Credit Card Question - can anyone help please?

fascinated

Just wondered whether any of you knowledgeable and helpful people could answer my credit card question please.

My DH has one credit card in his name, and I am a second cardholder on the account. We acquired the card from Halifax when we opened a Current Account with them many moons ago. It was a case of "Would you like the Credit Card that goes with the account?" to which we said yes.

Anyway, we have since had the card for some years and have used it on and off for some large purchases and some minor emergencies and big household bills which we could not afford to pay at the time. We have been making large payments off well above the minimum and the current balance stands at just below £700.00.

My question is - I cannot remember ever having signed a Credit Agreement for this credit card. I have no original paperwork for it, and when DH wrote to the Halifax with some questions about it they did not even have the courtesy to send him a reply.

On checking the Statements (I have all of them) I note that we are also paying Payment Protection Insurance on the outstanding balance every month. Again I do not remember ever having agreed to this being included on the account but I am reluctant to cancel it at the moment should we ever need to claim on it.

So can anyone tell me please - if we have never signed a Credit Agreement where does that leave the account, i.e. is this normal or should there have been one?

Also, what would you all recommend re the PPI? Should we leave it on the card and then maybe reclaim once we have paid off the outstanding balance and are not using the card anymore.

All thoughts gratefully received.

xx

fascinated

And just another question i've thought of to add to this thread. If we do go ahead and cancel the PPI and try to reclaim it now - would Halifax have the right to freeze the account and demand repayment in full?

Thanks.

bert&ernie

It wouldn't surprise me if you never actually signed a credit agreement. In practical terms this would leave the lender unable to enforce repayment of the debt.

You will probably receive plenty of opinion relating to your supposed moral obligation to repay what you owe, but you have nothing to loose by asking for a copy of the agreement.

If they do provide a copy of the agreement, then you can check to see if you agreed to the PPI.

jonesMUFCforever

If you are the second cardholder then your husband is solely responsible for any debt.
If you were asked at time of account opening whether you wanted the credit card the chances are that you were handed the terms and conditions at the time.

Can you reclaim back the PPI - IMO no if you didn't want it why did you take it - if you don't want it from now on then get him to cancel it.

callisto126

Give their call center a call and ask for an application trace, they keep a record of them all. Takes about 7-10 working days to retreive it, then they'll send it to you. Ask for the agent's personnel number as a way to follow up in case they 'forget'. The copy of the credit agreement you receive will clearly show your signature and a tick box for PPI. Alternatively if you ask them about the PPI they can put you through to Halifax Insurance Ireland and they can also trace the credit agreement and perform an investigation into the refund of wrongly applied charges.
I can pretty much guarantee you signed the form though, we cancel the cards/reject the application if it's unsigned.

Richard019

I'd reclaim the PPI asap. I would consider it a fairly safe assumption that your interest rate on the card is higher than any rate of interest they'd give you (if they even would) if you claimed you were mis-sold the PPI.

Effectively you're borrowing from them at a high rate in order to get a lower/non-existant rate on "savings" (assuming you're in a position where you can reclaim your previous payments on the grounds it was missold to you).