Halifax CC - customer care/compensation query

gingercordial

Hi all - not sure if this should be here or in the vent forum, it may become more of a vent as time goes on!

I have a Halifax visa card with a DD from my Natwest bank account to make the minimum payment to avoid missing any. No problems there.

However, a second DD to Halifax appeared on my account with a reference number I didn't recognise. Two payments of £5 each were taken. It turns out that I have been paying off someone else's credit card with this DD! NW have cancelled the DD but the rest is down to Halifax.

I called Halifax last Thursday and they were very helpful, said that there must have been a mistake at their end when entering the bank details for whoever holds this other card and that a supervisor would call me back within half an hour as they were all busy at that time. They never called.

I waited until Monday morning and called them again, to be told that I was "on a list to be called by a supervisor". Still no call.

I called again this afternoon, now rather annoyed. I explained the situation AGAIN and AGAIN the supervisors are too busy to speak to me. The guy on the line says that they will send my two payments back to my bank account today by CHAPS (4-5 working days).

I suggested to him that some sort of goodwill gesture would be nice, particularly since I had now spent a total of 40 mins on the three calls to them which is decidedly not on freephone, and I would expect some compensation for the calls at least. After several attempts to put me off ("we don't normally offer compensation") and more unavailable supervisors he said he would pass my complaint to customer care. Apparently I can expect to hear from them within 5 working days but cannot have a telephone number to call them myself until I receive one on the letter I'll get, and he said there was no point in speaking to a supervisor as they would not tell me any different and could not authorise compensation.

My questions are:

1. Should I be entitled to any sort of credit in respect of my time and trouble, on something which is entirely their mistake, and especially given I've had to ring them repeatedly at my own expense despite their promises to call me back?

2. If so, how much should I ask for/accept? The amount taken was only £10 total (I'm thanking my lucky stars that the credit card holder didn't request his DD to pay it off in full!) so I'm not sure how they'll react if I demand more than, say, £10 compensation, but it has been a big hassle for me getting this sorted.

3. Do I need to tell them how much I want (I didn't when on the phone earlier, couldn't decide what to say) or do I wait for customer care to come back to me with an offer - assuming they do of course? Have I ruined my chances by not clearly demanding a set figure straight away?

Sorry for all the questions and the long post, but I'm new to making a fuss!

Thanks in advance!

Chadsman

1. IMHO it is perfectly reasonable to expect some compensation.

2 and 3. When I had a ding dong with MBNA I wrote to them asking they refund me the amount of the error plus an appropriate amount by way of compensation for the time and money I spent making phone calls and writing letters and the loss of interest I had incurred, commensurate with the amount of £x they charge customers for breaking the credit agreement.

They paid up
HTH,

waterbaby

Chadsman wrote:

1. IMHO it is perfectly reasonable to expect some compensation.

plus an appropriate amount ... commensurate with the amount of £x they charge customers for breaking the credit agreement.

They paid up
HTH,

That is excellent! I got £30 out of Abbey under similar circumstances, although I didn't ask for a particular figure. But you are so right, they should pay what they would charge if it was the customers mistake.

Ginger you haven't ruined your chances at all, you are better doing this sort of thing by letter because it will go to someone who has the authority to make the decision, and they will have the time to digest the info properly without being pressured into a snap decision with emotions running high.

Keep a record of all that happens, so that you can list each thing they did wrong. And try your best to be ultra polite and calm when requesting your compensation as it won't be the fault of the person reading the letter, and you'll only alienate them.

I know a lady who works in banking and she said banks will give £50 without any argument. So you can definitely do better than £10. You are so entitled to it.

gingercordial

Seem to have managed to resolve this now though not without more hassle!

I was pleased to see the £10 come through into my bank account on Friday. Not so pleased when I went to Halifax online to discover that this had come from my own credit card! So they hadn't refunded me the money they'd taken, they'd just moved some of my own around.

After a couple more frustrating calls over the weekend I finally got someone who told me that Halifax should never have been involved with this, that they have no power to take the money back from someone else's account into mine (though I bet they'll be chasing him for it so that THEY recover it) and that it was down to me to contact Natwest to request a direct debit indemnity. Which I didn't mind doing, and seems to have worked, but why couldn't Halifax have told me to do that in the first place, not 2 weeks and 5 phone calls later?

Anyway they offered £20 compensation for my trouble which I've accepted. The lady who knew what to do was very nice and rang me back on two occasions to check how my conversations with Natwest had gone, so when she offered me £20 I was happy enough with that. I've also had a letter of apology.