Hi all, I'm sooooo angry and not sure where i stand so any advice would be really really appreciated! I went through the bank charges process last year and had to escalate it as a hardship claim. Due to the length of time it took a reslove it came out at the same time the banks were successful in test case. AS a result I got a letter the very next day from the Ombudsman ruling in favour of the bank but that the original offer of £998 still stood. I then contacted Halifax in January this year to take this - I simply couldnt afford to hold off any longer despite wanting to. Only now have they done anything to release this payment. They sent me a form to sign which asked if i wanted the money credited to my halifax account (which is in arrears) or payment via cheque. Due to my financial status I opted for cheque payment in order to pay off priority bills first. Havng not heard anything again i just rung Halifax and they have decided to credit my bank account despite the option i chose for having a cheque payment. They say they can do this as they are reducing my debt and its the agreement they have with the Ombudsman service (noone told me that!) - fine i get that but other than reduce a non priority bill I thought the whole point was to refund the payment for me to alliveate hardship. Also anyone i know who has gone through this has had a refund paid to them despite being in debt. I'm so stressed and I know it sounds silly as my halifax debt is reduced but that money would of gone to pay priority bills which suffered in the first place as a result of continual charging. I was going to go back to the Ombudsman but wanted some neutral advice first. Please if anyone has any advice /comments???

Hi all, I'm sooooo angry and not sure where i stand so any advice would be really really appreciated! I went through the bank charges process last year and had to escalate it as a hardship claim. Due to the length of time it took a reslove it came out at the same time the banks were successful in test case. AS a result I got a letter the very next day from the Ombudsman ruling in favour of the bank but that the original offer of £998 still stood. I then contacted Halifax in January this year to take this - I simply couldnt afford to hold off any longer despite wanting to. Only now have they done anything to release this payment. They sent me a form to sign which asked if i wanted the money credited to my halifax account (which is in arrears) or payment via cheque. Due to my financial status I opted for cheque payment in order to pay off priority bills first. Havng not heard anything again i just rung Halifax and they have decided to credit my bank account despite the option i chose for having a cheque payment. They say they can do this as they are reducing my debt and its the agreement they have with the ombudsman service (noone told me that!) - fine i get that but other than reduce a non priority bill I thought the whole point was to refund the payment for me to alliveate hardship. Also anyone i know who has gone through this has had a refund paid to them despite being in debt. I'm so stressed and I know it sounds silly as my halifax debt is reduced but that money would of gone to pay priority bills which suffered in the first place as a result of continual charging. I was going to go back to the ombudsman but wanted some neutral advice first. Please if anyone has any advice /comments???

Thanks for your replies. I'm not overly stressed about it but just wanted to chec i was'nt being disadvantaged due to the poor management reporting prior to this manager. Especially going off on Mat leave soon too.

I was due to have my apprasial last week when my line manager said she was finding it difficult to do as she has only been my line manager since January (my previous one was sacked) she explicitly said I think we need to extend as I am unable to asseess but also you (being me) have'nt been given clear goals to work towards - she said it was nothing to do with my conduct or work to date. Can they do this - does this disadvantage me? I'm due on maternity leave in May so not sure if i'm adversly affected here? Any advice would be appreciated