Slight Banking Issue

Cotta

Hi All,


Last night I opted to pay off my Clarity Card bill in full which was £300, I went into my Halifax account and selected pay credit card in full and then I logged out. This morning when I checked to make sure everything was as it should be I noticed that Halifax took £650 from my current account and put it on my credit card leaving the card in credit to the value of £350.

What is worse is my mortgage payment also due out today has defaulted as my account was £200 short due to the Clarity account payment.

Can anyone advise as to whether I can blame Halifax for this issue? I have already spoken to them and they are investigating.

Placitasgirl

Do you have a Direct Debit in place to pay your Clarity Card the full statement amount? If so this could explain it; your "manual" payment yesterday won't have stopped the DD being claimed, so both payments would have reached the card.

I'd advise checking your Clarity Card statement - if a payment is being claimed it will tell you how much and when. If this is the case then the fault doesn't lie with Halifax but at your end as you didn't stop the DD.

If this is the case you may ask Halifax to recall the DD (meaning it'll be returned to your account), but you'll also need to ask their advice on the mortgage payment "default" as a matter of priority.

Cotta

The direct debit was due to come out on the 28th of the month.

Placitasgirl

Was the DD to have been claimed in the sum of the second amount credited to the card? If so you may need to look into using the DD Indemnity/Guarantee to reclaim the payment if it was made incorrectly (earlier than your statement tells you it would be taken).

How is the second payment to the card described? DD/the same as the payment you made manually?

You will need to contact Halifax to progress this as it seems there is some anomaly here that Halifax will need to investigate and help you to resolve is appropriate.

PeacefulWaters

The starting assumption would be that you pressed the wrong buttons.

Robin9

When you select Pay Credit Card/Make One Off Payment/Pay Credit Card you then have further options Statement Balance/Chosen Amount/Min Balance.

Have you spent £350 on your card since the statement was produced.

PS Why bother to pay it early when you have a DD arrangement ?

Ben8282

This really is very strange.
If the debit card payment was made last night, it would not yet have been debited from your current account. It may be showing as a pending transaction somewhere though and the amount may have been deducted from the available balance.
Similarly, the debit card payment cannot yet be showing on your Halifax credit card online banking as the system would not yet have updated today to show it. I would also be surprised if this debit card payment is yet reflected in the available credit as the payment will not yet have been received.
Regarding the mortgage, the mortgage will not have been defaulted due to the failed direct debit. You have had all day today to call the mortgage provider and offer an alternative form of payment and thereby avoid any late payment marker.
I would suggest that if you have not yet paid the mortgage you call them and see if they will accept payment by credit card. Failing this, I suggest tomorrow morning you take a cash advance from the credit card and get the mortgage paid. This will cost a cash advance fee and a little interest but the most important thing is to get the mortgage paid. If Halifax or your bank are subsequently found to be at fault you can try to claim back the cash advance fee and any interest.

noh

Ben8282 wrote: »

This really is very strange.
If the debit card payment was made last night, it would not yet have been debited from your current account. It may be showing as a pending transaction somewhere though and the amount may have been deducted from the available balance.
Similarly, the debit card payment cannot yet be showing on your Halifax credit card online banking as the system would not yet have updated today to show it. I would also be surprised if this debit card payment is yet reflected in the available credit as the payment will not yet have been received.
..................

The OP did not say that the payment was made by debit card.

Halifax online banking appear to only give the option of paying from a Halifax current account or by faster payment from an external account.
I think that the OP paid the credit card from a Halifax current account which would have been an internal transfer therefore immediate.
The three options on amount to pay are
Statement balance
Your chosen amount
Minimum payment

There is no option to "pay credit card in full" as stated by OP.

The OP either chose statement balance (note this is the balance on last statement not current balance)
or typed £650 into the chosen amount box.

Dobbibill

You need to do a few things here.

- Speak to the mortgage company - they will not default you for a payment a few days late.
- Speak to the Internet Banking team at Halifax and see exactly what happened when you were online last night. They will be able to see what was entered for the credit card payment and therefore determine where the error was.
- Speak to Halifax Credit Card team and ask for the positive balance to be returned to you. This normally takes 2 working days I think.

Robin9

I hope that OP will come back to the Forum and tell us what has happened here even it is to say that the error was their own.

One of the benefits of the Forum is that we can all learn

Cotta

**Resolved**

Halifax today brought my account balance back to £0 on my Clarity card and returned the surplus balance to my current account.

On top of this they advised that the fees added to my account would be refunded and while they were accepting no blame for what happened they accepted that the process was poor and confusing which is in the process of being changed - due to this a £40 settlement offer was made.