Halifax Have Wrong Address

drlabman

My daughter has just discovered that the address that Halifax hold for her is completely wrong. She didn't inform them of this new address, although she did move house a few months ago. I would have thought that you get correspondence and maybe a text alert informing you of change of address in case of fraud. Anyone care to suggest how this may have happened?

surreysaver

I don't understand your question. Who would inform who of a change of address? Your daughter is going to be the only person who knows she's moved if she doesn't tell anyone. She should have set up the forwarding service with the Royal Mail, then she would know who she's forgotten to tell.

And when you say the address the Halifax hold is 'completely wrong', do you mean its some random address (possibly suggesting fraud if someone else has told them of a change of address), or is it her old address?

drlabman

Apologies if I wasn't clear. The address that Halifax currently hold for her is not her current or any of her previous addresses. It's about 500miles from where she lives. I thought that when you inform Halifax of change of address they would send correspondence to your old and new address. There was no correspondence to the old address. I also thought that if you have a mobile number registered with them they would send a text alert to you. That didn't happen either. So it's a bit of a mystery as to how the change of address happened and/or who initiated it.

xylophone

So it's a bit of a mystery as to how the change of address happened and/or who initiated it.

Has your daughter asked Halifax to explain?

eskbanker

This all comes down to the Data Protection Act - Halifax will be in breach of this if they've changed an address without authorisation from the account-holder, but conversely they'll probably cite the act to justify not telling your daughter exactly what happened and when and how.

Obviously the key thing is to get the info corrected asap but chances are that a complaint would see some sort of gesture of goodwill offered....

System

It's either an admin error or attempted fraud.

durhamviper

drlabman wrote: »

I thought that when you inform Halifax of change of address they would send correspondence to your old and new address

No, I've just moved and, when I told Halifax, the confirmation letter was just sent to the new address.

Money_Grabber13579

When I moved house, Halifax changed my address without me telling them... having said that, they subsequently dropped half the street name off the address and have ignored all requests to get it reinstated.

I can only think that Halifax had some sort of link between my bank accounts and my parents bank accounts and changed all the addresses at once...

EarthBoy

drlabman wrote: »

I thought that when you inform Halifax of change of address they would send correspondence to your old and new address. .

Why did you think that? None of the banks I've ever been with has ever done that. In fact, none of them have ever sent anything in the post to confirm a change of address, you just find that statements etc. start to come to the new address from then on.

drlabman wrote: »

There was no correspondence to the old address.

Why would there be? The bank would be silly to knowingly send correspondence to an address where you no longer live.

TheShape

drlabman wrote: »

There was no correspondence to the old address.

EarthBoy wrote: »

Why would there be? The bank would be silly to knowingly send correspondence to an address where you no longer live.

When I changed address I don't think any of my current account or credit card providers sent notification to my old address but my pension providers and a number of building societies did send correspondence to my previous address. The letters explained that they had changed my address following a request to do so and requested that I contact them if I had not asked for such a change to be made. No account details were included on the correspondence to the previous address.

tempus_fugit

TheShape wrote: »

When I changed address I don't think any of my current account or credit card providers sent notification to my old address but my pension providers and a number of building societies did send correspondence to my previous address. The letters explained that they had changed my address following a request to do so and requested that I contact them if I had not asked for such a change to be made. No account details were included on the correspondence to the previous address.

Yes, I have had this from some companies too, and I think it is a good idea in case you didn't actually initiate the change of address. Obviously there is a security risk in doing this though, but as I had mail redirection set up I got both letters at my new address anyway, so I think it is really essential to do this when moving house.