to think halifax should be disgusted and ashamed of themselves??? rant

[cordonbleugh]

so I probably am a bit, cos I should have managed my account slightly better but here goes.....

Today, I recieved a letter, kindly informing me that I had gone over my overdraft limit (I'm never out of my overdraft - its only £200 but I don't have £200 my benefits go in and then out again for bills/food etc).

They are charging me £35 for them allowing the payment ( direct debit £42 to tesco for food shopping), and £28 unauthorised overdraft fee.

How much did I go over my overdraft I hear you ask???

79p Thats seventy nine PENCE PENCE!!!!

yes, I should have been more carefull.

They can't wont reverse the charges because they've already done so in the past.

It's DD's birthday on the 29th of june, and I was going to struggle enough to buy her anything decent as it was.

I'm a single parent on benefits, and no, I haven't always been careful in the past, hence previous charges, but I learnt my lesson and have kept it all on track for age now.

feel free to come and tell me that it's my fault but god I'm so

I'm with HBOS have been for 14 years now and rarely use that account for anything now as they have always been useless.
I have a main account with another bank and they are fab. If it is less than £5 you are going over they pay it and don't charge. I know even £5 is still a tiny amount compared to the charge but as it usually is a total accident and tiny amounts that most people go over by like your 79p it rarely happens.

I think you should kick up a bit of a fuss in the bank actually threaten them with a bit of exposure over this and remind them that really they are also at fault really if there wan't enough money in the account to pay for your shopping the transaction should have been declined (I know most banks don't operate like that to get the charges from you) but I would give it a go.

Thanks all, and sorry to hear so many others have been through this with Halifax.

My plan is this.. go into my local branch on monday with my dad as backup I will not leave until they have reversed the charges, I will threaten exposure, via local paper, MP etc. hopefully that will work.

Then, I will open a new bank acocunt with a different bank (am thinking of Barclays after previous post about buffers!) I will not have an overdraft!!

I'll get all my benefits swtiched over to the new account, likewise with direct debits and standing orders.

Then I'll pay a set amount each month into halifax until my overdraft is paid of, and then close the account.

Luckily overdraft is only £200 but will still take me a long time to pay .

What does everyone think of that plan? any other suggestions?

paid off not of! grr how I'll manage to get a degree with so few brain cells I don't know! lol

I'm with barclays, they wouldn't let me have a cheque book though but I have telephone/internet banking. I've gone overdrawn (27p and £1.70) in the past but have not been charged for this. I intend to transfer some money into my twatwest account to clear off the overdraft so I use Barclays as my main bank now. Life's less complicated this way.

I'm with HBOS and was like you very slightly overdrawn last year for one day at the end f January! I got charged £35 + £28. I wrote them a long typed letter and they refunded both. A couple of months ago I was overdrawn by about £1 for less than a day (didn't even show up on my bank statement!) I phoned telephone banking, thinking that they would refund it as before - at first they said they would then checked and said I'd already had one chance and quoted the date from last year. I got charged the £35 on this ocasion for the latter but not the £28 maintenance fee - still want my £35 babc

oops - letter and back in the last line - distracted by DH!

Lets put it this way. Twatwest refunded £2.4K's of bank charges to me last year. The vast majority of these were to refund charges for going a few pound's overdrawn, which ment they then took charges out leaving me more overdrawn so they then bounced more direct debits, leaving me more overdrawn so they bounced cheques etc.

cordon, the flaw in your plan (possibly) is that Halifax might withdraw your overdraft facility if you're not paying your benefits into that account regularly.

I think you have to go into the branch working on the assumumption that you're stuck with Halifax until you've paid off the overdraft. Very easy (and understandable) to get cross in these situations but you must be polite, charming and reasonable - remember, this decision won't have been made by anyone you meet at the branch, it's a policy set by headquarters - while making it clear that you're not going anywhere until they reverse their decision.

I'm not sure threatening is such a good idea - hold the local paper/MP thing in reserve in case they point-blank refuse to do anything. Also, remember to speak to your CAB about it - they might well be able to help.

Are you going to take evidence of your budgeting with you?

First Direct give you a free £250 overdraft.

oh halifax are fuckers for this. i hate them and if you pay in money the same day to cover it they won't allow it. dh has got a refund but not the most recent time.

we have to have account for mortgage or i would close it like a shot.

What bastards. I remember having half my benefits one week because of ABBEY NATIONAL, and being on income support is no fucking joke at the best of times. Go to MP and newspapers if you have to, you know those columns for consumer rights? How dare they. HATE.

What I don't get is why the banks authorise card payments if you are going to go overdrawn. We ahve our joint current account with HBoS, and I ahve a current account in my name (onyl CB goes into it). Here's 2 examples of what I mean
Joint account - went to pay for petrol with card -message appeared on card reader thing saying not authorised. I called up and they said it would take me £2.34 over our overdraft limit - even though the very next day DH's salary would go in.

My account - I was paying for a tv, and had my cards the wrong way round in my purse, so used the one for my own current account. The TV was £245. The payment was authorised, and I was charged fees, however, the account only had £27.00 in it at the time!

I okay, I won't go in all guns blazing!! Will leave the exposure thing as a last resort.

I'm going to take in my diary in which I write everything financial down - ingoings and outgoings etc.

I never wanted an overdraft in the first place!! I completely hold my hands up to the fact that I could have just left it, controlled my spending better etc. But it was my first "grownup" account, with debit card and overdraft etc. I got carried away and majorly regret it now, believe me!!

What do you mean when you say they might withdraw my overdraft facility policy? Cos I don't want it anyway!!

I must admit though, I sometimes rely on the fact that card payments made on a sunday don't go out until the monday - when my income support goes in each week!

I'm going to make even more sacrifices as well, in the hope that I have spare money at the end of every month.

The only positive thing I suppose, is that I'm still young, and have had a chance to learn from my mistakes now.

I know it's no-one at the branch's fault, and will say so at the beginning.

cordon - re. the overdraft - I mean that if you decide to move your benefits etc to another account, and operate the Halifax account only to run the overdraft down, they would probably be within their rights to withdraw the overdraft facility.

The facility is probably given on the condition that all your benefits are paid into that account. (This might be wrong, but it's almost certainly in the small print somewhere.)

I haven't read the whole thread so apologies if someone has already suggested this but they are not supposed to do this if you are on benefits. Call them up and say you are on benefits and need the money for food for your kids. Have a look on the Moneysaving expert website - there will be advice on there.

but surely they wouldn't take it away if I still owed the money?!

I understand about being conditional wrt a certain amount of money going in each month.

But wouldn't they want me to pay the overdraft off before they removed it? Or would they just bill me the lump sum and expect me to pay it all at once?

policy is right about teh over draft thing. We have our (large) overdraft on the condition we pay x amount in every month

I'm with the halifax too and a few months ago I got around £200 of charges taken off. I'd gone to a cash point and looked at my balance it said £25 CR so I thought I was £25 in the red and with my £100 overdraft I'd have £125 to play with.
Bought a few things, but when I checked my account online 2 days later I was over the overdraft limit.

Turns out that when the cash point said £25 CR, it should have said £75 DR so it confused me.
I had to travel back to the same cash point to get a recipt of my account balance adn when I took it to the branch manager even he admitted it was confusing and it took him a while to work out where that balance had come from, so it was refunded.

But I now cannot go over my limit for a long time as they will not refund them until a certain amount of time has passed.

They would probably remove the facility and require you to pay it off there and then.

This is ONLY if you opened another account and started paying your benefits into that second account - don't panic!

Ask them to reverse the charge, and use the words: disproportionate charge.

By all means complain to Halifax but as the MSE website will explain they don't have to process most complaints on the topic at the moment although there are exceptions for financial hardship. The court case is going to the house of lords shortly I think so there should be some light at the end of the tunnel at least.

They have stopped the ability to claim back fees while a court case is pending. But its says on the Martin Lewis website that if you are a more needy person, can't remember exact wording, but to do with inability to pay bills etc. then they can't stop you from claiming back money owed.

Some years ago Halifax ballsed up our mortgage application 7 times in 26 days...we decided to ditch it as we reckoned the whole thing was jinxed! Never gone near them since.

Other people have covered the reclaiming I see

I just wanted to warn you quickly of an awful policy Natwest have, I don't know if Halifax have it as well - but to illustrate, (easier than explaining), I went overdrawn in March for one day by something ridiculous like £2. (The account didn't have an o/d but would be the same for going over an agreed o/d) They charge you, but the charge comes out in April. I had no warning of this, so at the end of April/beginning of May, the charge of £35 came out. Because I had less than £35 in my account, my account went into negative figures during May. So I was charged in June for being overdrawn during May! When I was only overdrawn because they had charged me

I eventually sorted it all out by going into the bank and asking what charges I had coming, every few weeks for a few months until I was sure there was nothing else coming. I will reclaim it all one day but just haven't had chance to do so yet. I am really angry about this system, it seems so ridiculous.

That's true with Halifax too - they apply the charges about three weeks after the event. They send you a letter telling you when the charges will be applied though - you just have to bear it in mind.