HBOS aka Halifax Bank of Scotland

weebit

I reclaimed soem bank charges from Halifax totaling £118 on April 6th 2007. at the time, these charges had only just been applied to my account so i didn't charge Halifax any interest on them. they sent me a letter acknowledgeing the reciept of my letter saying it would be processed with 8 weeks. and a little while later, they sent me another letter appologising for the delay and said it would be dealt with shortly.

that was the last i heard from them about this matter. i completely forgot to follow up on it as i was in the middle of reclaiming (succesfully!) from 3 other banks at the same time. i've now just remembered about it and thought about sending a letter to them reminding them of my previous claim (with added interest), but the question is, because of this whole test case thing, would they simply add my letter to the pile of other letters to be dealt with after the verdict, or since i claimed before the test case began, should it be dealt with like it should have been at the time?

i hope all that makes sense!

dusty74

i have a claim in with halifax for unfair bank charges.have all claims been put on hold?? they are telling me a courtcase is going on at the moment so all claim have been placed on hold

anyone?

dusty74

neverdespairgirl

They are right, claims are stayed pending the High Court case.

mollie-1

My son is 18 - he specifically told the Halifax that (as he was a 6th form student and only had a Saturday job at the time) he didn't want any funds available should his account not support a withdrawal). His account went overdrawn by 0.57pence! Since then he has been continually harrassed with letters, statements and phone calls and his charges now stand at £55+.
He wrote to the bank saying he was prepared to pay an acceptable amount to cover costs of their admin etc - but received a lengthy reply without a solution. And so it goes on - phone calls on Saturday mornings, Sunday lunchtimes in the evenings.
He has now written to the Bank again and to the Chairman and we await their reply. He is not prepared to pay these outrageous charges. He withdrew all his funds and moved to another bank - Halifax refuse to close his account until their charges are paid (these will grow by £28 per month).

krisskross

Perhaps you could pay it if he is unable to. This would stop further charges being applied and he can apply to reclaim bank charges when the case is settled. I certainly would not want him to risk an adverse report on his credit rating if it can be avoided.

angela_stephenson

My son is 21 and last year he recieved a compensation claim for £70,000, he opened an account at halifax and was told by an advisor to invest 38,000 to be put in isas bonds and shares. His circumstances changed and he got into difficulties with his current account and no one in halifax told him he could apply to withdraw some of his cash, but instead they kept on charging him for going overdrawn for as little as 4.99, 7.99 and 10.00. All this charging added up to £760. He applied for the charges to be refunded and was told they were waiting for the decision from the courts. Now he has decided to buy a house and he went in to ask could he have 20.000 of his money for the deposit, he was in there 2 hours being pushed form 1 person to the next then he was told the investment plan has lost money and he was £800 down. He was told they did not put any of it in isas but we have only their word for this. He asked for the plans to be shut down and to send him the cheques for the amount that was left to his own address. He has now put this into his HSBC savings account until the deposit has to be paid on the house but he has received a call from halifax saying he owes them £390 for the overdraft he has used. £320 of this was another set of bank charges! he has written a letter to the bank telling them that he is awaiting the decision from the courts concerning this matter and when it is resolved he will consider paying them the amount! adding that their practice works the same for everyone else. Do you think he is in his rights to do this? It now stands that by taking in a cheque for £70,000 he is worse off by nearly £2,000 how can this be right?

jamesd

Angela stephenson, you should start a new discussion in the savings and investments section.

2% (800) down is quite good performance for investments being sold now however the key issue here is whether he understood what he was being sold and that there was a risk of loss.

If they did not use a stocks and shares ISA that suggests that he may have been mis-sold some other product, because it is almost always the wrong choice not to use a stocks and shares ISA for investments. However, if he was dependent on means-tested state benefits it may have been more appropriate to use say an investment bond.

To give you further guidance it will really be necessary to know specifically which investments were used and what guidance he gave regarding how long he wanted the money to be invested for and how much decrease in value he was willing to accept. Knowing when he made the investments would also be helpful - the right month is close enough.

mollie-1

my son who is 18 (and at the time a 6th form student with a Saturday job) specifically requested that no funds be available should there be insufficient in his account. All his transactions were electronic, he did not use the cheque book at all. To no avail - he mistakenly went 0.57p overdrawn at the Halifax and they are now charging him £28 per month. He withdrew all his money but they refuse to close the account until the charges are met. He wrote to them disputing the charge and asking for the actual 'cost' etc etc but they continue to write and phone - calling on Saturday mornings, Sunday lunchtime and in the evening. Very intrusive and almost threatening to receive so many calls. The bank refuse to discuss with us even though it is our telephone line.

My son has now written to the branch again, telling them that he will not pay their punitive charges, and also the chairman. We await their response.

jamesd

mollie-1, have him tell the bank that all communications about this from them must be in writing, stop calling. They are obliged to follow this instruction under the fair debt collection rules.

mummyyummy_2

last year i got all details together to put in a claim against HBOS for my charges...about £3k, but then the eveything was put on hold with the test case etc...should i go ahead now and try? if so what way? the same way martin was telling us to do it before the test case? i am confused, theres soo many threads now..thanx xmyx