Compensation for bank error

Studentalisha

Hi all,

Very strange scenario has occurred with Halifax MasterCard. My credit card was declined in a shop yesterday and then declined again today whilst trying to make an online payment. I phoned customer services and to cut a very long story short, they have accidentally blocked my credit card instead of someone else’s. There was a note on my account that said something along the lines of “the customer and his wife do not recognise the £180 transaction to (website) and so the account has been blocked due to suspected fraudulent acivity”. I am a 20 year old female without a wife!

The man on the phone was very friendly but he put me on hold a couple of times to talk to a manager (I’m guessing this kind of thing doesn’t happen every day!). He’s passed the details on to the fraud team who are going to investigate what happened in the first place. Until I speak to them (the man recommended I call back tomorrow to get the process moving as quickly as possible rather than waiting for them to call me) I will be left without a credit card because there is nothing they can do to unblock it.

Heres another annoying twist - I manually paid my credit card off a couple of days before it was due to come out of my account automatically. A second payment of £1300 was withdrawn from my current account a couple of days later (I guess the system didn’t realise that I’d paid it manually). So now my credit card has a positive balance of £500 ish (my credit limit is £2500 and I have over £3000 available to spend). So the money I actually have access to in my current account is lower than what it should be due to the second payment coming out of my current account..

The man on the phone asked what I would like in terms of compensation and I asked for his advice as I had no idea. He said around £70 is reasonable for a minor issue but the mistake that they made was not minor and that I could ask for upwards of £100.


How much do you think is reasonable for me to ask for in compensation? Add in the fact that £500 of money I own is stuck on the credit card that they’ve cancelled (I didn’t emphasise this part to the man on the phone who thought I could ask for more than £100).

Any advise greatly appreciated 😊 I’m going to be stuck without my credit card and the £500 that own until at least Thursday/Friday when I get my new card through.

Thanks
Alisha

jonesMUFCforever

1. Technically you have not lost out financially.
2. It was your fault for not reading the new ways that Halifax direct debits were being taken.
3.If you get anywhere near £100 bite their hand off!

I would think £50 to be more nearer the mark IMO.

colsten

1. Why did you pay off your credit card bill if you had a DD to pay it off?
2. when was your credit card cancelled (as you say it was), and why?
3. have you lodged a formal complaint about having your card blocked, and not having had it unblocked after calling the card issuer about the block?
4. why is the subject of the thread "compensation"?

18cc

Ask for £125 see what they say

just in case you don't know Halifax have changed their direct debit procedure recently whereby they will always take the statement balance by direct debit (assuming you have set up that) even if you pay something off manually so make sure if you want to pay manually that you do it before the statement is produced as they will always take the statement balance whatever

YorkshireBoy

18cc wrote: »

just in case you don't know Halifax have changed their direct debit procedure recently

Even if they hadn't, with just a "couple of days" to go there was always the danger of this happening under the old rules, especially if a weekend was involved and/or the payment was coming from outside Halifax.

TBagpuss

I think the over payment to your card is down to your actions and isn't anything that they should be expected to compensate you for, so the issue is what it is appropriate to have for the inconvenience of having your card blocked. Unless there is a significant delay in them sending out a new one, I would have thought that £50 or so would be reasonable. Obviously if there are repeated issues, or they don't do what they promise they will, then of course you can escalate it.

It's not uncommon to have your card blocked, it happens as part of fraud prevention measures, so the only reason you would be looking at any compensation at all is because the suspicious activity was actually not on your card. It's one of the reasons why it can be a good idea to have more than one method of payment.

karlie88

Try and push for £1k if you can.

badmemory

The letter I had, followed by the comments on my next statement made it quite clear about payments made when a DD was in place. I'm not sure what their policy is on a negative balance however, it is something which has never concerned me, well not for more than a refund soon used by regular spending.

bluffer

karlie88 wrote: »

Try and push for £1k if you can.

i hope you are fishing here. no way does what happened justify anywhere near £1k


more like the £50-100 range for the note on the incorrect acct and the block/cancellation or whichever happened.

bluffer

Studentalisha wrote: »

Hi all,
...they have accidentally blocked my credit card instead of someone else’s. ...... I will be left without a credit card because there is nothing they can do to unblock it.

..... the credit card that they’ve cancelled (I didn’t emphasise this part to the man on the phone who thought I could ask for more than £100).

Any advise greatly appreciated 😊 I’m going to be stuck without my credit card and the £500 that own until at least Thursday/Friday when I get my new card through.

so, is it blocked or cancelled?


I assume you have another card that payments can be made with so its not like you cant buy anything.

Westie983

Hi,

I have a few questions, if they had made a mistake and cancelled your card, I am surprised that they told you what the note said as it was revealed nothing to do with your account.

When there is a disputed transaction on a credit card its not normally cancelled but the amount is put in dispute so has the account been disputed and not cancelled or have they believe its been used fraudulently and cancelled the account?

Cards being stopped due to unknown transactions are common and sometimes happen before you are even aware of it, before you get the declined transaction, so I feel that even though they have made a mistake and it wasnt your account impacted, the account being frozen isn't something that is out of the ordinary.

I would say that the inconvenience of not having a working credit card its worth around £50 and covers your phone calls although its most probably covered by phone plans. If they approve this you can use this to bridge the gap till your card is replaced if that is the next step (if its cancelled rather then in dispute)

Hope this helps

Westie983