mebuck v Halifax ***SETTLED IN FULL***

[mebuck]

Hello.

 

OK - A letter came today which prompted me to call the Halifax in order to find out why they are not including 8% in their settlement figure.

 

Before I explain their latest response, I thought I'd recap exactly what's been said during our correspondance so that a) I'm not running the risk of misquoting and b) I get the best possible advice.

 

On the 6th September 2006 I filed my court claim online and received this response from Halifax:

 

 

 

In the Halifax's response, they told me that my claim was £85.59 higher than it should be and quoted they'd give me:

 

£1235.50 in charges, £319.16 "in respect of approximate interest that Halifax has calculated was charged on your account as a result of charges" and £120.00 in court fees.

 

Hang on, where is the 8%?

 

I thought that what they'd done was calculated that they owe me more interest (319.16 when I only calculated approximately 188 with the spread sheet) and so then conveniently forgot to include the 8% on top of everything. This consequently brought the requested figure from £1760.25 to £1674.66.

 

I considered this could be a money saving tactic. IE. Offering me more fundamentally, but taking with the other hand - leaving them better off.

 

My response to this letter was:

 

 

 

Here, I basically took the new figure which I believed was their Interest Debited Estimate on charges... and added 8%.. along with 8% on the penalties etc. Just like in the spreadsheet.

 

I expected to hear back from them saying they'd give me the extra 8%, bumping the claim up to £1914.22, but this was their response:

[mebuck]

I rang up customer relations straight away, and the woman on the phone said that the interest they calculated (£319.16) was NOT the interest debited from my account (even though I was led to believe it was from their previous letter) but it is the interest I am entitled to, it is a high rate, and I cannot claim any more interest on top of that figure.

 

 

It would appear that we are both running out of time with the courts and need to come to some kind of arrangement fast. They are only giving me a few days to respond before they inject the cash into my account!

 

What should I do? I would really like a few different responses so I can make my mind up.

 

Please please advise! And let me know if I'm totally misunderstood here.

 

Best Regards,

[mebuck]

Got abit of a slap wrist from bankfodder as my calculations were sloppy and my court claim didn't include an account number!

 

If only they'd give you more room to write it.

 

Settled with Halifax! May have been a bit short due to a discrepancy with the estimated interest, but pretty good!

[thewifeandI]

This echoes what happened to my claim. If, as it seems, Halifax are paying out some form of compensatory interest, why can't they inform us how this amount is made up and avoid all the confusion?

[Bookworm]

Congratulations!!!!

[DoctorWhat]

I think I can see what's happening here.

 

Looking at the scans above, it seems that The Halifax are paying interest at a rate of 8%, but appear to be compounding it annually. In other words it is neither being paid as a simple rate from the date of each charge nor as a compounded daily rate.

 

So what's happening is that all charges for any given year are totalled, 8% interest is calculated on that amount, the new total is added to the sum of the following year's charges...8% is calculated on that amount, and so on.

[thewifeandI]

If that's what they are doing, why can't they explain it in their letter, rather than trying to confuse people over the amount?