Halifax/BofScotland Insider Hints

tilthe

I was just wondering. With all thereclaiming of bank charges, does the apply apply only to banks? The reason i ask if because my building service company charges me £50+vat on late payment of the service charge and this is apart from the fact that they also charge me interest at the rate of 4% above the bank of England rate. So can i claim my money back.

slippyslot

hi.. its been months and months since I started claiming bank charges off the halifax, dead end after dead end. Was about to give up after the the `sorry ur unhappy' letter....... but ! after reading this thread I rang them again just to see if it would work. Very nice guy call Steven said it mite take 3 weeks to get back to me but that they will and with an offer better than before... !! up to this date I`ve never had an offer... wow. So I will give them a bit more time, just to see if they will come up with something, I AM CLAIMIMG £4500. I dont think that will be the offer but, lol. We will see but , Im not taking anlything under £3000. I think. lol. will let u all know how it goes.:eek:

amber88

just wanted to say that i followed your advice exactly, letter number 1 (sent 15th June) got the default 'go away, silly little girl' response, i just sent the second letter you suggested (25th June) and this morning i got my 50% offer letter whihc i'm going to accept. I'm doing the same thing with Abbey currently and they are still sending me 'sorry its taken so long, give me 4 more weeks', so i was pretty impressed with how quickly HBoS got it sorted.
I'm 1 very happy avenged consumer right now! :j

sidsaracer

I origionally applied for my bank charges to be refunded on 2 accounts in April. One account was for around £300 which they paid out on in full within about 3 weeks. Account number 2 is for £1306 plus interest, this is going through the same channels as you have all stated with the 'refusal' letter being sent to me on 19th June, i promptly replied with the 'going to court' letter and gave them 14 days to respond. On day 16 i decided to go to the ombudsman, i have filled out all the forms and the complaint is being delt with by them.

Today (25th July) i have recieved an other letter from Halifax basicly telling me they have had a change of heart and are going to make a payment of £653.00 into my account within the next 14 days. I phoned the ombudaman and explained the new situation, the man there asked one simple question 'Are you happy with their offer?' my reply 'no'. They advised me to call Halifax and tell them that i wont be excepting the offer and that i have also contacted the ombudsman. I did this and was informed that there was a new offer on the table now of £980.00 and would i be happy to accept that, i said that i would only accept my origional claim of £1306 (therefore letting them off with the interest), to this she said that she didnt have the Aurthority to settle for that amount but would send my case for rereview.

I will update as soon as i have any new information on this matter, but in the mean time keep on fighting and remember the charges are UNFAIR and try and get as much of your money back as possable. After all what have you got to lose.

greatscot

Just read this thread and got on the phone to the Halifax. I was reclaiming £128 inc interest. They had wrote to me offering £64. I called the number at the top of the letter, asked to speak to the sender of the letter by name and got put through. I asked her how she had arrived at £64 and she told me it was an offer of 50% but she said 'I have some scope'. So she basically invited me to ask for more. So I did. We've settled on £96.00.
£32 for a 3 minute phone call. So Easy. Thanks Martin and all you MSE's. :T

Leanne_B_3

I recently received my second letter from HBOS telling me that as a "Goodwill gesture" they would credit me half of what I had asked for within 48 hours, although that was a week ago, I have been assured it will hit my account today. This does seem to be their way of writing off the claims quickly and trying to will you not to proceed any further. Good luck to all those trying to get their money back, it seems to have worked for me!:o

tarahanna

Dear All,

There is light at the end of the tunnel! I have got back £1236 from Halifax.

I started sending the letters back in March and they have paid out and i've cashed the cheques they sent today.

My story has a twist as they had sent me a refusal letter and then i said i would go to court and on the back of that they sent me a stupid "cut & paste" letter saying they couldnt find my details so i called them - i was asking for £1750 but as they had also sent me someone else private details so i preached the Data Protection Act to them and they sent me the offer of £618 on the back of that... only two days later.. what a coincidence!!

then everyone said i was lucky to get that and i should be happy but as im moving house and have just bought a car i thought... what the heck - i made a phone call saying how i wasnt happy with the offer and that i may have accepted it before the "breach" but since then i think they should compensate me an dthey said they would send another cheque for £618 totalling... £1236.... im a very happy bunny! I was thinking of pushing it all the way and asking for £2200 including all the interest but i thought i better accept the second offer in case they withdrew everything and i needed the money asap so better off to have something than nothing!

im thinking of doing it for all of my old credit cards now but im not sure where all of the details would be?

rosemarb

Yesterday I received 2 letters from Bank of Scotland regarding the claims on my 2 accounts, each one only about £120.00 and no interest charged. Both offered approx. 50%. I was going to accept, but read someone else's letter about phoning and asking for more. It took quite a bit of re-dialling as the number was constantly busy but eventually got my man and with a bit of sympathy for his situation!!!! got the offer increased immediately to approx. 78% on each of the two accounts. Many thanks to all for your advice and encouragement in this. By the way I also had a similar claim in to the Royal Bank of Scotland who paid up straight away in full and with no quibbles.:beer: CHEERS!!!

EMC100

I have now finally come to the end of my journey. Thanks to Martin Lewis I now have £1138 that I did not have. I was claiming £1700 (inc Int) from Halifax, I got an offer of £785 of which I declined and spoke to my case manager who offered £1138 75% of my charges excluding interest. I had to accept the offer as I don't think Halifax are offering more money anymore. The guy advised me that Halifax have just paid too much and have incurred a lot of costs during this process and the most they are offering is that. I didn't want to go through court proceedings so I gave in. Many thanks to Martin :money:

moonbeam24

Hi,

I wrote to Halifax asking for a copy of my charges which they sent after the 14 days were up and following a phone call asking why had i not recieved the copy. They told me that they had a backlog to get through, but that i would receive it within next 6 days. True to their word, i got a list of my charges and didn't have to pay the £10 (brilliant!!) I wrote to them claiming back all my charges (used the templates from MSE) and they declined saying that i knew of the charges when i opened the account etc etc and gave me a copy of the booklets "bank accounts - helping you to understand our charges" and "personal customer complaints". I wrote back as per martin's template (used the one which now calculates interest) but added that i would take £700 instead of £802 if they settled within 14 days. Just received a letter from them today saying that they will give me £359 as a gesture of goodwill but that they do not believe they are under any legal obligation to do so!! They say that if i don't wish to accept their offer, to returen the payment and contact them on the above number. I'm wondering if i just take the money and run (it's £359 that i didn't have prior to this letter!)....or should i try ringing them to see what they can offer, but don't really want to wait at least 8 weeks before they get back to me. Does anyone have any advice on what i should do??