advice/help needed - halifax

jasperconran

Hi all,

basically hubby and I have been doing our dmp quite sucessfully for about 4 months now. All creditors have been great except for halifax. I shall explain briefly. hubby was put on informal arrangement (yes i know what you must be thinking!!) of £50 a month must be paid by 28th. was advised would still receive letters and statements asking for full amount etc etc. Account was due for review in july, not heard a thing. until the weekend, we got the usual statement asking for min pay which is about £1100 now, and a letter stating unless you are on an arrangement, ring us now!!! So I thought, well he is on an arrangment so i left it.

I checked hubbys account online today as havent bothered for a while, and was shocked to discover that halifax have put interest, charges and a late fee on the account this month:eek: bloody cheek!! the payments have always been on time. they make my blood boil :mad:

So my question is this, shall we ignore this and just carry on with the £50 arrangement until we hear from them, or, shall I send them a letter asking what the hell is going on and to advise them that situation has not changed, still need to make the payments of £50.

what do you think guys? can someone give me any advice?? it would be most appreciated, hubby doesnt need this stress at min, as is suffering from depression and other symptons.

thanks

Sunnylooloo

Urgh Halifax!

I'm on an arrangement with them, i get a statement each month saying how much I should be paying ie the minimum payment should be £1,5000 but I am paying £98. Then I get letters saying that I am late... I used to pay them on the 23rd of each month (before I started the arrangement) when I started the arrangement I told them I would be paying on the 25th of each month - they mark me down as a late payment every month on my credit report. I have noticed that they have not charged me any late fees - so it may be worth dropping them a line about that and they have not frozen my interest but put it on a reduced amount.

I pay my money over the phone by calling them, and each time I get the third degree, so I see you are on an arrangement, yes that's right, can you tell my this is, No i've written to you and told you, o let me look at my screen (if it is on your screen why areyou asking me??) or right i see you can't pay becuase of XYZ is that still the case...... Well dougnut what do you think????? (Obv this is in my mind).

I personally ignore all the letters and statments and just keep them to one side in a file and just carry on paying what has been agreed. I have been doing my own DMP for about 8 or 9 months now and I know a lotof the creditors will want an update after say 6 or 12 months and Egg have told me that after a year "we have to come to some other arrangment" So we shall see

Good luck and try not to worry

happycamel_2

Hi I think the key to your post is the word "informal". I think you need a formal agreement in writing otherwise, to put it bluntly, they can do what they like within the terms and conditions of the loan. And no, I don't think you should ignore it because technically you're in default so it could all get a bit more stressful if you don't tackle it head on from the getgo.

Good luck and keep posting

InDeepDebt

I am assuming that this is a self administered DMP with the Halifax. They don't like them.

We had loads of arguments with Halifax and they were putting interest and late payment fees on our card. The balance was going up rather than down. They said that we must go through a charity like CCCS, Payplan, National Debt Helpline or CAB before they would stop interest and charges.

We chose the CAB who copied our Statement of affairs and we sent it to the Halifax. We're now on an arrangement which is due for review in six months. It's with Halifax's in house company now though - Blair witch (or someone).

We chose CAB as they allow you to do an 'official' self administered DMP.

My advice to you would be to contact Halifax and ask what you need to do to stop the charges/interest and then take it from there.

Jim