Halifax has doomed me for life...!

jinx36

I just wanted to say that out of the credit cards I Halifax have without a
doubt been the most unreasonable and totally unwilling to cooperate with
me.To the point where I no longer know what action to take

About eighteen months ago I ran into some problems at home due to a
family illness, short term thankfully - and this impacted my finances.
I contacted all my credit cards (3) and my bank with whom I had a loan
and arranged payment plans, I contacted the CCCS who helped and I sent
budget sheets off to everyone including the Halifax credit card centre.
Everyone agreed to my offers of repayment, every other lender stopped
interest and charges immediately and I can now just about affordable maintain
the proper payments again and I am not behind or over the limit with any
of them. Except Halifax...

They agreed to my offer of entering a repayment plan, took my £100 a month
which is all I can afford and refused, several times to stop the interest
on this card. This was 18 months ago, I am now about £3000 over the limit and
this is ALL charges and interest as I destroyed the card 18 months ago and
sent it back to them. Now the repayment plan has ended and they will not
consider an extension even though I have told them that my financial
situation has not changed. They are bullies on the phone and each time I
call to try and discuss how to best pay this huge bill, they ask "are you
calling to pay the £3065 now due on your account"? I mean honestly, is it
not quite clear that if I had it, of course I would.

Am just so sick of them, the last 18 months have been a constant worry
whereas my other lenders have tried to assist me where they can and help
me pay them. Halifax don't seem to want to know and will just keep on
endlessly bullying me and charging extortionate monthly charges and interest.

Has anyone else had any experiences with Halifax? Or know of anything I
might not be aware of that I could try (considering a large part of my time is spent
analysing every penny I spend, finding new ways to save and trying to
locate the UK CEO of Halifax to write to??!!)

Robert_Sterling

I am very sorry to read of your sad experience with Halifax Bank Plc.

thesaint

Has anyone else had any experiences with Halifax? Or know of anything I
might not be aware of that I could try (considering a large part of my time is spent
analysing every penny I spend, finding new ways to save and trying to
locate the UK CEO of Halifax to write to??!!)

Have you tried to reclaim the charges that they have added to your account?

adouglasmhor

HBOS continued to add interest to an overdraft even when I was in a protected trust deed, I had to set my trustee on them to get them to stop.

jinx36

Thanks for the comments people - thesaint, no I haven't, though have been hearing more about this recently. I imagine the letter would be ignored or they'd wait for me to actually start court proceedings, it all sounds daunting but.. I do sort of feel why should I be persecuted for not being able to afford the £3000 they've put me over the card limit by. Perhaps it might be worth a try when I've tried reasoning with them to no avail...

Natural_Born_Klingon

jinx36 wrote:

Thanks for the comments people - thesaint, no I haven't, though have been hearing more about this recently. I imagine the letter would be ignored or they'd wait for me to actually start court proceedings, it all sounds daunting but.. I do sort of feel why should I be persecuted for not being able to afford the £3000 they've put me over the card limit by. Perhaps it might be worth a try when I've tried reasoning with them to no avail...

Stuff reasoning with them any more - they won't play ball. Just go do it! I've just claimed from Halifax for charges of £141 on my Bank Account, and they've offered me £150 .... Loved the bit in the offer letter that effectively said "if you do it again, we'll close your account"; its been closed for a year!:D Halifax CC are next in my sights.

From your point of view, I think what would happen is that they'll pay up just before the court date and possibly threaten to close the card. Just laugh in their faces and say "its paid and closed thanks to your refund of the charges".

Truely, its an easy process, and so far for everyone who's done it an fruitful one.

Oh, and if I remember correctly, you can also get them to remove any entries that they've made on your Credit file, but since I wasn't concerned about that, I'm not sure how.

jinx36

Encouraging - thank you, got nothing to lose so if the worst that can happen is that they close the card - GOOD! Glad to hear you've managed to get something back too...

Natural_Born_Klingon

jinx36 wrote:

Encouraging - thank you, got nothing to lose so if the worst that can happen is that they close the card - GOOD! Glad to hear you've managed to get something back too...

Have a real good read of the info in the Reclaim ... board on here. All the letter templates and advice you could ever need are there for the taking! Good luck with it!! (I'm confident you'll have a go) :beer:

asharon

any charges over £12 can be reclaimed so good luck !

Natural_Born_Klingon

asharon wrote:

any charges over £12 can be reclaimed so good luck !

From what I've read ANY charges can be reclaimed! I can think of only one instance where the Bank turned up to Court and convinced the Judge that £12 was a fair total of their costs, and in that case it was (a) in Northern Ireland, (b) a surprise defence and (c) the guy doing the cliam wasn't allowed to see this breakdown.

£12 was - IIRC - what the OFT decided was a fair charge, but I still don't think its Law.

Again, a good read of the relevent board here and the Consumer Action Group's web-site will enable you to decide what you feel that you should claim.

regularsaver1

This is a credit card isn't it?