Bank Charges - What are my rights?

katelucy_whitham

Hi all, hoping for some help please!

I have a bank account with Halifax. Halifax charges me £1 a day for the benefit of using their overdraft facility.

I (stupidly) decided I didn’t want to bank with Halifax anymore (mainly due to the ridiculous charge) and moved to Santander, but still have an overdraft to repay with the Halifax.

I have been with Santander for over two years and have been chipping away at my Halifax OD VERY SLOWLY. This issue is that I'm charged £30/31 a month for having that OD.

Do Halifax have any kind of duty of care to help me manageably pay this, or can they just continue to charge me the OD fee? I really want to get it paid off, but can only manage £40 a month at present (which leaves about £10 coming off the total). Very slow.

Serious answers only please. I know it was a silly thing to do!!

ellerose

Do you have the credit rating to shift the overdraft to a 0% credit card, then then pay it off there?

R_P_W

katelucy_whitham wrote: »

Hi all, hoping for some help please!

I have a bank account with Halifax. Halifax charges me £1 a day for the benefit of using their overdraft facility.

I (stupidly) decided I didn’t want to bank with Halifax anymore (mainly due to the ridiculous charge) and moved to Santander, but still have an overdraft to repay with the Halifax.

I have been with Santander for over two years and have been chipping away at my Halifax OD VERY SLOWLY. This issue is that I'm charged £30/31 a month for having that OD.

Do Halifax have any kind of duty of care to help me manageably pay this, or can they just continue to charge me the OD fee? I really want to get it paid off, but can only manage £40 a month at present (which leaves about £10 coming off the total). Very slow.

Serious answers only please. I know it was a silly thing to do!!

How much is the overdraft?

You say they are charging you for the benefit of the overdraft....well yes you borrowed money from them. Have they changed their charges winces you built up the debt?

Apart from trying to move the debt to somewhere that charges less not sure there is much you can do.

National_Debtline

Hello there,

The bank does have an obligation to help you. It must treat you fairly if you are encountering financial difficulties. It is possible to have the interest and charges frozen on the old account. They may need to see a financial statement, you can complete one on our website. There are various rules that a bank should adhere to such as the Lending Code and the Banking Conduct of Business Rules.

Do consider communicating with them in writing (or via e-mail). You can find lots of information to help with this on our website: nationaldebtline.co.uk

Very best wishes,

David @ National Debtline

Just_a_Girl_2

I had a sizeable overdraft with Halifax in the past and was being charged £2 per day. I enquired about freezing charges so that I could pay it off and was advised the only way to do this was to allow the account to go into arrears, go to the collections department and then make an arrangement to pay it off. Unfortunately, this would incur a default on my credit file so I paid it off in one go and cancelled the overdraft facility altogether.

Thrugelmir

katelucy_whitham wrote: »

I really want to get it paid off, but can only manage £40 a month at present (which leaves about £10 coming off the total). Very slow.

Ask Halifax if they will convert the overdraft into a loan with a repayment in the region of £40 per month. It will cost you a lot less in interest than the £30 in charges. Thereby repaying the debt far quicker.

dancingfairy

This might be one ocassion where you'd be better getting say a 0% credit card or low rate credit card and using that to pay off the overdraft and then targetting the card. If you can't transfer money directly from the cc to the overdraft then you'd spend on the credit card (money you'd normally spend anyway say groceries and the like) and then use the money you would have spend to pay off your overdraft. It might take a bit of juggling but would probably save quite a bit of interest.
df

sourcrates

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Ask Halifax if they will convert the overdraft into a loan with a repayment in the region of £40 per month. It will cost you a lot less in interest than the £30 in charges. Thereby repaying the debt far quicker.

This is a good idea, and Halifax will/should do this for you if asked.