the timing is disgusting.

Many people will like their extra fiver on the 2nd January.

People would have been relying on their overdrafts to see them through Christmas.

Look, this won't help you today and I suspect you won't appreciate it. But did you not know Christmas was coming? It tends to come round at the same time every year. You could have prepared for it by setting some money to one side instead of relying on your overdraft.

But you know what? There's another Christmas in 2010. Why not start saving a little now and add to it every month. Perhaps smaller amounts while you repay your overdraft. A regular saver type account may be exactly right for you. Open one in November and it will mature next November. That's just before Christmas, don't ya know! Why not rely on saving for Christmas instead of borrowing for Christmas? That way you make money out of the banks.

The amount of notice given is also disgusting. Im around £750 into my overdraft and only get paid that amount, so will hugely struggle. I have finally gotten my credit cards down to a half decent amount but it now looks like i will be using them more.

If you're only paying in £750 a month, make sure you withdraw £250+ to pay straight back in to benefit from £5 a month credit.

It may well be worth moving balance from overdraft to credit card by doing your "normal" everyday spending on the credit card for a month or two and getting your overdraft down to 0.

If you get your overdraft down to below £300, but not quite to zero, then the Ultimate Reward account will cost you £12.50 a month, give you the giver back (subject to £1,000 in credits) and not charge you £1 a day when you're overdrawn. See if the insurance benefits it gives are any use to you as well.

It makes me laugh that in the brochure it states 'Why are you making these changes?' We want to make banking clearer and simpler for our customers.

Yes i see it more clearly now - you just want to make as much money as possible from us!

Some people will pay more. Most will benefit more. I know it may take a lot of effort, but you need to work out how to change your reliance on overdrafts and credit cards. If you have genuinely got your card debts down and not increased your overdraft in doing so you have made great progress.

Don't forget the guys on the Debt-free Wannabe part of this forum can give you some genuine support too.

Good luck to those who will struggle like me to pay the overdraft off, the sooner we all do it and close the account, the better.
Hopefully if enough people move from Halifax they will realise!

If people who are always overdrawn repay their overdrafts and move to competitors, do you really think Halifax will lose any sleep?

One of the impacts of the Credit Crunch is that they don't have enough money to lend their borrowing customers. Fewer overdrawn customers is something that will genuinely benefit any bank in the current climate.

trynsave

~Jem~ wrote: »

OMG will half the people on here SHUT UP & THINK?!!!!

Regardless of wether people agree with this or not, the timing is disgusting. People would have been relying on their overdrafts to see them through Christmas.

So you would rather the changes were brought in in January AFTER you had spent all the bank's money? Would you then be thanking them for allowing you to max your overdraft whilst secretly plotting to up their charges just to spite you?

Timing is never a good thing, but personally I would be talking to the people I love the most in this world and explaining that times are hard and that Christmas this year was going to be a lean one - only in the financial sense though as caring for one another and spending quality time with them costs nothing.

If your child is old enough to want a wii, DSi, Playstation 3 or whatever else their heart desires, then they are old enough to realise that we can't always have what we want and that perhaps a second-hand one instead of a new one would be just as good? What about writing IOU's for when your overdraft/loans/credit cards etc are clearded and you can genuinely afford to purchase stuff? I am speaking as a mum to three who have to be reminded of this regularly! Why should your children be any different?

We know you love your friends and family, we all do, but we can't expect the world to owe us anything, Don't buy stuff you don't absolutely have to and you'll be grateful for it.

Life happens to us all and we all have our own personal situations to deal with. Make your Christmas decisions based on reasoned logic and you'll have a happier and more prosperous New Year! After all it is just one day.

akw_2

These charges are excessive
vote with your feet
but!!!!! don’t close the account completely keep the bear min. limit in it,
that way it will "cost" them to administer the account

jonmercer

OMG, I can't believe the attitude of some people on this site, you think that people want to live in an overdraft? I'm sure half of you actualy work for the Banks. tryansave, do you just come these forums to wind up the less fortunate?

RayWolfe

No, it will cost us!