Waiting For My Student Overdraft To Bite Me!!

loopsty

So back in 2011 (I think it was in September) I opened a student account with Halifax, being the naive twit that I was I saw their offer of an interest free overdraft as free money! The problem is I can't remember for the life of me when this is going to bite me in the !!!!!!

I think they said it would be interest free for the duration of the course (3 years) then for 3 years after. Issue is I dropped out of uni half way through year 2, but I don't think the bank would know that? I can't find any information on my online banking about when the account will start charging interest! Life being what it is I've moved house 5 times since the account opened and so no longer have the original paper work.

I don't want to call the bank to ask them incase they've forgotten to press a button or the account was some how miraculously set to never charge me interest! But not knowing is making me really anxious! I'm gradually trying to pay it off but I've had a decent wage for the last 2 years and before that I was on less than minimum wage and racked up loads of other debts that have only recently been paid off!

Can anyone help me? How to I find out when the interest/fees will start and how much they're going to be?

JuicyJesus

It'll likely be three years after your course starts.

None of us however can guarantee this. You will at some point have to speak to the bank and arrange repayment - you may as well do this now.

johnac

The student account is only available to students, since you're no longer a student what type of account did they change the account to? That might help you work out the interest rate from their website.

If they were/are going to charge you interest they'll not have forgotten.. so really just ring them... you'll feel better contacting them and sorting something.

jonesMUFCforever

Strange but this is the 3rd 'I can't remember what happened to my student account' post in last few days. Are they related in any way - all of them seem to have approximately the same timescale of when it happened??

PeacefulWaters

You'll get two months notice of any change. Probably this summer. Attack it now.

I think I'd accidentally forget to tell them you're not a student.

Candyapple

loopsty wrote: »

So back in 2011 (I think it was in September) I opened a student account with Halifax, being the naive twit that I was I saw their offer of an interest free overdraft as free money! The problem is I can't remember for the life of me when this is going to bite me in the !!!!!!

I think they said it would be interest free for the duration of the course (3 years) then for 3 years after. Issue is I dropped out of uni half way through year 2, but I don't think the bank would know that? I can't find any information on my online banking about when the account will start charging interest! Life being what it is I've moved house 5 times since the account opened and so no longer have the original paper work.

I don't want to call the bank to ask them incase they've forgotten to press a button or the account was some how miraculously set to never charge me interest! But not knowing is making me really anxious! I'm gradually trying to pay it off but I've had a decent wage for the last 2 years and before that I was on less than minimum wage and racked up loads of other debts that have only recently been paid off!

Can anyone help me? How to I find out when the interest/fees will start and how much they're going to be?

Not a chance in hell. With Halifax it's free for 3 years whilst you are a student and then they give you 1 year after graduating still interest free so that you can clear any remaining overdraft before changing the status of your account to just a normal current account with all the normal overdraft charges.

So if you opened your account in Sept 2011, July/August 2015 they would have written to you to warn you about this.

Do you not have internet banking access to the account?

If you haven't touched the account since 2015, no doubt it's been incurring OD charges every month until they would have defaulted you.

Give them a call and find out what happened to the account.

SuperAllyB

OP says they're gradually trying to pay Of off which would suggest to me that they get statements or have online banking to keep track of the OD balance. I may well be wrong though, it has happened once before.