Halifax overdraft charges from over 10 years ago, maybe 15!

jraw

Hi, im older and wiser these days, I still get livid though about an account I had with the Halifax years ago. I had this account since a child and it kinda grew with me, at a certain stage in life they threw a £500 overdraft at me which I started to use. They then changed the terms and added more charges and it pushed me into debt at the time, then when I went over the overdraft limit I was charged £5 a day and it took me an age to recover and pay this off which I did. I switched bank accounts at this pointt to one with no overdraft because they had wrecked my finances as a young lad.

Once nothing was being paid into the account Halifax closed it with a letter to myself and it hasn't existed for many years. I caused the issues myself but I got sucked into a debt spiral as a young lad and paid it off but it was very hard and maybe set my life goals back many years, eg having kids, getting married and the likes.

I was wondering if any of you have any advice to offer because it seems way to long but the circumstances and how they did it, the way they cancelled my account etc. it leaves a bad taste still to this day and I do feel like I was taken advantage of in a way although it was my fault. I am on the autistic spectrum and dont have a great deal of common sense with my Adhd, not using it as an excuse but I was easy pickings and we are talking thousands of pounds of fees over time which I paid back. Took over my life though.

I think it's done and the account cancellation was a good move by them. What do you guys think?

Thanks for reading this, if I could get anything back I would be taking my family (3 kids and wife, we been together since 19yo and it affected her as well, im 47 now!) to Disney or something like that.

I dont think I have any paperwork but might be able to dig something out, maybe a few sheets of statements with old account number on, maybe charges. ill scower for them if there is any chance.

Regards

Edit: just to add, this ended up taking priority over my council tax and the likes. I got CCJ's and a really bad credit score. Could have ended up in prison, got depressed etc. The reason I have left it so long is because I didn't want to think about it after I got out and sorted it. Many will probably know the feeling, it is a similar thing to ptsd spending so much time worrying about your mailbox and who might knock on your door.

RipleyG

From the Financial Ombudsman Service website:

"How long you have to complain to a financial business

You usually need to complain to a business or to us within 6 years of your problem happening.

If you haven’t done this, we can’t usually investigate the complaint unless you made your complaint within 3 years of becoming aware (or when you should reasonably have become aware) that you had cause to complain."

eskbanker

jraw said:

I was wondering if any of you have any advice to offer because it seems way to long but the circumstances and how they did it, the way they cancelled my account etc. it leaves a bad taste still to this day and I do feel like I was taken advantage of in a way although it was my fault.

Yes, it is much too long ago - banks can reject claims on timebarring grounds if you don't raise them within six years of the event, or three years after you were aware (or should have been) of it, and FOS is duty bound to take the same line.

No harm in submitting a complaint if you feel so strongly about it, but don't build up your hopes that it'll generate a payout....

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges/

jraw

eskbanker said:

jraw said:

I was wondering if any of you have any advice to offer because it seems way to long but the circumstances and how they did it, the way they cancelled my account etc. it leaves a bad taste still to this day and I do feel like I was taken advantage of in a way although it was my fault.

Yes, it is much too long ago - banks can reject claims on timebarring grounds if you don't raise them within six years of the event, or three years after you were aware (or should have been) of it, and FOS is duty bound to take the same line.

No harm in submitting a complaint if you feel so strongly about it, but don't build up your hopes that it'll generate a payout....

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges/

Thank you, I will leave it then because the money is not worth it over my mental wellness, It is more about the long term residue in my head than the money and feeling stupid getting stuck in a trap like that. When you are young you dont think that a huge corporation with the supposed fair face of banking will take advantage of you and you dont have the necessary knowledge to gauge what is going on. I dread to think how many people this happened to at that time. The internet was young, there wasn't the resources to educate yourself financially and school did not teach you these things when I grew up.

One other thing, my wife went back to University after we started to get over this, she took out a NatWest student bank account with a 0% overdraft which they quickly raised to a 2k limit. She used the overdraft rather than taking more student loans. A few years later we went in to NatWest to try and get a loan so she could get a car, worst move we could have done. They rejected the loan but also then reviewed her account and switched her overdraft to a normal paid for version with £50 interest and fees every month. She still has the account now and still pays her fees. What do you think about this? They switched her account maybe 10 years ago but she has been stuck in it ever since. No warning, they just did it.

Thanks for your replies!
Regards

eskbanker

jraw said:
One other thing, my wife went back to University after we started to get over this, she took out a NatWest student bank account with a 0% overdraft which they quickly raised to a 2k limit. She used the overdraft rather than taking more student loans. A few years later we went in to NatWest to try and get a loan so she could get a car, worst move we could have done. They rejected the loan but also then reviewed her account and switched her overdraft to a normal paid for version with £50 interest and fees every month. She still has the account now and still pays her fees. What do you think about this? They switched her account maybe 10 years ago but she has been stuck in it ever since. No warning, they just did it.

You or she would need to fish out the terms of the student account, but these are normally timebound so that they're converted into other products post-graduation.  What's the name of her account now and what is she paying fees for - is it a packaged account including insurance products, etc?

jraw

eskbanker said:

jraw said:
One other thing, my wife went back to University after we started to get over this, she took out a NatWest student bank account with a 0% overdraft which they quickly raised to a 2k limit. She used the overdraft rather than taking more student loans. A few years later we went in to NatWest to try and get a loan so she could get a car, worst move we could have done. They rejected the loan but also then reviewed her account and switched her overdraft to a normal paid for version with £50 interest and fees every month. She still has the account now and still pays her fees. What do you think about this? They switched her account maybe 10 years ago but she has been stuck in it ever since. No warning, they just did it.

You or she would need to fish out the terms of the student account, but these are normally timebound so that they're converted into other products post-graduation.  What's the name of her account now and what is she paying fees for - is it a packaged account including insurance products, etc?

The fees are overdraft related, interest mainly. We have nearly got out of the overdraft on a few occasions but have had to use it for emergency money, pets, cars, children etc. Thanks for this, I think we might pursue this because we have a lot of documentation and it was a widely marketed account by Natwest at the time. My wife qualified as an Occupational Therapist and has 15 years NHS service under her belt before taking a work break to look after our kids because of the extortionate price of child care. My grandad bought her a car to get going in OT community work, when we needed to replace that after she had been working for years and my Grandad had passed away, this was the point that Natwest changed the account. The NHS should have stepped up and given her a work car but she was made to feel like she shouldn't go that route, pity because she was one of the few OT's who used to get letters of appraisal for her service to the public, she is just too nice a person.  My point is it was a manual change to her account and happened instantly with a letter sent to us to tell us. it was flagged when we tried to get a loan to replace her car.

You could argue she got her moneys worth out of the 0% overdraft but on the other side if we knew the account terms would change  (out of the blue) and cost so much we would have gone the student loan route originally and maybe held off having a family for longer! haha. Actually we may not have, I just wanted her to go back into education and for her to do something I could tell she loved instead of working in retail or a butty shop.

I think it was irresponsible of Natwest to hand a 2k overdraft to a student, this was a lot of money all that time ago and the temptation to use it .. well it was always going to get used at 0% wasn't it!

God, I sound bitter! Tbh we are ok but I would love to take my 3 beautiful kids to Disney etc, enjoy life a bit, take my wife somewhere nice. I am from a single parent who had me at 17yo in 1977, she was an only child, my wife's family are estranged from us, I have a court order so you can imagine, that stuff is not easy. Although being really tough with all that stuff I think we are prone to getting caught out with these pink handshakes I will call them. 

Beware all Youngers, I have a great line for you to say before you commit to anything. Say this "I need to know transparently all costs associated with this agreement and what will happen if something terrible happens and I cannot make repayments, if I die in undue circumstance or my partner what would happen?", Also never over-commit. Any credit agreement like this is serious, don't be foolish like us or some of my old school friends who have taken their lives in these situations.

This sounds bad but my dad who left me at 3 years old and died in France in debt, that was an eye opener. Let's not go there lol. I couldn't say he was my dad, managed to get his ashes back home though in the end. Living in fear of someone chasing your dad's debts who left you as a toddler and gave you very little except responsibilities he should have taken care of is tough with your own problems. He was pretty cool though haha

jraw

Its probably too late as well tbh but the account is still active.

Didn't mean to make these points but if people do read this, make the most of everything but don't get into debt where possible even if it feels its for the right reasons. If you do then do your homework thoroughly. Keep a side-hussle alive, dont get into gov/hmrc trouble (get a degree in that crap, 2 PAYE jobs this year which overlapped mean I have lost my tax free income and am estimated to pay 30K tax with tax codes updated to relevant PAYE employers, sorry for working 2 jobs GOV!!). Oh and always make sure you pay your council tax, utilities and rent, dont take credit cards, let your credit rating build on mobile phone contracts and things like that, be clever about it. Sod aqua credit cards and stuff and credit rebuilding, they just say you are unreliable anyway haha. 

When you are doing ok and buy things like rings or chains, invest and if you struggle or the worst happens go take them to cash converters or a good pawnbrokers so you can get them back. Go that route rather than some short term loan at some stupid % per month. Like I say in my posts, stuff happens and getting advances at high % and terms changing  is the enemy, it's out of your control and its the worst thing ever feeling helpless. The travelling community hold my respect in terms of investing in gold and then using it as currency in hard times because currency becomes so cheap, meanwhile gold continues to increase in price

eskbanker

eskbanker said:

You or she would need to fish out the terms of the student account, but these are normally timebound so that they're converted into other products post-graduation.

Appreciate that you're keen to get a lot off your chest, but this is really the key question that remains unanswered - their current student account page clearly states:

Once you leave university, we’ll move you on to a Graduate bank account. Your interest-free overdraft will then reduce until the fourth year after graduation. At that point, you’ll move to a Select account and the interest-free overdraft will end.

and my expectation would be that there'd have been similar wording when she signed up, i.e. student accounts, with their free overdrafts, are only available for a finite time before being converted to more conventional products.  If this was clearly stated when she opened the account then she doesn't appear to have much scope for complaint if they proceeded to do what they said they would.

Theleak250

As you state you are responsible I think the best thing to do is learn as you have done from the experience and leave it under the bridge.

jraw

Appreciated, yes you are right and I think there is an element of coincidence and of course .... We have made bad decisions but if anyone takes anything from this then I am happy

We have struggled against charges and the likes but we have done ok! Leaves a little bit of a bad taste but I am happy not to go over the guilt in my head and live with the decisions and errors which were not really made in bad faith. I never drove a sports car or lived beyond my means but didn't put enough to one side to cope with emergencies which is a lesson I learned. I tried to encourage the likes of my brother-in-law to not go and buy that RangeRover on his window cleaning wage and live in the knowledge that we didn't mess up too badly! haha! I will certainly be teaching this stuff to my kids and want them to realise balance and how a few decisions can push you over or even things outside your control can bite, It's  have important to have a safety fund and fallback.

I now run my life with 5 accounts these days (3 personal, 2 joint). Accounts for personal spending, Family DD's, personal dd's, joint saving and personal saving and an emergency fund with easy access. Learned a lot from all this so maybe it wasn't a bad thing. Thank you for advice and feedback and hope this thread is informative to anyone who reads it!

Regards

edit: me and my wife did the CAP financial management course and learned the way of the 3 accounts + cash and made it our own. Simple changes which put us back in charge.