Unique issue (or another banking scandal?) surrounding closure of Halifax One Card

bunchofbankers

Greetings All - I shall attempt to keep this brief although 14 months of complaints sure stack up!

I wish to alert MSE members to my experience, and seek any advice where possible prior to escalating this to FSA and ombudsman. From my experience I succinctly believe this is "another" consumer credit related scandal from a failed banking infrastructure and have invited local press to my branch where I will soon demonstrate with a megaphone until my problem is heard - look out for me in the midlands!

Week 1 January 2012 - Received 2 letters from Halifax informing me of the increase in my credit limit on my Halifax One Card, and increase in my Ultimate Reward Account overdraft for being a "valued" and responsible customer with good credit rating.

Week 2 January 2012 - Received a letter from Halifax informing me in light of ONE missed payment during Q1 2011, despite raising my borrowing limits they must now charge me more APR on the One Card - not only on future purchases, but retrospectively on the existing balance since increasing my limit. an increase in APR I felt that was NEITHER fair or proportional compared to that of their offerings for applying for a "new" account.

Complaint 1 - I immediately considered this irresponsible lending and stormed my local branch to cancel ANYTHING I could with Halifax bar my mortgage with a view of transferring my balance and business elsewhere.

My Credit Card Account was immediately cancelled with the remaining balance left outstanding. (Is it possible to close an account with an outstanding balance??)

As a web developer I have no use for archaic telephone banking (until now!!) and never setup security information so I do not have access to this account via telephone and rely upon internet banking.

Complaint number 2 - Upon cancelling the account my One Card immediately dropped out of Internet Banking - which I use regularly to make payments to this account. I now have no access to this account and must rely upon paper statements.

Upon doing so, almost immediately I receive weekly calls from "retail collections" to say my account is in arrears.

Complaint number 3 - STOP the nuisance calls (they still continue). I have documentary evidence of this outside sociable hours - as late as 10:30pm.

For a brief spell the calls stopped and instead a bombardment of text message followed. (I now receive both on a weekly basis!)

Complaint number 4 - Since closure in January 2012 , in February I realise have received NO statements to my residential address for Jan or Feb. Upon lodging a fourth complaint with BoS "resolve" system, their response blamed Royal Mail and staff shortages in my local sorting office.

I escalated this to Executive Complaints team (since I have no problem receiving the monthly "retail collections" letters!!!) and upon negotiation with a senior manager DEMANDED my correspondence was sent to a local branch.

Still no sign of statements. I demand they are couriered via their internal TNT mechanism as apposed to leaving the halifax infrastructure into the "wide world" to be lost.

Between January 2012 and February 2013 (some 14 months) I have received just 3 statements at the branch. these are all out of date and well beyond their due dates on every occasion.

Throughout this time, I have made "blind" payments of £100 per month (with counter receipts) - well in excess of what I have been informed to be the minimum balance.

Despite this, I have over 12 bad payment markers on credit file, and deemed my card has not been paid "on time" since this debacle began.

Complaint number 5 - sort out my credit rating, and refund the late fees and interest applied during this time.

As far as I am concerned, this problem dates back to my original complaint in January 2011 upon closure of the account (there must have been a "trigger event"?) - since then the account has never "been right". However, Halifax "reportedly" have fixed my credit file. This has only been completed back to the date of my most recent complaint - and does not go any further historically. Halifax refuse to fix my credit file prior to complaint 5.

I have the "final response" letter in writing from executive complaints informing me my branch manager will call me on every occassion my post is delivered.

I have it in black and white from my bank manager that NO post has been received during intervals of this complaints process.

because of the effect this has had from day one toward my credit file and with a successful mortgage application of £140k just prior in 2010 NO other lender would allow me to transfer my balance.

Despite monthly "blind" payments as regular as clock work, and paying them in branch before my advised "due date" the account is continually in arrears. I cannot specify which payment is for what statement - else i would pay twice in order to move forward a month and be the "correct side" of the due date.

The result of this - each month a late fee is applied, each month late payment interest is applied.

The cumulative effect of this - despite paying £100 p/m - my credit card balance is now £4 different to when I began!!!!!

I have proven beyond reasonable doubt this issue exists and cannot be the only suffering customer. I sincerely believe this is a "wider problem" and would seek to expose this. It could be affecting THOUSANDS of customers, knowingly or otherwise.

I have visited my branch bi-weekly since January 2011 - the counter staff no longer ask me if I would like a coffee and toddle off knowing its milky and with 2 sugars....

HELP! please :-)

(Scallifax - who give you "extra"? - stress - headache - poor service)

izools

OK I have only read the first two points and chose to stop due to the irresponsible tone of your writing.

You chose to miss a payment, thereby defaulting on your credit agreement.

Halifax then chose not to issue you with a default notice, but instead adjust your interest rate based on your risk.

The rate increase was not retrospective, otherwise they would have charged backdated interest for each statement produced thus far. Instead, they only charged the rate on your existing balance from then onwards. Ergo, not retrospective.

They also gave you a choice to either leave the account open and accept the new rate, or to reject the new rate and have the account closed to new spending where you continue to pay off the balance on the same terms you had, as if nothing had happened.

You chose to accept the new rate.

I admit I've not read the rest of your post but if it's in the same vein as the start, I'm making the right choice.

YorkshireBoy

bunchofbankers wrote: »

I shall attempt to keep this brief

Unexpectedly, I have a little time on my hands this evening.

Could you post up the full version?

izools

OK, so I read a bit more. You're complaining of nuisance calls.

If you asked them to set up a direct debit the minimum payment would be taken care of automatically, and you could have added them as a recipient on your internet banking without the account appearing there so that you cam make manual payments above the minimum for whatever you can afford when you can.

It was precicely the same for me when I closed my Nationwide credit card. It dropped off my internet banking so I added them as a recipient manually using the details on my statement and set up a DD for the minimum amount to ensure I could never be late or fall in to arrears.

SO more of you complaining for stuff that you didn't chose to do yourself, making your failings someone else's responsibility.

Dabooka

TLDR.

But I agree with izools above

bunchofbankers

What a friendly environment this turned out to be

izools

I'm sorry but I can't sympathise with a situation that was of your own causing.

I empathise with your frustration, however the best thing you can do is re-analyze what has happened thus far from a third party perspective and pick out things you could have done that would have changed the outcomes.

This way you will learn how to prevent the same things happening elsewhere - and the same things WILL happen elsewhere if you take the same approach with another bank.

Or as I'm starting to say more and more regularly "Take it on the chin, learn from it, and move on"

I wouldn't start anything with a megaphone though, you may find men in white coats appear...

stephane_2

bunchofbankers wrote: »

What a friendly environment this turned out to be

Complete non sense....go and make yourself a fool with your "Banking Scandal".....I've heard it all.....

Dabooka

bunchofbankers wrote: »

What a friendly environment this turned out to be

Sorry you feel they way, but from my point of view your post was long winded, holds yourself no way blame worthy and is inaccurate. Banking scandal? Really?

if you posted facts you'd get input, but when it's as loaded as it is here bluntness is what you'll get.

And as for the megaphone...... !!!!!!.

dalesrider

My Credit Card Account was immediately cancelled with the remaining balance left outstanding. (Is it possible to close an account with an outstanding balance??)

Yes you can close one.
As such you are expected to pay the FULL balance by the due date.
Which I'm sure you were advised of, but if your actions in the branch. Were anything like your post here.... I guess you did not listen to a single thing they said....

This explains why the markers were placed despite your payments each month. As you have NOT paid the full balance.

Sorry but your post is nothing but "Biting off your nose to spite your face".

End of the day even going to FOS, which given the amount you must owe on the CC they will let it go.
There is a good chance they will win.
The only point is the late calls, but that does not effect the main point that YOU closed the account and have failed, as per T/C to clear the balance. Only made token payments to it.

rb10

bunchofbankers wrote: »

Complaint 1 - I immediately considered this irresponsible lending and stormed my local branch to cancel ANYTHING I could with Halifax bar my mortgage with a view of transferring my balance and business elsewhere.

You choosing to close your accounts is not a complaint. It's an action that you reserve the right to carry out.

bunchofbankers wrote: »

My Credit Card Account was immediately cancelled with the remaining balance left outstanding. (Is it possible to close an account with an outstanding balance??)

As you have discovered, yes, this is possible. Any further spending is not possible on the account, and you will just continue to (have an obligation to) pay off the balance at the current rate of interest.

bunchofbankers wrote: »

As a web developer I have no use for archaic telephone banking (until now!!) and never setup security information so I do not have access to this account via telephone and rely upon internet banking.

Complaint number 2 - Upon cancelling the account my One Card immediately dropped out of Internet Banking - which I use regularly to make payments to this account. I now have no access to this account and must rely upon paper statements.

I appreciate that this is annoying.

But being a web developer doesn't prevent you from using the telephone.

Unless there's a disability that you haven't mentioned in your post, then you really don't have a leg to stand on here.

They send you statements once a month (although I appreciate that some of your post has gone missing since then).

They do also give you 24/7 access to your balance and statement information by telephone.

bunchofbankers wrote: »

Upon doing so, almost immediately I receive weekly calls from "retail collections" to say my account is in arrears.

Complaint number 3 - STOP the nuisance calls (they still continue). I have documentary evidence of this outside sociable hours - as late as 10:30pm.

Presumably these phone calls are requesting that you pay the arrears on your account?

If you were to pay the arrears on your account, you'd quickly find the phone calls would stop.

To put the ball in the other court, imagine that you lent me money. I didn't pay you back at the time you agreed. You might well call me once a week to find out when I was going to pay you back. And not all of your calls would necessarily be between 9-5.

bunchofbankers wrote: »

Complaint number 4 - Since closure in January 2012 , in February I realise have received NO statements to my residential address for Jan or Feb. Upon lodging a fourth complaint with BoS "resolve" system, their response blamed Royal Mail and staff shortages in my local sorting office.

It would have been useful if they'd pointed out that you have access to a telephone banking system that allows you to check your balance, and details of any payments required.

bunchofbankers wrote: »

I escalated this to Executive Complaints team (since I have no problem receiving the monthly "retail collections" letters!!!) and upon negotiation with a senior manager DEMANDED my correspondence was sent to a local branch.

Still no sign of statements. I demand they are couriered via their internal TNT mechanism as apposed to leaving the halifax infrastructure into the "wide world" to be lost.

Between January 2012 and February 2013 (some 14 months) I have received just 3 statements at the branch. these are all out of date and well beyond their due dates on every occasion.

Throughout this time, I have made "blind" payments of £100 per month (with counter receipts) - well in excess of what I have been informed to be the minimum balance.

I say again, even though you are a web developer, you presumably have use of a telephone?

bunchofbankers wrote: »

Despite this, I have over 12 bad payment markers on credit file, and deemed my card has not been paid "on time" since this debacle began.

Complaint number 5 - sort out my credit rating, and refund the late fees and interest applied during this time.

Ultimately, you caused this issue. The late payment markers are accurate.

bunchofbankers wrote: »

As far as I am concerned, this problem dates back to my original complaint in January 2011 upon closure of the account (there must have been a "trigger event"?) - since then the account has never "been right". However, Halifax "reportedly" have fixed my credit file. This has only been completed back to the date of my most recent complaint - and does not go any further historically. Halifax refuse to fix my credit file prior to complaint 5.

That is really good of them, certainly going beyond what is required.

What I would suggest going forward:

1. Phone up the collections/arrears number that you have for them (or, failing that, card services, using the number on your card). Ask them for the total amount in arrears that needs to be paid to bring your account up to date.

2. Pay this amount.

3. Bin the megaphone. You'll look a bit of a fool, to be perfectly honest.

4. Start to rebuild your credit history. Even if you don't receive a statement, phone up each month to check what the minimum payment is.

5. Pay this amount, or, preferably, more.