Halifax closed my bank account - Few questions

jumperabv3

About 3 months ago I got a phone call to my mobile, from withheld number, the lady on the phone said she is from Halifax Review, calling to inquire about certain Skrill (Moneybookers) transactions in my account. Skrill is like PayPal but mainly for gambling if you're not familiar with it.

Back then I had several "normal" gambling transactions using Skrill (normal for me - deposit and withdraw), but for large amounts (I collected miles by depositing large amounts, betting on short odds and withdrawing) - ps personally I stopped with gambling for quite a good time, it's better and not worth all the hassles involved.

Anyway - I told them the transactions are genuinely gambling transactions. She said that makes sense, thanked me and hanged up.

Then the next day - same thing - whilst I was shopping with my wife on Friday - same phone call, different lady, I told her you just spoke to me yesterday. She couldn't understand why I was on her system to call again but took the same notes. I tried asking for phone number for her or anything but she told she can't provide it.

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After these phone calls I called Halifax customer service and asked if there is any note on my account - they couldn't see anything and several representatives even insisted it's impossible they or the Review team would call from withheld numbers - I told them - well I have a very good caller ID on my phone - so they were puzzled and even said these phone calls might have not been genuine ones but I insisted the ladies on the phone did not sound like Nigerian people trying to get info from me, they knew exactly the date and transactions they inquired about .... anyway long story short, let's leave it asides now.

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Okay,

So pretty much that gave me the "assurance" that my Halifax account would get closed, even if I provided true and honest information over the phone - they don't care, 2 phone calls from their "Account Review" team - at least I was "lucky" enough to know exactly what was the problem with my account as I read many other threads of people getting their account closed surprisingly.

Moving onwards.....

On 13 June they sent a letter advising they will close my account(s) - Current & Savings - within 60 days.

Well, 2 days ago they closed them without giving me the 60 days... 30 days was too much for them ... I called them to inquire "what's the rush" - they said it's a management decision and they can close it before the date indicated in the letter.

Honestly I am not too affected by it, few clicks online and few phone calls and moved all my direct debits to Barclays and banking with them now. But keeping other accounts open - never put all eggs in 1 basket, this way it's easy to handle such an incident.

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The questions I had to the people over the phone and they couldn't answer me with proper answer were as follows:

• Am I banned permanently from Halifax or can I try to open another account with them in the future?
• If I can open a new one - how soon can I try it? tomorrow? next month? what's the definition of time here? The lady over the phone couldn't tell me exact time, she "reckoned" about a month time - but that's not a proper answer to "reckon" something.
• Why my Halifax Clarity card remained open? I can still login with username & password to Halifax and see my Halifax clarity there - only paying it now from Barclays and not from Halifax.
• Last question - does the closure affect my credit rating? The letter didn't indicate anything about it but I wanted to ask you.

If you could help me with these questions it would be much appreciated, thanks!

Ed-1

jumperabv3 wrote: »

About 3 months ago I got a phone call to my mobile, from withheld number, the lady on the phone said she is from Halifax Review, calling to inquire about certain Skrill (Moneybookers) transactions in my account. Skrill is like PayPal but mainly for gambling if you're not familiar with it.

Back then I had several "normal" gambling transactions using Skrill (normal for me - deposit and withdraw), but for large amounts (I collected miles by depositing large amounts, betting on short odds and withdrawing) - ps personally I stopped with gambling for quite a good time, it's better and not worth all the hassles involved.

Anyway - I told them the transactions are genuinely gambling transactions. She said that makes sense, thanked me and hanged up.

Then the next day - same thing - whilst I was shopping with my wife on Friday - same phone call, different lady, I told her you just spoke to me yesterday. She couldn't understand why I was on her system to call again but took the same notes. I tried asking for phone number for her or anything but she told she can't provide it.

---

After these phone calls I called Halifax customer service and asked if there is any note on my account - they couldn't see anything and several representatives even insisted it's impossible they or the Review team would call from withheld numbers - I told them - well I have a very good caller ID on my phone - so they were puzzled and even said these phone calls might have not been genuine ones but I insisted the ladies on the phone did not sound like Nigerian people trying to get info from me, they knew exactly the date and transactions they inquired about .... anyway long story short, let's leave it asides now.

---

Okay,

So pretty much that gave me the "assurance" that my Halifax account would get closed, even if I provided true and honest information over the phone - they don't care, 2 phone calls from their "Account Review" team - at least I was "lucky" enough to know exactly what was the problem with my account as I read many other threads of people getting their account closed surprisingly.

Moving onwards.....

On 13 June they sent a letter advising they will close my account(s) - Current & Savings - within 60 days.

Well, 2 days ago they closed them without giving me the 60 days... 30 days was too much for them ... I called them to inquire "what's the rush" - they said it's a management decision and they can close it before the date indicated in the letter.

Honestly I am not too affected by it, few clicks online and few phone calls and moved all my direct debits to Barclays and banking with them now. But keeping other accounts open - never put all eggs in 1 basket, this way it's easy to handle such an incident.

---

The questions I had to the people over the phone and they couldn't answer me with proper answer were as follows:

• Am I banned permanently from Halifax or can I try to open another account with them in the future?
• If I can open a new one - how soon can I try it? tomorrow? next month? what's the definition of time here? The lady over the phone couldn't tell me exact time, she "reckoned" about a month time - but that's not a proper answer to "reckon" something.
• Why my Halifax Clarity card remained open? I can still login with username & password to Halifax and see my Halifax clarity there - only paying it now from Barclays and not from Halifax.
• Last question - does the closure affect my credit rating? The letter didn't indicate anything about it but I wanted to ask you.

If you could help me with these questions it would be much appreciated, thanks!

What did the letter say that they sent you? Do you still have it? Not giving you 2 months notice is grounds for complaint as they must give you 2 months notice by the terms and conditions (unless they suspect fraud when they can close immediately). Giving you 60 days notice and then closing part way through is neither here nor there.

You can try applying for another account and see what happens...

jumperabv3

Ed-1 wrote: »

What did the letter say that they sent you? Do you still have it? Not giving you 2 months notice is grounds for complaint as they must give you 2 months notice by the terms and conditions (unless they suspect fraud when they can close immediately). Giving you 60 days notice and then closing part way through is neither here nor there.

You can try applying for another account and see what happens...

The letter just says they have the right to close accounts, and they exercise it, there were no grounds for fraud and no fraud was ever mentioned in the letter nor in the phone calls from them.

Regarding complaint - I am not upset with them, in fact mitigating my route for gambling is actually better when I come to think about it (Barclays blocks deposits into Skrill, Halifax doesn't) ... but practically speaking - what is the benefit of filing a complaint, would I get anything out of it?

The lady on the phone suggested to wait a month before applying for another account - for Savings account it really takes just 2 clicks because they got all my info because my username is still active because I still hold the Halifax Clarity Card (excellent card by the way) .... so I don't know if I should wait or not.

The only additional thing I know is they told me over the phone they decided to close it immediately without any reason given, they already issued a cheque (aka check) for the remaining balance and its on its way to me, PayPal UK even sent me an email telling me the bank informed them the account cannot be used for future funding (I believe it's automatic notification - it just shows they did everything extremely quickly) .... I honestly don't know why, in fact I didn't have any gambling transaction recently but their review they did could have looked at my activity from several months ago (when they called me) and maybe that was their main concern.

I really don't know....
If you have further suggestions I'd be happy to hear, thanks.

Ed-1

jumperabv3 wrote: »

The letter just says they have the right to close accounts, and they exercise it, there were no grounds for fraud and no fraud was ever mentioned in the letter nor in the phone calls from them.

Regarding complaint - I am not upset with them, in fact mitigating my route for gambling is actually better when I come to think about it (Barclays blocks deposits into Skrill, Halifax doesn't) ... but practically speaking - what is the benefit of filing a complaint, would I get anything out of it?

The lady on the phone suggested to wait a month before applying for another account - for Savings account it really takes just 2 clicks because they got all my info because my username is still active because I still hold the Halifax Clarity Card (excellent card by the way) .... so I don't know if I should wait or not.

The only additional thing I know is they told me over the phone they decided to close it immediately without any reason given, they already issued a cheque (aka check) for the remaining balance and its on its way to me, PayPal UK even sent me an email telling me the bank informed them the account cannot be used for future funding (I believe it's automatic notification - it just shows they did everything extremely quickly) .... I honestly don't know why, in fact I didn't have any gambling transaction recently but their review they did could have looked at my activity from several months ago (when they called me) and maybe that was their main concern.

I really don't know....
If you have further suggestions I'd be happy to hear, thanks.

So no blocks were ever put on your account? Was it just one current account you had that was closed?

Who was the letter from? Several people on here have received letters from the Account Closure Unit closing all their accounts after 60 days and saying that they can no longer maintain a banking relationship with them. I take it your letter was different?

Archi_Bald

jumperabv3 wrote: »

So pretty much that gave me the "assurance" that my Halifax account would get closed, even if I provided true and honest information over the phone

How did you conclude from these review calls that your account would be closed? Did they say they might close your accounts?

Cakeguts

Halifax once declared me dead and closed some of my accounts and left others open. This was a few years ago now but the haphazard way in which they left some accounts open and closed others was quite interesting. The fact that they decided that I had died was also quite interesting to me because to my knowledge at the time I was pretty sure that I hadn't. They had got my name muddled up with the name of a relation who had died. Our names were completely different and the date of birth was also different and so were the addresses so I am now very suspicious of anything that the Halifax would do to any accounts.

System

They can put a marker to auto decline future applications, either initially or shortly after opening, this is probably what they have done.

jumperabv3

Ed-1 wrote: »

So no blocks were ever put on your account? Was it just one current account you had that was closed?

Who was the letter from? Several people on here have received letters from the Account Closure Unit closing all their accounts after 60 days and saying that they can no longer maintain a banking relationship with them. I take it your letter was different?

Yes, it seems to be different, I have no idea what happened to others really....
:eek:

jumperabv3

Archi_Bald wrote: »

How did you conclude from these review calls that your account would be closed? Did they say they might close your accounts?

It's very simple ... once you get phone calls of this kind, you see it as a red flag ... I got my Barclays account open for 1 more year than Halifax (since 2009, Halifax is since 2010), and never ever I have received phone calls from Barclays about my activity but with Halifax it happened to me several years ago but that was 'fortunately' a call from the branch and not from the Review department.

All in all, I don't mind having Halifax because I like its online banking operation - the only thing I hate about Barclays is the need to use this PIN calculator each time I want to login, it's so annoying ... if anyone knows how to use the account with it please let me know ...

Also I didn't know Barclays also has similar rewards to Halifax... I used to get the £5/month from Halifax ... didn't know Barclays is offering something similar if you pay in £800/month and have minimum 2 direct debits (then you get £7/month, pay a fee of £3/month - so it would still be £4/month which is £1/month less than Halifax, but no big deal ... can also live without these perks as long as no one is bothering me with phone calls and now that I don't do gambling I don't expect it haha) .....

jumperabv3

Heng_Leng wrote: »

They can put a marker to auto decline future applications, either initially or shortly after opening, this is probably what they have done.

Thanks, do you know in that case (hypothetically speaking let's say you're right) - why did they leave my Halifax Clarity card account open and didn't close it as well?

Kim_13

Presumably because they can't force early repayment of that type of borrowing (unlike overdrafts which have a repayable in full on demand clause.)

As others have said, file a complaint. Gambling transactions do tend to trigger these 60 day closure notices which they can issue for any undisclosed reason they wish (it's probably that they see an increased risk of fraud and don't want to take the risk) but they can't close before the end of those 60 days unless:

• there is illegal or fraudulent activity on or connected to the account;
• you are or may be behaving improperly (for example, in a threatening or abusive way);
• by continuing the agreement we (or another company in the Lloyds Banking Group) may be exposed to action from any government, regulator or other authority or may break a regulatory requirement; or
• you have seriously or repeatedly broken this agreement in any other way.

As you have discussed the transactions with them and answered the questions asked of you, I don't think they can justify reasonably considering them as fraud/illegal.

Equally, you were entitled to point out that you had already been contacted so as long as you did so in a polite manner, I don't think they can justify grounds of improper behaviour.