Halifax Reward Account changing to £3 charge with “lifestyle rewards”

redux

I didn't apply by the deadline, as I'd had no notification (as I posted above). I was told in a call the other day I'd be able to apply online from 1st June onwards, or phone. 

I did that mid evening yesterday, using the app. Looking at the tracking last night, I had the already message pictured in the 1107 colsten post above

Today, if I look from the website, a link about benefits of the account still describes the old scheme. In the app if I try to enrol I already am, and the tracking produces an error message saying they can't do that at the moment. Edit 2: still can't at 7 pm

I made a £5 payment last night I hoped to be able to see by now, to build confidence I'd be in with a £250 I'll do either later today or tomorrow. I think I'll have to do that anyway, and discuss it later if it doesn't track.

Edit: the phone app just failed to log in about 5 times in a row, so maybe things are a bit busy at the moment.

portenio

derrick said:

Just tried another DC payment from Reward 3 DC, that worked OK yesterday and as it starts the Visa Secure it then goes immediately to the message as above,"We are experiencing some technical difficulties with our site. We’re sorry for any inconvenience and are working to fix the issue as soon as possible. If you’d like to speak with someone, you can call us on 0800 169 7500** for Savings."

I'd suggest to better forget about PO for DC payments.
I tried the £1 DC payment couple of weeks ago and got the same error message you are getting. In honesty I would not trust £500 to PO!

You see that message is not rare - as it should be- it shows all the time no matter what transaction you are intending to make.
Further on this, let me share a paragraph I included in a recent long complaint to them. I intend to take this complaint all the way to the Ombudsman:
"I am an IT professional and I know too well that these permanent technical problems (not one-off!) only happen when companies choose softwares and platforms with little processing power, weak, not robust, with little memory, storage and processing capacity, on the cheap ultimately. This is exactly what POMS has"
As many said before I would not touch PO with a full COVID-19 protection head to toe.

portenio

Halifax online is failing at the moment as well.
Trying to track rewards would log me out.
Also had duplicate reward for the only account that met conditions in May.
A farewell gift maybe?

carpy

portenio said:

Halifax online is failing at the moment as well.
Trying to track rewards would log me out.
Also had duplicate reward for the only account that met conditions in May.
A farewell gift maybe?

double last month too!

eskbanker

portenio said:
Further on this, let me share a paragraph I included in a recent long complaint to them. I intend to take this complaint all the way to the Ombudsman:

"I am an IT professional and I know too well that these permanent technical problems (not one-off!) only happen when companies choose softwares and platforms with little processing power, weak, not robust, with little memory, storage and processing capacity, on the cheap ultimately. This is exactly what POMS has"

The fact that you wish to share that tells its own story - I'm sure that, like all customer-facing organisations, they'll be familiar with lengthy complaints written in that posturing style!  Did you really feel that that sort of armchair criticism, even if anywhere close to accurate, was relevant to your actual complaint - are you really expecting them to read it and think "oh yes, that'll be it, let's go and buy some more IT capacity, why didn't we think of that before?"?

portenio

eskbanker said:

portenio said:
Further on this, let me share a paragraph I included in a recent long complaint to them. I intend to take this complaint all the way to the Ombudsman:

"I am an IT professional and I know too well that these permanent technical problems (not one-off!) only happen when companies choose softwares and platforms with little processing power, weak, not robust, with little memory, storage and processing capacity, on the cheap ultimately. This is exactly what POMS has"

The fact that you wish to share that tells its own story - I'm sure that, like all customer-facing organisations, they'll be familiar with lengthy complaints written in that posturing style!  Did you really feel that that sort of armchair criticism, even if anywhere close to accurate, was relevant to your actual complaint - are you really expecting them to read it and think "oh yes, that'll be it, let's go and buy some more IT capacity, why didn't we think of that before?"?

Of course it was relevant to the complaint.
I carefully wrote a well argumented logical letter to them, one of the main topics being the constant logging out with no IT error message description or code, but that generic one.
I couldn't help it being an IT person, could I?
In any case I illustrated that para with 3 or 4 different scenarios where that  message popped up to me, and offered my cooperation to be called by IT so we can reproduce the scenario and they investigate the response on their end real-time.
I feel a bit of sarcasm in the general tone of your words with the underlying message something like: "Mate you are wasting your time".
And if that is the case, so what? I intend to take this to the Financial Ombudsman as pointed out. Of course I anticipate they won't care, they won't do anything, and will send a courteous template-based silly nonsense letter, and bribe me in the hope to stop me. But they won't.
Look this was a tiny bit in the whole argumentation, which you cannot read into without reading the letter in full.
In any case, I wonder on what side you are, that of these iressponsible companies or the customers.  This is what complaints are for!
I can't understand your reaction really.

Chaykin

I got single £2 payment by meeting the old reward criteria in May. Going to meet the new reward criteria in June and expect the £5 payment "around" the 12th of July. (potentially Monday the 13th of July?)

People who got a double £2 payment - maybe you met both old and new criteria in May and the system is just a bit haywire?

eskbanker

portenio said:

eskbanker said:

portenio said:
Further on this, let me share a paragraph I included in a recent long complaint to them. I intend to take this complaint all the way to the Ombudsman:

"I am an IT professional and I know too well that these permanent technical problems (not one-off!) only happen when companies choose softwares and platforms with little processing power, weak, not robust, with little memory, storage and processing capacity, on the cheap ultimately. This is exactly what POMS has"

The fact that you wish to share that tells its own story - I'm sure that, like all customer-facing organisations, they'll be familiar with lengthy complaints written in that posturing style!  Did you really feel that that sort of armchair criticism, even if anywhere close to accurate, was relevant to your actual complaint - are you really expecting them to read it and think "oh yes, that'll be it, let's go and buy some more IT capacity, why didn't we think of that before?"?

Of course it was relevant to the complaint.
I carefully wrote a well argumented logical letter to them, one of the main topics being the constant logging out with no IT error message description or code, but that generic one.
I couldn't help it being an IT person, could I?
In any case I illustrated that para with 3 or 4 different scenarios where that  message popped up to me, and offered my cooperation to be called by IT so we can reproduce the scenario and they investigate the response on their end real-time.
I feel a bit of sarcasm in the general tone of your words with the underlying message something like: "Mate you are wasting your time".
And if that is the case, so what? I intend to take this to the Financial Ombudsman as pointed out. Of course I anticipate they won't care, they won't do anything, and will send a courteous template-based silly nonsense letter, and bribe me in the hope to stop me. But they won't.
Look this was a tiny bit in the whole argumentation, which you cannot read into without reading the letter in full.
In any case, I wonder on what side you are, that of these iressponsible companies or the customers.  This is what complaints are for!
I can't understand your reaction really.

Just to be clear, I'm not taking sides or seeking to defend PO in any way, it was more a comment about your style of complaining, i.e. uninformed speculation about underlying root causes.  All they need to know is what the problem looks like from the end user perspective, and the circumstances in which it occurs, rather than your attempts to diagnose it from an inherently limited understanding of what's actually going on under the bonnet.

Ultimately it's your prerogative to put what you like into a complaint but personally I'd always focus on simple facts about how a problem manifests itself rather than straying off into hypothesising about why it's happening.

And yes, of course it's only part of your complaint, but it was the part you felt would be worth sharing on here!

So yes, I do feel you're wasting your time including the irrelevant stuff, but can obviously have no view on the substance of your complaint.  I would suggest that you consider what would be a suitable and realistic outcome from your complaint though, i.e. what you hope to achieve with it - it's admirable that you're not interested in money but what response are you hoping for?

portenio

As said in last message i did present the facts, i.e. the scenarios I remembered of, amongst many others, where the Technical difficulties poor message showed.
And as I said I did offer cooperation to the IT team. (I wonder how many do that)
So where do you feel that I do not stick to facts?
My complaint goal is that the IT system is repaired!
Anyway after 2 years of PO dramas I felt it was about time to do something.
I am not playing the hero here trying to emulate Erin Brokowich in her fight against multinational companies. Far from it. I am doing what I can and do not intend to educate anyone.
I thought this was better than moaning on forums - which is OK - but I just took 1 step further doing what I thought it was right.
Have a nice rest of the day!

Yorkshire_Pud

Ombudsman I’m an IT professional and Post Office savings are inconsistent in letting me take the p*ss by making regular monthly £500 debit card payments into my PO account so that I can withdraw it straight away as I’m only doing it to get a £5 Halifax Reward and I demand they improve their IT systems to enable me to do this even though I am not in any way a profitable customer for them and this lack of profit means the PO cannot afford to upgrade its archaic systems. I could go on but you will probably have realised by now that I’m an irate t*at who wants it both ways. Compensation? 50p please, it’s the principal. Or £100.
Ditto Co op reward direct debits.