Halifax Cardcash - Cheque Clearing

theatretony · 15 March 2005 at 4:43PM

I put a cheque into my account (from my employer) on the 9th March and it will not clear until the 17th !!!

I called the bank about the long clearing time and they said that they get alot of fraudulent cheques with this type of account - hence the long delay. I was really annoyed as they are saying that I am guilty until proven innocent when banking cheques...

This cheque was to cover a survey fee for a house I am buying - which has now delayed the house buying process even more...

Anybody else had this problem

ED · 15 March 2005 at 5:09PM

Sympathies!

Abbey may be more welcoming...

Interest is earned from 48 working hours after a cheque is deposited, and generally available for withdrawal the day after that - eg deposit Monday, earns interest from Wednesday, OK to withdraw funds on Thursday.

Or post cheques to Coventry Bdg Society, where they immediately earn interest from the day they arrive (via postage-paid envelope) although it does take 6 days inclusive to clear (as they are not a bank).

theatretony · 15 March 2005 at 5:14PM

The cheque I have just written to cover that is payable to the Coventry Building Society for a survey!!!!

Just so annoyed with the Halifax, but do not want to change banks while in the middle of buying a house

newfoundglory · 15 March 2005 at 6:22PM

What Halifax are saying is understandable... but clearly that "excuse" shouldn't apply to customers who are known to the bank, or have paid in a number of cheques with no problems previously.

If you have had your account with Halifax open for a while and you have shown to be a good customer, i'd ask them to reduce the clearance time on your account - if they won't i would not hesitate to take my account elsewhere.

As ED has said, the standard time to "clear" a cheque is only 3 working days...

sunflower_2 · 15 March 2005 at 6:34PM

as Martin said before on Watchdog - those of us with cardcash accounts arent important in any way to Halifax

they dont want us - they dont need us, therefore wont do us any favours or give any special services

i think from my experience they go out of their way to try and get rid of us

:rolleyes:

wouldnt mind but i have been with them for years and years, they downgraded my account when i didnt pay my salary in for a while
said it cost them too much to upkeep a current account so downgraded it

now my credit rating is poor so they wont put it back to normal current account, which i think is unfair
hav always kept within my OD limit and been a good customer...

ED · 15 March 2005 at 6:42PM

theatretony wrote : "The cheque I have just written to cover that is payable to the Coventry Building Society for a survey!!!!"

Remarkable coincidence! Assuming your mortgage is with the Coventry, at least that will hopefully run smoothly. Wonder if you have their NetSave account which pays 4.85% for £1+, and allows cheques to be deposited via post (additional to the usual BACS in and out facilities). If not, may be worth considering, perhaps for stand-by funds re the mortgage...?

moggins · 15 March 2005 at 7:11PM

We got a letter from them ages ago telling us that cheques paid into a Cardcash account would now take 7 working days to clear. What we can't work out is why cheques we have paid in over the last two months have only taken 3 days, I wish they'd make up their minds.

MarkyMarkD · 15 March 2005 at 10:56PM

Cardcash isn't a current account. If you intend to use a savings type account for transactions, you have to live with the fact that it's not really meant for that purpose and you won't get the same service as on a full-blown current account.

Cheques very often DO bounce after the "normal" clearance time. So every bank that allows you to use funds after the third working day is taking on some degree of risk. That's fair enough for a current account, where you are supposed to have some sort of reputation with the bank. But that simply doesn't apply to cardcash type accounts which aren't credit scored.

sunflower_2 · 15 March 2005 at 11:42PM

MarkyMarkD wrote:

Cardcash isn't a current account. If you intend to use a savings type account for transactions, you have to live with the fact that it's not really meant for that purpose and you won't get the same service as on a full-blown current account.

eh?

it isnt a current account?
yet it allows Direct Debits, Standing Orders, Debit card payments, cheque book, transfers & i have an overdraft on mine

i have a savings account with the halifax with only a cashcard & transfers, none of the others mentioned above

fair enough the cardcash doesnt have a cheque guarantee card or "proper" debit card - but surely it isnt intended to be used as a savings account?

am going to give halifax a ring tomorrow n see if this is true?
afterall i pay quite a bit of money into this account each month

totally understand the bit about the cheque clearance tho (still unfair like)

[img]http://smileys.!!!!!!/cat/36/36_1_10.gif[/img]

moggins · 15 March 2005 at 11:50PM

And yes a Halifax Cardcash account is credit scored. We discovered this a couple of years ago when we tried to open a second one so we could separate the bill money from the spending money. They refused us and we asked why, they said it had to be credit scored now because the way the system worked you could actually debit something when you didn't have the money in the account.

MarkyMarkD · 16 March 2005 at 12:24AM

OK apologies about the credit scoring - they didn't used to, as moggins says.

It isn't a proper current account - it does some of the things current accounts do, but it's not a full current account. It's listed on their website under "accounts for under 18s"!

Halifax Cardcash - Cheque Clearing

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