Halifax £100 Switch Farce

M79

Hi folks,
Hooked in by the recent Halifax £100 cash Switch incentive, I recently applied online in early June 2012 to switch from my current bank and take out a Reward Current Account.
Several days later, I recieved a letter acknowledging my application stating "we are progressing your application but there may be a short delay whilst we complete our checks, which we will do as quickly as possible".

4 weeks later, nothing heard and no updates. Phoned their Opening Centre helpline and was told they had many applications to deal with, but said mine would most likely be completed by the end of the following week.

7 weeks later, nothing heard and no updates. Phoned them up again querying the unacceptable delay. Despite me applying a month ahead of the July 15 cutoff, I was informed my application had "expired"!!! I was disgusted and shocked! The call centre operative offered me a £20 cheque as goodwill - and quite hastily...that got me thinking.

I suspect the bank had too many applications to handle and decided to "expire" a few applications to save money at the expense of new customers. I'd like to hear if anyone else has come across the same disappointing "service" or lack of, from Halifax. :mad:

opinions4u

I suspect the bank had too many applications to handle and decided to "expire" a few applications to save money at the expense of new customers

More likely they just screwed up.

exel1966

Sounds to me like another story, similar to your other post really !

pinkdalek

Refuse the £20, explain that you are not happy as you applied before the £100 deadline and still want to switch.

Say you feel the bank should honour the £100 as it is their fault and not yours.

If you have no joy on the phone go to your local branch they'd be more than happy to help you out. Just take any documents with you to support that you attempted to switch before the £100 deadline.

guesswho2000

They screwed mine up too, I applied online on 11th July, four days before the deadline for the £100.

On 18th, I got the paperwork, except I didn't - it had someone elses name and account details on it. So I went to a branch where, to their credit, they were excellent about it, the account was opened instantly, it appeared in my online banking before I left the building (I didn't have a bank account with them, just a credit card, so the switch was still relevant).

The next day my account was credited with the switching money - except they applied an offer of £50 instead, claiming I'd missed the deadline.

A call to their customer services department then followed. A long call. They claimed I hadn't selected the switch when I applied (I had, and had the print out of the application to prove it), therefore wasn't eligible as I hadn't applied in time. Escalating this eventually saw them credit my account with the extra £50, along with £5 to cover the cost of my call.

So, all in all I'm fairly happy with Halifax so far, although their online service seems to be quite inefficient, and them sending me another applicants personal details didn't fill me with hope, their branch staff and customer service team have been excellent. Therefore, if you give them a call explaining the situation, you may be on the phone for a while, but they should resolve it for you and give you the incentive you were entitled to :beer: