Halifax grrrrrr !!!

bertman

Thought I would share this one - just thinking of it makes me angry....

My OH and I had a small business, to cut a long story short we ran into trouble with it, we couldn't make enough to make it pay so ended up trying to sell it just as the credit crunch started (great timing) so over the two years it took to sell we ended up putting more and more things on credit, stock, wages etc. Even the lease ended up being "borrowed", we eventually sold it and my OH got a good job last year. We both now have good jobs and good salaries and are trying to get our house in order. We had to speak to all our creditors to let them know what was happening as we were late with payments etc. We always managed to pay the monthly amounts - just - but last October my OH had to have an operation which meant she wouldn't get paid for a month. All the creditors let us pay slightly later and the Halifax said I could pay half the monthly credit card payment for 4 months, this was £125 intead of £250. This was a great help, or so I thought.

Then my November statement fell on the mat, it showed that although we had paid the £125 we were shown as defaulting on the minimum amount and hit us with a £12.00 fee, on top of this the interest pushed us over the credit limit so we were hit with a further £12.00 fee!!!

In December I received a letter saying that Halifax had taken money out of a savings account we had - this contained money we had cobbled together for legal lfees for the sale of out business - and hit us with futrher charges of £24.00 for going over the credit limit and being late with a payment.. I rang in and explained the circumstances and they agreed to refund the money back to the savings account. This happened again in January but this time there was only £30 in the savings account. I rang and explained again what we were doing and they apologised again.

I have just had my latest bill and found that they have added a further |£24.00 to the bill, added interest again and also added the difference between the amount I could pay and my normal ninimum amount. I now owe them over £1000 as a minimum payment.......

I am ringing tomorrow as their offices are shut over the weekend, I can't believe that they have done this, they are worse than loan sharks!!!!

All my other debts are up to date and I am sorting things out to clear the debt but the Halifax are stopping me repairing my credit limit so I can't get 0% balance transfers I was hoping for to help clear balances more quickly.

Just wanted to get things off my chest...........

GeorgeUK

As well as phoning them, i would write a letter explaining what is going on so that you have proof that you are trying to get this sorted (send recorded delivery). You are being told you can do one thing and then you are being penalised for it as they probably haven't put on their records that you have contacted them and are acting on their advice.

Not sure how to deal with this other than possibly a formal complaint.

bertman

So I phoned them today and got a guy who was very matter of fact. I explained that I had been given a reduced payment contract and that they had continued putting late payment and over credit fees on the account. He told me they were quite within their right to do this and that the only thing now is to get a statement of affairs and send it into them and they would decide what I could pay them. This sounds a bit scary as they won't listen to reason. I want to pay the debt off and as quickly as possible but they keep sending me a default notice every month so this will devastate my credit rating so I will never be able to get 0% transfer deals which is how I wanted to start paying things off.
BTW - I spoke to HSBS who I have a card with, I thought I would try and get the APR reduced, it is currently a whopping 34.9%!!! I owe £1790 on the card and will make the minimum payment of £45.60 this month of which £5 goes off the debt and the rest on interest. They told me that they couln't reduce the APR and to try back in 6 months. I have worked out that at this rate I would be dead before this is paid off!!!!!

smilely

I can only sympathise with you re HBOS. I'm in the process of setting up a DMP and they are being so difficult with me and have between the 2 credit cards and loan i have with them added £49 worth of charges this month they are so unhelpful when you try to ask them for help.

They still haven't agreed to my DMP, or rejected it for that matter, but have offered to add all the debt as a secured loan on the property at a much higher rate that the average mortgage rate while i have no equity in the property.

And to think if our taxes hadn't bailed them out where would they be now?

psychopathbabble

I hate Halifax... I closed my account ages ago as I was trying to sort the account out and all I was getting was 100's of bank charges each month. Unfortunately I am back with them for a basic bank account but no od so they can't get me on that!
Hope you get something sorted out.

lpj316

HALIFAX ? As anyone noticed if you have an overdraft of say £1500 and you go into it by £1 they charge you a £1 a day fee until you go back into debit .If like me i did not check my balance and ended up paying £10 in fees. Also if you go over your overdraft limit they will charge you £5 per day. Come on Martin look into this one please As i am only on benefits I am very upset . Once again hitting the poorest where it hurts

Tixy

lpj

Have you read this article that was published by Martin when halifax changed the way they charge for overdrafts? Might be worth a look http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2009/10/how-to-beat-halifaxs-overdraft-chagres

bertman

This really is a ****y company, they tell you to ring up for help, when you do they stitch you up - I am up to date with all my other credit cards but because of this they have added charges and given me default notices, all because I asked for their help.