Halifax kids Regular Saver fiasco

Baby_A

I have been promised a phone call from the branch several times......... nothing!

Still only one account exists in my daughters name, god knows what happened to the other one. No id exists as ever being shown.

As mentioned before it took me one and half years to resolve my credit card problem with them and that was only because I closed the account down. I cant be bothered with all that head ache again, so wont bother following this account up and intend on looking for another account for my daughters savings!

I never intend to use Halifax again!

realaledrinker

Update to OP:

After two weeks following the call promising "everything would be sorted out within 48hrs" by their Financial Ombudsman Complaints dept., son's accounts are sorted but daughter's are in as big a mess as ever.

The result of her regular saver account being closed in error was that the second month's regular payment bounced and was returned to smile, who thought they'd do me a favour by removing the standing order off my account. Fortunately they sent me a letter confirming this so I have been able to reinstate it in time for the next payment.

Although Halifax have managed to re-open the regular saver account, I fully expect it to be closed again anytime soon as a month's payment has now been "missed".

Meanwhile I today get a three sentance reply to my letter of complaint from some minion (took them nearly 3 weeks to respond!) informing me that the reason that a 'stop' remains on daughter's save4it account is that it needs to have money deposited in it first!! This despite my letter stating that I had made a special visit into town to do this yet was prevented from doing so as there was a stop on the account because " 'puter says ID has not been provided".

No attempt whatsoever to address any of the other points raised in the letter.

Words fail me with this outfit.

gathers1

I have had same problem when I provided my daughters passport as ID. I had to provide this twice at 2 different branches and then got a letter informing me of closure of the account as I had not provided ID!!!!!!
Got straight onto the morons and was told there is a computer glitch which only acknowledges ID as birth certificate. So if you take a passport or other ID, not birth certificate, the computer assumes no ID provided.
I've had to re open another account.

superfurry

Halifax are a joke. I went to the branch, saying that I wanted to open this account and then the bloke went on and on to try and 'sell' me other long term accounts, saying this account isn't suitable for all - which I have read about in these forums and understand. I told him that i only wanted this one, and he said 'haven't done one of these this week' and said it would probably take 'at least half an hour' - I persevered, and 15 minutes later, the accounts were set up.

newbiemum05

Have to admit to being more than a little worried now !

Went into town and opened up regular savers and save4it account for my baby son.

Paid £100 by cheque into regular savers and £1 to open save4it account.

All ID taken inc bank statements, birth certificate, marriage certificate etc . . .

Cashier tried to tell us we could pay upto £250 a month into regular saver and my husbadn informed her that this was incorrect or we would have put that much away. She left to check and returned confirming what my husband had said.

I haven't tried to deposit into either account since opening but will be checking very carefully - used to work for Halifax Home Insurance and know how crap they can be.

We were given all the paperwork for regular saver and a passbook for save4it - hoping this means all is well.

Will let you know . . .

realaledrinker

gathers1 wrote:

Got straight onto the morons and was told there is a computer glitch which only acknowledges ID as birth certificate.

Well thats bull as I provided birth certificates as my ID!!

Anyway, I have finally got some good news to report as today all the accounts are ship shape & Bristol fashion. Only took SEVEN WEEKS to sort this out!

The lady I spoke to on Friday at their Merseyside Financial Ombusdman complaints dept was for once in possession of more than one brain cell, promised to sort it & has done. Managed to get £40 compensation for all the grief, which is a bit tight but at least everything seems to be sorted now.

Final job will be a very stroppy letter to the chief exec pointing out he has a problem on his hands!

realaledrinker

newbiemum05 wrote:

Have to admit to being more than a little worried now !

Don't be. You did the right thing & did everything in one go. I made the fatal mistake of opening up the accounts over the internet and then taking ID into a branch. The fact that the branch is not my 'home branch', whatever that might be, seems to have compounded matters.

The Halifax are still a building society pretending to be a bank. What, pray, is the relevance of their roll numbers when every account has a sort code and account number?? The answer must be that their systems were written in the 1970s and they are still struggling to replace them. Add an internet front end to them & chaos ensues, as evidenced aplenty above!

superfurry

The Halifax guy I was referring to earlier was 'shocked' that I was on the A&L current account that pays 5% and blabbed on that the Halifax one has dropped to '3 point something' Anyway, strangely, he gave me a copy of the account details and asked me to set up a standing order 'from home' ! He also set up a Save 4 It account, but didn't mention anything about it. Such professionalism.

mels123

Does anyone know how to transfer money into these accounts apart from standing order? I have a standing order set up from my current account (Halifax), but I am trying to drip feed the money from their Save4it account as well. However, When I try to transfer money from my current account, it won't let me do it! Do I have to do it via standing order each time? Anyone know?

I had nightmare opening 2 of these accounts. They took £200 out of one account, put £100 in the new regular saver and lost the other £100! It did eventually turn up after I complained to the branch manager.

Looks like everyone is having problems with these accounts.

realaledrinker

I think a standing order is mandatory. Makes sense as if you forget to transfer money in any month the account will be closed.