Refunds to Credit Cards

[Deleted User]

Read the T's and C's of the card:

Refunds and credit adjustments to your account between the statement date and your payment due date will reduce your overall balance. But they will only count towards your minimum payment for that month (excluding arrears and any amount you owe above the credit limit) if they reduce the balance to less than that minimum payment amount. If this happens, and you have not yet paid your minimum payment, we will reduce the minimum payment needed so that it equals the full remaining balance (if any).

For example


Scenario 1
If you have a balance of £100, and the minimum payment we ask you for in your statement is £20, and there is a refund to your account of £50 between your statement date and your payment due date (or your Direct Debit date, if earlier), then we will still require you to pay the full minimum payment of £20.


Scenario 2
If you have a balance of £100, and the minimum payment we ask you for in your statement is £20, and there is a refund to your account of £90 between your statement date and your payment due date, (or your Direct Debit date, if earlier), then we will reduce the minimum payment needed so that it equals the full remaining balance of £10.


Scenario 3
If you have a balance of £510, and:

your credit limit is £500;
your arrears are £50;
the minimum payment we ask you for in your statement is £70; and
there is a refund to your account of £200 between your statement date and your payment due date;
we will still require you to pay the full minimum payment of £70. We will use both the £200 refund and your £70 payment to reduce your balance.

Terry_Towelling

I think what Halifax is saying to you is, your minimum payment amount will not change just because you have a refund on your account, unless that refund has reduced the balance to less than the minimum asked for.

So, at risk of repeating what Gary has provided, if you have a balance on your statement of £1000 and the minimum requested is £20 and a refund of £500 gets processed after the statement is produced, your minimum payment will still be £20; it won't drop to £10 just because your balance is now halved and it won't drop to zero because the refund is not counted as a payment even if it is for more than the minimum requested.

So, if I've grasped things correctly (not certain) and your statement says £300 and the refund then comes in for, say, £250, you can pay £50 and not be charged interest. All you have to do is make sure you always pay at least the minimum requested unless that will take you into credit, in which case you pay whatever is necessary to get your balance to zero.

Before you take that as Gospel, I'd like others to offer an opinion on what I've said. You might also like to call Halifax again and explain the scenario to them line by line because I suspect they have misunderstood you.

Stato71

Gary and Terry thanks for the extra information.


That is not how Halifax explained it to me, they suggested that I would still pay interest on the refunded amount regardless. There was no mention of the minimum payment, which I've covered off anyway.


How you've described scenarios is how I expected the process to work which is why I raised the post given the at best ambiguous information by Halifax.

[Deleted User]

Stato71 wrote: »

Gary and Terry thanks for the extra information.


That is not how Halifax explained it to me, they suggested that I would still pay interest on the refunded amount regardless. There was no mention of the minimum payment, which I've covered off anyway.


How you've described scenarios is how I expected the process to work which is why I raised the post given the at best ambiguous information by Halifax.

The described scenario's I provided are from the Clarity T's and C's

Stato71

In that case the Halifax customer services team ought to read it as well.

[Deleted User]

Which of the scenario's do you fall into then?

Stato71

Scenario 1, but slightly larger balance and refund but the minimum payment is similar.

Terry_Towelling

Also found this in the Halifax T&Cs.

You must not pay us more than you owe when you make payments to your account, or transfer funds from another credit or store card if this creates a credit balance on your account

It quite clearly says not to pay 'more than you owe', and what you owe is surely the outstanding balance on your account at the time you make your payment. So, if at the time of making your payment, the refund has been processed, then the amount you owe is what's left over and you must not pay more than that.

So Halifax is saying you must not pay more than you owe but, on this occasion, you have to or they will charge you interest. There is no way Halifax can get away with that because they are asking you to break their own T&Cs or incur an interest charge.

I still think Halifax has got the wrong end of the stick. What they have advised would be correct if you received a refund, made a payment to your account and still left a balance owing.