halifax bank charges (merged)

sgx.saint

The Customer Relations address is a PO Box address.

Can you send items Recorded Delivery to such an address?

raq

davideds wrote:

has any1 got online banking??? How can i go back further as i only seem to be able to view my statements for the last month.

are they in your archive file

raq

Hi

I am getting ready to send my 2nd letter to the halifax on monday. I have noticed form the template that you have to send all the statements again with this letter . Is this correct ???

I have got a reference number from their letter to say they have received the 1st letter and will be in touch in due course. So I would have thought they had all the information.

If anyone can answer I would much appreciate this.

Thanks

andy_H_4

Sent letter giving them 14 days on 28th December to local branch, received reply on 31st Dec, saying that they had sent my claim to head office.

So do i now post the 7 days before court action to head office or local branch?

Ta

Andy

mrcall1969

Luke1982 wrote:

I started the attempt of reclaiming bank charges on the 1st of December so it was easier to keep track of a time scale. I am reclaiming from Bank of Scotland. Anyway they have put me to Halifax I have now sent three letters in little over a month. I just feel as though the bank is trying to buy as much time as possible rather than just paying up. First response was simply a thank you for posting your statements to us blah blah blah, second letter was we have achknowledged your complaint and will be in contact in no later than four weeks. Third letter recieved today, was pretty much the same as the second saying they will try to resolve before the 6th of Feb. Anyway my question is what now? Do i wait till the 6th? Or do I do as I said i would in the previous letter which was start court proceedings? Or should I send a letter warning that I am about to commence court proceedings? Any help would be great as I want to speed this process up faster than the bank is allowing. They seem to be dead set they are not going to move it along any faster. SPeaking to a kind customer service lady on the phone she explained allot of people are now trying to reclaim bank charges, espeically this time of year so I can expect to wait a while.
Also im considering sending the final letter template that says I would accept a lower offer for example, I have requested bank pays me £1780 back not inc. interest. I am tempted to accept a lower amount of £1500 should I try this and see if it works? £280 loss for me isnt too bad. Any help at all would be great..........

I'm at pretty much the same stage as you mate and I'm wondering the same thing...

Were you aware that the maximum you can claim in court is £750 for a small claim and £1500 for a summary cause? I wasn't aware until I found this site the other day..

cache-man

Already had statements for last 6 years, and charges added up to £1716, so sent first letter on 19th Dec 2006, and recieved standard reply saying sorry I was unhappy etc dated 21st Dec 2006.
Sent 2nd letter on 23rd Dec 2006, and recieved another standard reply, stating my letter had been passed to Customer Relations Dept dated 27th December. My second letter gave them 7 days before I went to court.
I have not gone to court yet, as I was
waiting till next week till I could aford the court fee.

A pleasant man from Halifax has just phoned me, and said Halifax are NOT at fault, and the OFT guidelines apply to credit cards only (haha, I read lots about this not being true here). He asked what grounds did I have for thinking the charges were unreasonable, and I said that the costs to Halifax of sending me automated letters are not proportional to the charges levied. He said have I been researching on the internet, to which I replied yes, and he said that although the Halifax were not at fault would I accept a goodwill gesture of £1000, to which I replied I could not accept, and would have to proceed with court action. He then immediatly said would I accept £1600 - I said yes I would accept this, and he said he would send me the acceptance papers and I would be credited within 7-10 days of recieving the signed acceptance papers.
I know this is £100 odd short of the total charges, but it will really help me out at the minute, and being as I thought I had lost the charges forever, it's not like I've actually lost anything, and it saves me having to bother with the court - I could have got a extra £300 in interest if it went to court too, but £1600 this soon after xmas is a BIG bonus.

The man on the phone did say that this would be full and final settlement etc, and that any further charges WOULD NOT be refunded, I replied that I would be taking steps to not have any more charges applied in the first place anyway. Just need to decide now if to continue banking with the Halifax or start using my parachute account at Yorkshire Bank.

Thanks to all here for the help and advice, and encouragement to persuade me to even instigate the reclaim.

zipwen1

thinking of reclaiming my partners charges for him he was very bad at keeping his account so i can imagine his charges to run into the thousands .

dose anyone have any idea how many if any of these cases have actually gone to court?
and could anyone who has had to go to court tell me weather or not a halifax rep turned up or if they refunded at the last minute.?
also what is the usual time it takes from asking for statements to receiving refund?
has anyone ever lost a case?

all correspondence will be greatly appreciated

thecornflake

No cases have gone as far as court, although some banks wait until the allocation questionnaire stage before settling.

So no-one has lost either. Some people have had issues where they have been sloppy with their particulars of claim, so you do need to make sure you know what you are doing, read up on it so you understand, especially if you are nearing court action stage. For example in the case above where they asked cache-man what his grounds for claiming were, you can answer straight away about the Unfair Terms act etc.

There is clear information available on what to do at each stage so it's not massively complicated, but at the same time it's not just a case of copying and pasting a couple of letters (unless you're really lucky).

mrcall1969

Luke1982 wrote:

Hey man yeah i was aware of that but like you not until recently. Despite that im still gonna try my luck at the full wad lol so far iv asked for £1780 not including interest. But i think im going to send a letter saying i will accept a minimum offer of £1500. I just feel the bank is trying to buy as much time as possible in hope that I will go away and give up. But I dont give up especially when it concerns money
Plus I want to buy a new guitar with the refunds :rotfl:
Ne how, what kind of response have you had since were at the same stage? Have you phoned them at all? I did got a pleasent response but again I feel as though this was to sugarcoat things while the operator was on the phone lol. So far iv managed to claim back £300 of charges I accidently got over christmas just by phoning them (that figure not included in my above £1780). I just explained to them that the £300 charges were unfair because I had missed two direct debits as we got paid late from work and that caused all of it to snowball blah blah blah anyway result was £300 back. So im wondering perhaps if you give them a phone try and wind them round your finger a bit you might get some back then claim for the rest back as you are doing now?

I haven't phoned them at all mate. I just got the letter from Barclays HQ this morning saying that it will be dealt with, but not guaranteed in the timescales I set out in my letter.

Then goes on to say the enclosed leaflet 'gives a more detailed explanation on how we deal with this matter' .. which it doesn't

superburger

Hi all,

Sent of a data protection letter on 3rd of Jan (included cheque for £10.) This was cashed today, so i can safely assume they've read the letter.

Does anyone know how long, on average, Halifax's credit card division takes to supply statements after receiving the statutory £10? In principle they could sit on it for another month before posting them, but is this likely?

PS I have been through small claims before with another company, and there is really nothing to fear. Keep calm, read eveything carefully, and remember even £5000 is chicken feed to HBOS compared to the cost of bad publicity.........