Iqor/Halifax

[huggys boss]

Hi,

we opened 2 Halifax accounts about 18 months ago.

 

One was the Ultimate Rewards account and the other was a basic savings account.

Because we were switching banks they gave us £250 overdraft on both accounts.

 

When we opened the accounts we where honest with them, and told them that we didn't expect to be accepted for the Ultimate Rewards account because we live on benefits.

 

We are in receipt of, DLA, care allowance, income support, child benefit and child tax credits as well as HB and CTB.

 

We managed to go into our overdrafts and with the charges every month never managed to get out of them, to the point where we had to move our money back to Natwest as we just could not afford to have the charges taken out of our money every month.

 

We have been getting letters and phone calls from Halifax for a few months now, we have ignored them as we are not in a position to clear the debts at the moment. We have every intention of clearing them as soon as we can.

 

We received letters last week telling us that somebody would be calling us tomorrow (not sure if it is a home visit or a telephone call), and we a wondering how we go about claiming the charges back using the hardship process. If we can reclaim the charges we could easily settle these account.

 

Can somebody point me in the right direction please.

[rebel11]

Hi huggy

 

Heres some info:- http://www.itv.com/daybreak/money/martinlewissection/bankcharges/

Scroll down Hardship (1.) - http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges

 

The key is to personalize it, don't use templates.

[huggys boss]

Thanks for the links Rebel.

 

Is this ok?

 

As you will be aware, the above account is overdrawn.

The balance on the account is -£462.93.

 

You will also be aware that we have stopped using this account recently.

 

The reason we have stopped using this account is because we could not manage to get ourselves out of our overdraft due to the monthly charges that are being applied to the account.

 

I am sure that you are also aware that our only income is benefits, and there is no possible way that we can continue to use this account while the monthly charges are being applied and request that you stop all charges going onto this account.

 

We have looked back through our statements and see that the amount of charges that you have applied to the account up until 31/08/11 total £487.

 

We are requesting that you refund these charges to us.

We know that you can do this when a customer can show that they are suffering hardship because of the charges.

 

We consider that we should be considered as a hardship case because firstly our only income is benefits, my husband Mr X is disabled and I am his full time carer.

 

Also, if you look at our account you will see that once we had used our overdraft, we seemed to get ourselves stuck in it.

 

By having to pay the charges each month, we did not have enough money left for daily expenses without having to use our overdraft.

 

At the moment, we are in a situation whereby you are adding £5 a day in charges to our account, and there is no way we can get out of this situation without your help.

 

Even if we did manage to get the account back within the overdraft limit, we would still not be able to afford the £1 a day fee for being within our limit.

 

We have taken advice and have been informed that we can request the charges back, plus request 8% interest.

 

The amount we are asking to reclaim is £503.24 which is made up of £487 charges plus 8% interest on the charges.

 

We would ask that you refund the charges to clear the debt on this account and then close the account and then either refund the remaining £40.31 to ourselves or apply it to our other account with you

 

Also, do you think I should send them an I/E sheet to save time?????

[baldness]

Send them a dollop of ****e. Maybe not at the same time though.

 

My hardship letter went in today.

 

Yours seems very reasonable to me and hey get yourself over to the FO site and file there too.

 

Hope you will use their international landline number and not the 0845 to call them on too.

 

best of luck.

[huggys boss]

I don't do ringing, I like a paper trail, give them enough rope...................

[huggys boss]

Received these this morning. Any ideas on my next move?

 

 

 

[stormski]

Hi,

 

Halifax are utter $at$...

 

I'm awaiting my girlfriends account to be officially 'shutdown'..at no point are they getting a penny for the overdraft and i'm going to make their life as hard as possible.

 

Regards,

Stormski

[huggys boss]

They have now refunded charges on both accounts for the past 2 months.

We are still over our overdraft limits, but the guy is going to ring us back on Thursday to see if they can help us any further.

 

To be honest, the guy who is dealing with it is really good and is trying to help

- I am shocked, I expected them to be really nasty and insist on us paying all the charges.

 

We don't have a problem paying what we owe so long as it is at a rate that we can afford, we just need them to not put any more charges on and we are happy.

[stormski]

Hi,

 

He's going to 'ring you'...don't believe anything he sais...

 

EVERYTHING IN WRITING...after the 'chat' or you WILL be taken for a mug.

 

Regards,

Stormski

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

A bit rash that stormski, all

bank staff are not harsh or

bullying, and believe me huggys boss

is no mug.

[huggys boss]

He has credited some charges onto both accounts and I have it in writing too.

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

Sounds like one of the good

guys:whoo:

[huggys boss]

Long story short, we have 2 accounts with Halifax, both with overdrafts. We got into a mess with them and have an agreement in place to pay them off. All charges etc frozen for 6 months then the accounts will be reviewed.

 

There have been a few problems with their system cancelling the agreement, but all is sorted with a quick phone call.

 

Today, my OH had to check his credit file for another matter and was shocked to see that Halifax have put a "GONE AWAY" notice on his file with the explanation being "CUSTOMER HAS LEFT THE ADDRESS PROVIDED WITHOUT SUPPLYING A NEW ADDRESS". As these accounts are joint accounts he told me to get a stat report and low and behold the same is on my file.

 

Also, they have marked our files as no payments being made for the last 4 months.

 

Been in touch with them today and they "Cannot explain" the "GONE AWAY" notice and have removed it (and please check your file in about 48 hours to make sure we have removed it) and are saying that the no payment markers are because we are not paying charges.

 

Not really looking for advice here, just a warning. If you are paying off an overdraft and they have stopped your charges, keep an eye on your credit file.

[huggys boss]

Long story short, we have 2 accounts with Halifax, both with overdrafts. We got into a mess with them and have an agreement in place to pay them off. All charges etc frozen for 6 months then the accounts will be reviewed.

 

There have been a few problems with their system cancelling the agreement, but all is sorted with a quick phone call.

 

Today, my OH had to check his credit file for another matter and was shocked to see that Halifax have put a "GONE AWAY" notice on his file with the explanation being "CUSTOMER HAS LEFT THE ADDRESS PROVIDED WITHOUT SUPPLYING A NEW ADDRESS". As these accounts are joint accounts he told me to get a stat report and low and behold the same is on my file.

 

Also, they have marked our files as no payments being made for the last 4 months.

 

Been in touch with them today and they "Cannot explain" the "GONE AWAY" notice and have removed it (and please check your file in about 48 hours to make sure we have removed it) and are saying that the no payment markers are because we are not paying charges.

 

When we pointed out that it would take a while for us to pay off our debt, and asked if a non-payment marker would be going each month, they said that that is the way they do things. So at the moment, our files look atrocious. Aug 1, Sept 2, Oct 3, and Nov 4. The best part is, they updated the files on 16th November and our payment date is the 27th. so even though we have paid Novembers money they had it down as a missed payment before it was due.

 

I have been in touch with them and they are sending out another compensation cheque (5th in 4 weeks) and I have written a letter to the high level complaints department.

 

What else can I do? I don't really want to get onto Equifax to make the false markers vanish just yet as although I have a printed copy of both files, I would like to let them hang themselves first!

 

Also, they couldn't tell me where I had "Gone Away" to, which is a bit ironic considering I have to call them at least once a week and all the compensation cheques come to the same address we have lived at since before the account was opened. I hope I have gone to some hot beach in the Bahama's

[dx100uk]

compensation of £1000 per entry is typical!

 

dx

[huggys boss]

Need a bit of advice here I think.

 

We are paying off our OD with Halifax at a set monthly amount and they have stopped all charges going onto the account. We had reason to access out credit file last week and were shocked to see that Halifax has us down as Status "GONE AWAY" and the reason given was that "CUSTOMER HAS LEFT THE ADDRESS PROVIDED WITHOUT SUPPLYING A NEW ADDRESS" , Need less to say, we got straight on to them as we have not moved and have no intention of doing so. They said they would remove this entry (which they have) and told us it was some sort of error, we have written to the high level complaints dept demanding an explanation.

 

What they have also done is put red late payment markers on the account (up to number 4 now!) and they say that this is the way they register payments made when there is a plan in place without any charges??????? Are they allowed to do this as it looks as though we are not paying when we are, and how many red markers can be placed on a credit file?

 

Edited December 8, 2011 by huggys boss
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[brokebutnotbeatn]

Yes. halifax are utter bas**ds and will play dirty. You have to keep on at them for everything. Well done for sitting on top of the incorrect entry. But there is nothing you can do about the late payment markers as you are paying less than you are contracturally obliged to. Are there any fees you can set about reclaiming?

[huggys boss]

They refunded the fees and charges they said we were entitled to, and your right about the markers, OH rang the ICO today, so we just need to get it paid off asap.

[badboy09]

hey guys and gals ,

can anyone put up a template please on how i can claim bk all my charges from my halifax bank, that they have taken off me in the last 4 years , my account was only a basic visa electron account , and i payed a good couple of hundred quid in charges any help would be appreciated ty

[huggys boss]

I didn't use a template, just wrote them a letter asking for them back.

Somewhere on here there is a good template and also a calculator to help you work out how much interest you should be asking for. If I stumble across them I will post up for you.

[windswept19]

I wrote asking for my charges to be refunded. I could no longer afford to keep the account going as I was in the overdraft and my limited income was being swallowed by charges. They refused to refund a penny except for one charge. I have already moved my account to Co-op - very basic but it suits me. No overdraft, no charges, no hassle.

[huggys boss]

Hi guys, not been on for a while but am in need of a little advice please.

 

We have been having a dispute with Halifax regarding O/D fees and to cut a long story short, told them that we would happily make payments on the account once they had put it into default instead of placing AR markers on our credit files.

 

They have not put the accounts into default even though we have been asking them to do this for months and we have letters from them telling us that they would, and yesterday we recieved letters from them telling us they were passing the accounts onto Iqor

 

This in itself is not a problem, they will be told the same as Halifax - stop with the AR markers and default the accounts and we will pay you!!!!

 

Anyway, the bit I would like advice on, do Iqor have to write to me before they start hounding me on the phone or does the letter from Halifax count as a notice of assignment?

Since Monday - yes they starting ringing me on Bank Holiday Monday 1-4-13, I have ignored 5 phone calls and 1 text message

[Chuck1es]

Why is putting into default so important ?

[huggys boss]

Because a default comes off your credit file after 6 years, a company can report on your credit file for up to 6 years after they have stopped putting AR markers on it.

I don't have a problem paying this off, I do have a problem with them possibly reporting on my file for up to 6 years after I have paid it.

[Bazooka Boo]

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/telecoms/privacy/

 

http://www.ico.org.uk/for_the_public/topic_specific_guides/marketing/calls?hidecookiesbanner=true

 

Lodge formal complaints to the above.