Help with paying Clarity card bill

ANGLICANPAT

Just paying our first Clarity card bill online from our HSBC account . From HSBC's 'list' of organisations to pay, I found Halifax Clarity, so picked that . It came up ok showing the correct 77 29 00 sortcode and 00000000 acc number for Halifax, so all ok so far. Filled in the payment details , and for the reference number, put in my Halifax 16 digit mastercard number written on top of bill, and across the card, ( which from the instructions,I understand to be my account number as well as reference no).
Double checked everything, clicked on, and it came up with

Your reference number is either incorrect or incomplete. Please ensure you have correctly entered your entire card number (S01)

I redid it twice very carefully - same result each time. What does the S01 mean? Any ideas what I could be doing wrong please, before I get onto Halifax (as instructed by HSBC on its help bar)

thebritishbloke

I've only ever paid my Clarity from a TSB account, and for that I had to select "Halifax Card Services" in the list of who to pay. Then the reference was my card number and I just put the amount in and hit send. Takes a couple of days to clear.

grumbler

ANGLICANPAT wrote: »

...Any ideas what I could be doing wrong please, before I get onto Halifax (as instructed by HSBC on its help bar)

I don't understand why HSBC instruct you to go to Halifax.

I have Halifax Clarity in my list of payees in Santander account, and indeed the reference is the pure 16-dig card number.

BTW, the above acc. number and the sortcode are correct.

virgo17

Very strange. I pay my Clarity card from my First Direct current account in the same way using faster payments. As FD are part of HSBC it seems odd that you are having a problem.

zagfles

You didn't put spaces in it did you?

Vortigern

virgo17 wrote: »

Very strange. I pay my Clarity card from my First Direct current account in the same way using faster payments. As FD are part of HSBC it seems odd that you are having a problem.

I had a problem with my first payment from first direct to Halifax Clarity.

I chose Halifax Clarity from firstdirect's drop down list and gave my card number as reference. I made a payment, but it was returned!

My "error" was to select "Halifax Clarity" rather than "Halifax Mastercard." This is a failing of firstdirect's online banking, which insists that I select from a list, rather than typing in the collection account details from my CC statement, which I'd tried to do.

HSBC May be rejecting the OP's card number because the first 4 digits are not appropriate to the collection account selected.

Check the sort code carefully. HTH

virgo17

Vortigern wrote: »

My "error" was to select "Halifax Clarity" rather than "Halifax Mastercard." This is a failing of firstdirect's online banking, which insists that I select from a list, rather than typing in the collection account details from my CC statement,

You may well be right in this. I seem to recall that when I used the pull down list, something didn't look right so I elected to enter all the info manually. Distant bells are ringing ...

ANGLICANPAT

Thanks all. Ive been onto Halifax to double check that the drop down box has come up with the correct sort and acc number , and verified exactly what is meant by reference number and its format - and its exactly as Ive done it , no spaces, and the same 16 numbers that are across my card . Halifax have no idea what the (S01) is that HSBC quoted or why HSBC are saying the reference is incorrect.

What they did suggest is for me to just do telephone banking and ask for the Halifax payment to be set up online for me . So, Ill register for that and do it on Monday and see if the reference is accepted with them doing it manually.

zagfles

Can you not set the payment details up manually - in the same way as if you were paying to a personal account eg a friend? I've had to do this a couple of times where the CC details on the drop down list were missing or wrong.

I usually send a test payment of £1 having set up new payment details just to make sure it gets there OK, before sending any significant amount.

Vortigern

zagfles wrote: »

Can you not set the payment details up manually - in the same way as if you were paying to a personal account eg a friend?

You can't do this with firstdirect; their system recognises that you're trying to pay a credit card (or other known bill/utility) and insists that you choose the company from a list. This list included "Halifax Clarity" and "Halifax Mastercard" when I last used it. I made the obvious choice - Clarity, and the payment failed.

This was 2 years ago. Their system may have changed since then?

zagfles

Vortigern wrote: »

You can't do this with firstdirect; their system recognises that you're trying to pay a credit card (or other known bill/utility) and insists that you choose the company from a list. This list included "Halifax Clarity" and "Halifax Mastercard" when I last used it. I made the obvious choice - Clarity, and the payment failed.

This was 2 years ago. Their system may have changed since then?

I set mine up on Nationwide - as I remember they didn't have the Halifax Clarity on the list but they did have lots of other Halifax cards, none of which looked right. So I just set it up manually and it worked.