Sharp practice by halifax bank of scotland on isa's

Accountability_2

My wife and I both have fixed term ISAS with the Halifax which are due to mature next month. We have both received letters from the Bank of Scotland stating that our ISAS are due to mature. The letter states that if we do nothing our ISAS will automatically be moved into Bank of Scotland variable rate ISAS or that we can open a new Bank of Scotland fixed rate ISA. Apart from the large bold print header referring to our maturing Halifax ISAS there is no other mention of the Halifax. The problem is that the Halifax are offering 3% on a fixed three year ISA and the BOS only 2.4% for the same period.
I went to the Halifax maturities website and tried to take out new ISAS but this did not work. When I enquired with the Halifax and BOS I was told that even though we have a Halifax sort code and took the original accounts out with the Halifax, Lloyds bank decided to move all Scottish Halifax accounts to the BOS but did not inform the account holders. It took me two hours on the phone to get this information. Rather than filling in a simple web form I now need to wait till the accounts mature and then take out completely new ISAS with the Halifax if I wish to do so.
The problem is that for the unsuspecting customer they are likely to accept the Bank of Scotland offer letter at face value and take out a new BOS fixed rate ISA which give 20% less interest than the Halifax for exactly the same term, this is sharp practice to say the least. Is anyone else in Scotland experiencing this problem, is it legal for Lloyds to change my ISA account from the Halifax to the Bank of Scotland without telling me, can I do anything about this. Why should I have all this additional hassle for what appears to be a problem caused by the bank.I have complained to the bank but they do not accept any fault.

jonesMUFCforever

Basically yes it is. However you can apply for a fixed term ISA once it has matured - if you can't physically get to a branch then do it online.

Don't blame Halifax or BoS for this though - it's the bloody EU to blame!

innovate

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Don't blame Halifax or BoS for this though - it's the bloody EU to blame!

It's not "the bloody EU" - it's the shambles created by the UK banks, and in particular the scottish ones, such as HBOS, that created the issue in the first instance. If HBOS wasn't about to go bust, there would have been no need for Lloyds being asked to step in to avert further disaster. Unfortunately, that then created a behemoth.

Thank God there are competition laws that will not let monster banks exist for any length of time.

pinkdalek

innovate wrote: »

Thank God there are competition laws that will not let monster banks exist for any length of time.

There were competition laws in place when HBOS was going bust, however the government allowed Lloyds to bail them out.

Reason? The UK Goverenment would have been up a certain creek without a paddle.....in otherwords it could not afford to bail out HBOS itself. So now Lloyds has to sell off to create competition and is made out to be the bad guys, when really the whole banking crisis was caused by a lapse government who let its countries bank lend money beyond its means without any due care or duty as to what could happen (and did happen) when things went pear shaped. Hence the mess we are in now.

Anyway back to the OP, just open the fixed ISA online with Halifax and do a ISA transfer...you can open it now even before it is due to mature as you can transfer/pay in to the fixed ISA within the first 60 days of it opening......best to open the ISA now in case they pull the rate after the 5th April as their posters do say offer ends 5th April 2013. Previously they've always extended the term, and should they increase their rates you are quite within your rights to change your mind.

innovate

pinkdalek wrote: »

There were competition laws in place when HBOS was going bust, however the government allowed Lloyds to bail them out.

Yes, the competition laws were temporarily suspended, to avert a catastrophic financial meltdown that would have reverberated far beyond the UK shores.

System

The competition rules were bypassed because it was cheaper to bail out what became Lloyds Banking Group rather than HBOS and LloydsTSB separately.

However, I don't see what this has got to do with BOS offering inferior products through it's main brand rather than it's Halifax brand?

innovate wrote: »

Yes, the competition laws were temporarily suspended, to avert a catastrophic financial meltdown that would have reverberated far beyond the UK shores.

Dumyat

This has been the case for some time now. We used online and phone banking to keep Halifax ISAs last year, and will do the same again this next tax year.