Accidental Missed Payment Halifax CCard

molerat

The bottom cell of my spreadsheet tells me how much I have to spend for the rest of the month even before some of it gets paid in - I get paid on 1st, 13th and last Wednesday so things are not that straight forward. CC payments get taken by DD so it can't be late and the money is in the account for as long as possible earning 3% interest.

The-Truth

chattychappy wrote: »

Personally I think the time will come when this practice of removing a deal will be found to be unfair or even illegal.

What law would it break then? Such terms are always blatantly made clear.

chattychappy

The-Truth wrote: »

What law would it break then? Such terms are always blatantly made clear.

Firstly, just because something is made clear in written T+Cs, doesn't make it legally enforceable. Remember when CC T+Cs provided for penalties of £20 or £25 for a missed payment? Very clear in the T+Cs. But these were found to be illegal - a penalty must be a fair reflection of the damage to the injured party. The OFT (the regulator at the time) stated that they would presume anything above £12 to be unfair, so it has since become a defacto standard.

PPI was "always blatantly made clear" in the T+Cs, as was the negative payment hierarchy. One was found to be illegal, the second unfair and was subsequently removed through regulation.

The point I'm making is that lending is a highly regulated activity between unequal parties. We have "vulnerable" borrowers and "nasty" big lenders. The drift of regulation is to remove practices that are seen as unfair. The removal of promo deals for a one-off mistake is the sort of "gotcha" situation which will be on the regulator's radar. It does rather look like a disguised form of penalty.

For the time being, this practice hasn't been challenged. In the absence of a judgment, nobody can say if it's legal or not. It's certainly not legal just because it's in the T+Cs. It's notable that CCs routinely reinstate these deals on request. Whilst that remains the case, it's less likely the regulator (now the FCA) will intervene.

chuckley

Not a fan of D/D's in general as I can never keep track when there's several. Once I has debt issues I had to switch to manual so I could calculate myself.

I only use D/D's for things I have no choice for, which so far is only 3 things. Everything else including cards I pay through online banking, as it's the only way I can keep track.

The-Truth

The-Truth wrote: »

What law would it break then? Such terms are always blatantly made clear.

chattychappy wrote: »

Firstly, just because something is made clear in written T+Cs, doesn't make it legally enforceable. Remember when CC T+Cs provided for penalties of £20 or £25 for a missed payment? Very clear in the T+Cs. But these were found to be illegal - a penalty must be a fair reflection of the damage to the injured party. The OFT (the regulator at the time) stated that they would presume anything above £12 to be unfair, so it has since become a defacto standard.

Which has nothing to do with the op's post at all as it's a rate change not an unfair charge!

chattychappy

The-Truth wrote: »

Which has nothing to do with the op's post at all as it's a rate change not an unfair charge!

Which it does, if you read all my post instead of selectively quoting.