HBOS aka Halifax Bank of Scotland

Lilly_May_2

Hello everyone, can anyone explain this, I had a Credit card with Sainsbury'Bank, I wrote a letter claiming £1500 for late payments, and over the Limit fees, Now today I received a letter offering £621.00, hmm not really enough, but they said they would put it back on my card if I accept this offer...First question is...my card expired in April 2006,!!! also if they put it back on the card, and I used it, I would end up paying THEM back £621, wouldn't I?....Second I have read it is worth phoning them up, anyone else done this recently to ask for it to be re-valved???/trying to get more out of them?.......also if I accepted this £620 would it wipe out the out standing amount of £879, or would I have to pay that back....(all of the amount total £1500 is outstanding frees).....a bit confused...Lol.. many thanks.....Lilly :cool:

tish

I received a partial offer from HBOS in a letter dated 24th July, giving me two months to accept in full and final settlement. (Money went into my account on 31st July) I decided to wait until the two months were nearly up before I replied as I wanted to wait and see if there were any further developments. Unfortunately, I then became rather busy with personal problems, and forgot about it! I remembered today, and of course I am now 4 days over the two month deadline. Am I too late, and if not, can I accept it as partial payment without prejudice, even though they said it would be in full and final settlement? Any advice would be very welcome.
Thanks.

johud1975

Hi Everyone
I am new to the site and I wanted some advice about bank charges I have tried to claim.
I first sent my letter in March for two accounts I have in the Halifax. A joint account and a single one.
I had to send the second letter the threating one, but it worked for the single account and I got half of the charges back which I was happy with. A month after I received my claim I still hadn't got anything back about my joint account, so I phoned them. It turned out that they thought the two accounts were the same and closed the query on the joint account. The Halifax said that there was nothing they could do as there was an ongoing court case about bank charges and all claims were being stopped. I sent them another letter about a month ago saying this wasn't fair cause they were in breach of their time frame they had given me. I still havn't received a letter.
Does anyone know is their an ongoing court case and has anyone got money back in the last month.
Many thanks

sparky0107

johud1975 wrote: »

Hi Everyone
I am new to the site and I wanted some advice about bank charges I have tried to claim.
I first sent my letter in March for two accounts I have in the Halifax. A joint account and a single one.
I had to send the second letter the threating one, but it worked for the single account and I got half of the charges back which I was happy with. A month after I received my claim I still hadn't got anything back about my joint account, so I phoned them. It turned out that they thought the two accounts were the same and closed the query on the joint account. The Halifax said that there was nothing they could do as there was an ongoing court case about bank charges and all claims were being stopped. I sent them another letter about a month ago saying this wasn't fair cause they were in breach of their time frame they had given me. I still havn't received a letter.
Does anyone know is their an ongoing court case and has anyone got money back in the last month.
Many thanks

hi,
Try this link, it will explain the ongoing court case,

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=512661


hope it helps
Mark

johud1975

Hi Everyone
Would like some help with a problem I have trying to claim back bank charges off Halifax.
I have two accounts with them, one joint, one solo. The solo account I got sorted, but the joint account was taking a long time to get a reply, so I phoned the bank to be told that the joint account query had been closed because they thought it was related to the solo account and said it had been settled.
I asked would they reopen the case for the joint account but they said they couldn't as all claims were being put on hold as there is an ongoing court case about the charges and nothing would be done until it was resolved.
I sent them a letter stating I wanted it sorted as I had started the claim back in March. That was 2 months ago and I still havn't got a reply.
Would anyone have advise as to what I should do now and has anyone heard of this court case. Many Thanks

Edinburghlass_2

You need to read Martin's Emergency Guide here...

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/oft-bank-charges

Brex_2

My situation is a rather bizzare one -
(I use the Halifax online service to check my bank balance)

Last Thursday (Oct 4th) I paid or a £5 phone top up via my card, believing I had around £29 in my account (more than enough to cover this), then on
Friday (5th) I attempted to withdraw money from a cash machine but was told my balance was 0.00. To the best of my knowledge I had £24 still in my account.

Calling Halifax on Friday I was told that I had a pending charge (whatever that meant) from Tuesday of that week (Oct 2nd, this was a debit that occurs every 6 months which I just plain forgot about) of £25 which, coupled with the £5 I spent, sent my balance overdrawn by Friday - I calculated this to be by £1.87. Again checking the online service, neither of these charges had actually been taken from my account, and I still (apparently) had £29. At this point I arranged to have £20 transfered into my account in the hopes of avoiding going overdrawn when £30 was taken out, and my balance increased to £49. However today (11th) I recived a letter - dated from Friday 5th (the very day I first found out about the £25 charge and transfered the £20 to increase my balance) saying that I had incurred two charges of £30 and £20 for going overdrawn, stating the £25 charge as the reason. And to add irony to insult, at the bottom of the letter is a suggestion to visit the very online service that has messed me around.

What I am confused by is the fact that this £25 charge which the bank was aware of since Tuesday was not reflected in my balance via the website - meaning as far as I was aware I had £29 to spend. Also according to my account history via the website, I was not at any point overdrawn! the £20 transfer increased my balance to £49, and the £25 and £5 charges were taken out with no problem taking my balance down to £19. At no point was my balance a minus figure. I am certain that on Friday evening the £25 charge was not present on the website (otherwise I would have no reason to call that day to found out why I could not withdraw funds) but now it is listed as apparing that very day, but apparently taken out on the Friday *after* the £20 transfer was done.

I have today called Halifax, wrestled with the operator, stating that according to the website I was *not* overdrawn (and had not been for the previous 2 months), and the £25 charge which was "pending" was not shown, and therefore I could not have reasonably known about it (coupled with the fact that my balance was not reflecting this charge). I also questioned why the £25 pending charge was not taken out on the Tuesday when the operator on Friday said it appeared - Halifax were obviously aware of it, and since checking with the company taking the £25 charge their website states that payment was recived on the Tuesday. This was before I made the £5 top-up payment, and therefore I had £29 in my account to cover the £25 charge - I would have seen my balance was just £4 and not paid for the £5 top up at all.

The situation seems to be that the £5 (from Thursday 4th) was taken from my account first, and then the £24 charge (from Tuesday 2nd) was taken after (however still on the same day). If anything, I should have recived a letter about the £5 charge taking me overdrawn (not that it matters, but it is quite strange).

Ultmately I was told that they will not reverse the charges due to 4 previous "goodwill" gestures, which (after my contesting that claim) turned out to be 3, and then 3 with 2 being seperately counted reversed charges on the same occasion.
The previous occasions were similar mistakes by using the website for my balance (which I will no longer do!).

I am aware that these were of course, at least in part, my own fault. But due to the misleading website "balance", the fact that I went to the trouble of getting the £20 transfer to avoid being overdrawn the very day I supposedly went overdrawn, and the fact that the actual amount would have been just £1.87 over, I feel like I have been wrongly charged.

So my questions:-
-Do my previous 'offences' now mean a written claim for reversal of these charges be pretty much pointless? will they just write back to me with "goodwill gestures all gone, go away and enjoy your charges"?
-I've seen a lot of talk about reclaiming £100's or £1000's, my charge was relatively small £58 (although still a lot to me), should I just 'get over it'?
-Can I only contest the charges (via writing to the bank as suggested by the site) once they have been taken from my account? (the second of which won't occur until November 30)
-Should I mention in the letter about being basically misled by the website balance? or just stick to the basic template?

Thanks!
Michael

no_more_debt_2006

Hello All,

I requested my 6 years worth of statements in july 2007, and still havnt recived these.

What shall I do?

Thank you.

denyse_marston

I have been trying to claim bank charges back from halifax since March, when they 'froze' my accounts, the fso are involved but as we know everything is on hold at the moment, halifax however were not prepared to wait, they deliberately froze another account I had with them and today took all the charges totalling over £2000 from the other account, and even though this still left money in the account, which I have been asking them to close for nearly six months, there remains no access to these accounts whatsoever. Did they have the legal right to do this, and what should I do now.

nickmack

no_more_debt_2006 wrote: »

I requested my 6 years worth of statements in july 2007, and still havnt recived these.

Please see the FAQ in the Reclaim Help thread (link in my signature)