Any negatives to the £5 halifax account?

noh

Be careful.
To activate the account £100 has to be left in there overnight.
The experience of myself and others is that the balance you now see online after making the initial deposit via FP may well return to £0 the next day.
Don't panic if this happens as it usually corrects itself but some have found that they need visit a branch with ID before they can get hold of the money again.

I would leave the £100 in there now and remove the £900 if the system will let you.

Empty_pockets

Thats what I was planning on doing. I think I'll leave to £100 indefinetly tbh and maybe build it up to the £1000.

noh

Not much point in leaving money in the current account indefinitely at 0%
Best thing to do is to open a Reward Saver paying 3.0%. Can be done online.

http://www.halifax.co.uk/savings/accounts/easy-access/web-saver-reward/

Transfer your £100 + £5 to there each month and £900 back out.
After 10 months you will have £1000+ in the savings account that you can instantly transfer to and from the Reward current account to satisfy the funding requirement. So you receive £5 per month + interest on the amount in the saving account.

poggs

noh wrote: »

Seems a strange thing to do.
What use is a current account that doesn't send or receive faster payments?
All payment accounts will have to be able to send payments within 1 day by January 2012.
To get round the restriction now all you need to do is open another Halifax account that does send and accept FP and use that to do an instant internal transfer to/from the Reward current account.

I think there is something peculiar with the setup of your account.
Reward current accounts usually have a sort code associated with your local branch.
The 11-49-43 sort code appears to belong to "Halifax Specialist Banking"

I actually opened it via a link on Quidco that gives me £50 cashback once its performed transfers of all my direct debits. Which was a total disaster already getting me £48 charges in late fees and returned Direct debits! As soon as my £50 cashback is received I'm offski. My halifax experience has been an unmitigated disaster. Still not received any fivers yet either, despite transferring £1000+ for the last 2 months. Halifax are 'investigating' as they cant see why I didn't get the reward. Also dont seem to have been allocated a branch just a head officer address.

Empty_pockets

Got the £1000 showing in my Halifax account now.

Unable to 'make a payment'. Trying to transfer £900 back to my HBSC.

Will try again tomorrow.

YorkshireBoy

Empty_pockets wrote: »

Got the £1000 showing in my Halifax account now.

Unable to 'make a payment'. Trying to transfer £900 back to my HBSC.

Will try again tomorrow.

I'd leave it in there for 2-3 days.

Others have reported their accounts going overdrawn in such situations (ie when the £1K disappears for a day or two) and having £5 daily fees applied. Yes you'll (probably) get them back, but why put yourself through the hassle!?

Baldur

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

I'd leave it in there for 2-3 days.

Others have reported their accounts going overdrawn in such situations (ie when the £1K disappears for a day or two) and having £5 daily fees applied. Yes you'll (probably) get them back, but why put yourself through the hassle!?

Agreed, I'd do the same.

Empty_pockets

Well today opened a Web Saver account.

Sussesfully transfered £1 from the reward account to the saver account instantly.

Seem the problem lies in transfering money out of Halifax. Will leave it as is until midday tomorrow then try again and contact by telephone if still no joy.

pinkdalek

You are unable to process electronic payments to external organisations until the account is activated.

That means paying in the required funds e.g. £100 and leaving them in overnight until the next working day.

If you paid the £100 in over the weekend then the account will not be fully active until Wednesday (due to bank holiday)

Empty_pockets

Last update on this.

Both accoutns seem to be up an running this morning. Tried the transfer again, got to the confirmation screen this time so looked good, then,, account SUSPENDED!

!!!!!!! Ok, got on the phone using 'no 0870' and glad to say they seem both competant an helpful. Did go through two lots of security but I supposen it's for my benefit.

They had suspended the account when they saw the payment request. Fairkly large at £900 and to someone I hadn't paid before.

Anyway, all seems sorted now and £100 left in account for a week or so, thereafter I'll transfer it across to the Saver account.