Halifax Interest Free overdraft

ajbaker

Hi.

Does anyone have an interest free overdraft with the Halifax, even for a small amount? I wrote a cheque the other day and there is not quite enough in the account to cover it. I have just transferred money into the account from a Savings but cannot guarantee it will get there before the cheque is cleared.

Yes it was my mistake, but I do not think I should be charged interest on this - around £100 - when I pay in many times this monthly.

The telephone operator (it would be a lie to call them advisor or assistant) said it will "not be very much", and that they do not offer any interest free overdrafts. I was sickened by her first statement (as though money was no object) and wondered if her latter was true - so does anyone have an interest free current account overdraft?

I will be changing banks as soon as my mortgage is sorted. But until then...

johnllew

According to the list here, the only a/c with an interest-free o/d is the Student a/c. Looking at the rates, it appears the most you would have to pay is 2.20% per month (and that's the unauthorised rate). If you're overdrawn by £100, that's only 7p a day. If you're only going to be overdrawn for 3 or 4 days, it's really not worth getting worked up about it.

Banks are commercial businesses; you borrow money from them and they're entitled to charge you. There are very few banks offering interest-free o/ds (Cahoot is one, with £250) so it would be a bit drastic to change banks just because of this one incident.

DebtEverest

Have you tried asking Halifax to extend the overdraft to cover the amount of the cheque?
I'm sure I asked Abbey to do this once!

I live in my Halifax overdraft of about £3,000 and they only charge me £9 interest a month, so its not as bad as it seems.
In your case it will just be until the money transferred from your savings appears in your current account.

MylesBetter

Halifax used to have a £100 free overdraft on current a/c's. They stopped it about 18Mths to 2 yrs ago.

Walletwatch

Yeh my £100 overdraft used to be interest free, when out of the blue they started charging interest ! and it was abotu 18 months ago

Saw an interest charged of a few pence on the monthly updated, though not worth chasing them for a few pennies.

With regards going over your account - What you should do is keep a small amount on the web saver in case of emergency, and check your account every 3- 4am !!!

WHY ?

Because thats when the transactions are updated.
IF you find your overdrawn i.e. including beyond your overdraft limit - then immediatly transfer funds from your websaver to your current !

Now this happens to me maybe 2 or 3 times a year, and has saved my bacon each time with regards charges !
SO it DEFINETLY works !, well up until this month anyway

My regular saver debit goes out the door the 10th of every month, and they always do it at EOD - gives me time till the tenth morning, to transfer funds from my web-saver to my current account where the Standing Order is set. Not that I do it, as I do the transfer on 9th itself, but worst case, if you forget, you can do it till the evening on the day the debit is due

afro_2

I had a £1000 interest free overdraft with them when I transfered my account to them, they called it a switchers overdraft. Lasted about 3 months.