Discrimation by Halifax against Scottish children?!

atush

No it's not, if you let our students in for free we would let yours in, no one is discriminating unlawfully.

Wrong again. the English do not discriminate. Everyone pays. That is equality not discrimination.

jennifernil

moni72 wrote: »

I had a Children's Regular Saver at 10% for my daughter for just over 7 years. It was closed because HBOS decided to no longer offer that product. Fair enough and that's in the terms. However I received no notification, just found out because I saw they had converted her money to a Young Saver account.

When I reserached it I wanted to open a Kid's Regular Saver account at 6% which was almost it's equivalent. The information online said I had to open this account in a branch. When enquired at my Bank of Scotland branch I was told that it was only available to Halifax customers as it was a Halifax branded account and it had to be done via one of their local branches. When I asked wher my local branch was I was told England!!

I called the Halifax Savings helpline and they confirmed that as I live in Scotland I cannot open an account. I am astounded that in this day and age my daughter is experiencing what is tantamount to discrimination. She can only earn 3% on her savings as an HBOS customer and not the 6% available to children in England and Wales. :mad:

This is especially infuriating as we have HBOS customers for many years. I have emailed them online to complain about this. I'm simply gob-smacked.

Yes I discovered this last October when 2 of our grandchildrens regular savers ran out, I think it has been mentioned several times as more and more of them reach the anniversary.

You will get no sympathy on here, other than from fellow residents, and the university fees thing is always dragged up. Quite what the connection is between a Halifax Kids Regular Saver and the policy of the Scottish Parliament on University fees totally eludes me.

I am surprised free prescriptions, no tolls on bridges, and our supposed "free care home fees" haven't been thrown into the discussion too.

I complained to Halifax, I got some reply that only stated the facts, so was not really a reply at all. If you do get anywhere, I would be interested to hear.

Several people have said "travel to England". Well, with the amount you can deposit in the account, a special trip is certainly not worthwhile. And not everyone has relatives in England. Our grandchildren don't.

"Holidays" I hear you say......why do people think we are bound to be on holiday in England at some point in the year? Or even be there on business. How often do those people holiday in Scotland, or make a business trip here that would allow enough time to visit a bank, by appointment only remember, to open accounts?

Many Scots may pass through England on their way somewhere on holiday, but taking time out to open a bank account would not usually be part of the plan.

And then of course you would have to do it all again in a year's time as they no longer allow the account to restart every year......THAT is the real problem. If it did, this situation would not have arisen in the first place.

This is, as far as I can see, a problem unique to Children's accounts. If a product is available to open on line, then an English resident has no problem opening a Bank of Scotland account, and a Scottish resident can open a Halifax account. But Halifax, like Lloyds, insist these children's accounts must be opened in a banch.

So while this may not be discrimination, it does disadvantage Scottish children. And it certainly does nothing to encourage parents/grandparents/etc to start putting aside some savings for the children.

atush

I have been to scotland on holiday, and I have opened bank accts on holiday.

Just because you choose not to is not either here nor there. It can be done, if one wants to.


and yes, us non scots do hate when you whinge abt things like discrimination when you discriminate yourself (or perhaps your elected govt does on your behalf). We find it a bit rich. If you don't like discrimination, then vote out the discriminators perhaps. Up to you.

Hopefully if enough of you walk way from halifax, someone else will fill the gap for you locally. Maybe MEtro or Virgin will open branches in Scotland and give you more choice.

moni72

Firstly, excuse my terminology. I used the term "discrimation" loosely and did not expect a barrage of abuse!!! This was not an England versus Scotland thread or discussion.......in fact I am English but live in Scotland so out of all of you biggoted English people, I am proud to say that I don't care what nationality we are I care that my children in Scotland who are Halifax customers are told that they have to travel to England to open an account!!

In addition, to the person that suggested we can travel there.......the Halifax told me I cannot do this as I need to administrate my account in the branch too so any issues/problems/transfers etc would require a trip to England.

Overriding all this I am simply gob-smacked at the turn this thread has taken and would kindly request that you keep your comments to the issue being discussed.

If it offends my fellow Englishmen's senses I withdraw the term "discrimination" and replace it with "disadvantaged". My mistake.

Unreal!!! This is what is wrong with the world today, right here in this thread!!

jennifernil

atush.....I am not claiming discrimination, we have had this discussion before remember?

As rpc said, we really didn't want to give free education to anyone other than Scottish residents, but the EU stepped in. If you look at the funding of students, you will see that Scottish students get lower loans and bursaries, and the parental income cut off point is lower here, so there are quite a few differences.

If the EU ordered that Scotland had to charge English students the same, it would not lead to free fees for all, it would mean that all students would be charged fees, otherwise we would be overrun by fees refugees from England.

What happens in Wales? Do Welsh resident students not get special treatment/funding from the Welsh Assembly?

As it happens, we do usually pass through England, and stop, when on holiday, since we belong to another section of the population that seem to incur the wrath of many.......we own a touring caravan.

So we WILL be planning ahead and booking 2 appointments with Halifax to open new accounts on the way to our ferry in Dover. And we may well do the same next year. But I do think we are probably in the minority.

Do you holiday in Scotland every year?

Virgin now have Northern Rock, there are a few branches up here, but they don't offer a children's regular saver at present. There is no other institution that offers a 6% rate, nearest is Principality on 4.5%, who will let you open an account by post. It would be good if there were better offerings for children.

The Bank of Scotland Junior ISA only pays 3% compared to the Halifax 6%, the BOS Young Saver pays 2% compared to the Halifax 3%, so children are being hit hard by this separation of branding. Lloyds Young Saver pays 3%, but soon we will be losing Lloyds branches too, so things are actually getting worse.

I doubt adults will be walking away from Halifax, why would we when BOS no longer offers the Reward accounts? Even the BOS 3 year ISA has now gone 0.1% below the Halifax one. We can only hope that they may eventually offer equivalent accounts.

jennifernil

moni72 wrote: »

In addition, to the person that suggested we can travel there.......the Halifax told me I cannot do this as I need to administrate my account in the branch too so any issues/problems/transfers etc would require a trip to England.

I was actually told the exact opposite, that I should travel to England, and that anything other than opening a Halifax account CAN be handled in our local BOS branch.

I will be giving it a try anyway, as we have 2 days in Yorkshire and 2 days in Dover planned, but I certainly would not make a special trip!

If you have any family or friends in England/Wales/NI, you could send them the birth certificate and a pre-signed R85 and ask them to open an account. A parent has to sign the R85, but anyone can open the account. Obviously they can then also pop into their branch to deal with any problems. They would need to provide ID for themselves. A child can now only have one regular saver.

If I do have any problems, I have a friend who has now said they will gladly do this for me.

atush

I am not English. But I find the scottish anti english attitude discraceful. I see it all the time, from politics to sports to everything incl MSE.

People who are neither can look at this from outside and see the truth of it.

And you may have used Discrimination in a way you didn't intend, but you did use it.

mazza111

IanManc wrote: »

That's not what I said.

Your attempt at sarcasm is inappropriate.

No you said it was English tax payers. AFAIK it was British tax payers.

The whole discrimination thing is made worse by people screaming it all the time IMO.

As the mother of English children they got abuse in England when they started school because the spoke with a Scottish accent. (They tend to pick up the parents' accent before school)

On moving back to Scotland they got abuse for having English accents.

I see that as discrimination. Not what's available in Scotland and not in England or vice versa.

There are going to be differences like free prescriptions, education, banks etc. We knew all this would happen when Scotland and Wales got their own parliaments. I can only see the divide getting wider as time goes on.

jennifernil

Yes, I know about that account, we even have a local agency, but my grandchilden are too young for it at the moment.

I think, as well as (hopefully) depositing smaller amounts into the Halifax RS account, I am going to look at some investment based savings to try to keep ahead of inflation.

moni72

atush wrote: »

I am not English. But I find the scottish anti english attitude discraceful. I see it all the time, from politics to sports to everything incl MSE.

People who are neither can look at this from outside and see the truth of it.

And you may have used Discrimination in a way you didn't intend, but you did use it.

Discrimation actually means "excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to other groups" so in actual fact I am not far wrong. It is all down to your own perception.

I am sick of the people who jump at every minor opportunity to promote this kind of attitude. I live in Scotland and apart from gentle banter I do not see this "anti-english attitude" you are describing. I guess it depends on the circles you move in.

And may I remind you that this so-called attitude is not limited to Scottish people. It is the humna race all over, in every culture, every religion, every country. I did not use discrimation in a biggoted or derogatory fashion against "the English", I used it in the context of the bank having changed their structure, not advising their customers and thereby excluding Scottish children from accounts available to the rest of the UK, which is a piece of nonsense.