Halifax moving the goalposts???

Icanandwillsavemoney

Hi, I hope someone can answer a couple of questions for me.

I sent a letter to Halifax on 15th Dec offering a pmt amount of £4.60 a month off a £2k debt and had included a SOA from debtline website. For personal reasons, I can not use a company to deal with my debts but have to do it myself and I would prefer not to go into hose reasons if possible.

I received a letter back from the Halifax mid Jan saying ok, we agree to your pmt plan for 3 months then will review again.

I went straight to the bank and sent and immediate pmt on the 22nd Jan and then set a standing order up for every month thereafter.

I received my statement today and noticed £12 charge which I thought had been added so called then to find out why.

I got an extremely patronising man who answered the call and was awful from the start. It sounded like I had interupted his favourite TV programme if I am honest.

I asked him about the charge and he said I had to speak with a collections company (didn't catch the name) and I asked why as we had just set up a pmt plan.

He said it was because I had breached it?? How?? It was set up in Jan and next pmt due to go Feb 23rd. He said I should have sent a pmt when I sent the letter as a sign that I was willing to pay. I explained that I was awaiting their response to see if they would agree and once they had I sent an immediate pmt and set up the standing order. I didn't realise (stupidly) that I should have done that.

My questions are

1) Have I breached the agreement
2) Are they just moving the goal posts because the pmt is small
3) Can they just give the debt away to anothe company when we have just sorted an agreement

Sorry for the length of this and thank you for any advice/amswers you may be able to provide.

Tixy

Hi

1) Did the letter they in Jan specifically say they would not add charges? as if not they can add them as you breached your original terms.
People often do not make a payment with their first letter, could he mean because you made no payment at all in Dec? Did you send anything in Dec?
2) possibly
3) yes they can sell it at anytime. but the collections company may well just be Halifax's in house collections team, someone will post who that is in a min, I can't think.

Edit - In house are blair oliver scott - does that sound like the name he mentioned?

Icanandwillsavemoney

Thank you for replying, I have added some comments below in bold.

Tixy wrote: »

Hi

1) Did the letter they in Jan specifically say they would not add charges? as if not they can add them as you breached your original terms.
People often do not make a payment with their first letter, could he mean because you made no payment at all in Dec? Did you send anything in Dec? I didn't send anything until I received their response letter in Jan. Do you know how I have breached the agreement because I thought the agreement would have started when they sent their reply to me in Jan accepting the pmt terms. I am just a bit/lot confused by it all.
2) possibly
3) yes they can sell it at anytime. but the collections company may well just be Halifax's in house collections team, someone will post who that is in a min, I can't think. Now you mention it, I think it was Blair they said.

Edit - In house are blair oliver scott - does that sound like the name he mentioned?

Icanandwillsavemoney

Forgot to say, they had added the charge then deducted it but I just hadn't understood the way it was laid out on the statement... now I feel thick!

Tixy

When was the last time you paid anything before January? I meant they may be interpreting that you breached the original consumer credit agreement you signed when you took out the debt however long ago.

Blair oliver scott are the inhouse collectors of Bank of scotland and Halifax, so if they say they are now dealing with the debt it usually just means that they will try to scare you into paying more, in reality the debt won't have been sold on.

Tixy

Icanandwillsavemoney wrote: »

Forgot to say, they had added the charge then deducted it but I just hadn't understood the way it was laid out on the statement... now I feel thick!

Well thats good!

Icanandwillsavemoney

The last time I pad anything was 7 months ago so did bury my head in the sand for a little while which was very stupid but I am making sure I will never miss the pmts set up form here on in.

bertman

This is similar to the problems I have had with Halifax credit cards, I needed a bit of breathing space in the last 3 months of 2009 so rang a few credit card companies, none were any real help but the Halifax offered to reduce my monthly amount down from £276 to £125 a month for 4 months. Great, I thought this will help out...... How wrong I was.

I paid £125 in October as requested and a month later got a statement with a £12.00 fee on it, the same day I got a call from the Halifax telling me I had to pay the extra I owed up to the normal regular amount. I explained that I had an arrangement and quoted the reference I had on the letter about it, they apologised and hung up. In November I paid the reduced amount again and a couple of weeks later I got a letter from the Halifax saying that as I hadn't paid the full amount for two months they had taken what was owed out of a savings account I held with them (this was money we had oput aside for some legal bills following the sale of our business), I range them and they told me that they were quite within their rights. I again quoted the reference on the letter and they agreed to return the money to the savings account - this took two further weeks.

To cut a very long story short - they did the same again in December, by which time there was only £25 in the savings account, but to my horror they have been adding the difference in payments to my bill along with default sums of £12 a month for 4 months whichg meant I went over my credit limit so they whacked anoth £12.00 on top of this.....

I only needed a breathing space while we were trying to get back on our feet and this has caused so much stress it is unbelievable, I will be so glad one day when I don't have any credit cards....:)

Icanandwillsavemoney

OMG that is terrible bertman. So may be they set up the agreements but then don't link them to your account properly which results in you being either chased or passed to their inhouse collections dept.

Not good!

Did you manage to get the extra charges removed?

bertman

No - they wouldn't remove the charges, they said I should have known that this could happen.... At the time I was desperate to bring down the monthly outgoings so this seemed on paper to be a good thing, just shows you how wrong you can be....

Once I am straight though I aim to only use banks etc that have helped, Nat West being one of them, I will try and never use HSBC, MBNA or Halifax again!

Hope you get yourself straight soon, its good to know though that we are not alone in all this, its amazing how many people are in a fix with finances. I spoke to somebody today who said - if the government and banks can get is so wrong and messed up its easy to see how ordinary people can get it wrong as well. Kind of made me think

Icanandwillsavemoney

I am ashamed to say I work for one of those banks and I can see how so many people have managed to get in a mess. Mine started as part of a divorce that I didn't fight strongly enough but you live and learn. My CV has been updated and I will be moving on in the very near future!

I will be debt free and I will never have credit again and like you, will only bank with the one I have just recently moved to. Halifax and Abbey will not see me for dust when I am clear and will be saving steadily once again.

Hope you get sorted soon.