Halifax - what I can claim?

[kecimot]

Hi, I am not exactly starter, I was here before many times and I proceed up to the point that now I want to file small court claim. (Halifax offered me approx. half charges as final settlement which I rejected).

But I have one problem I need help with.

During last 3 years Halifax imposed charges on my account approx. £900 and counting. Until September 2006 they actually took from my account approx. £750.

In September I started to use other bank account while on my Halifax account was -£60 (that minus was caused by charges, not by unauthorized overdraft) and from September 2006 it rocketed to approx. -£170 (all caused by continuous monthly charges for "unauthorized overdraft" of unpaid charges from September).

Here get question: What I have to ask for?

1. Do I have to ask now only for actually paid charges and start new claim after they will deduct this minus from settlement or

2. do I have to ask Halifax to refund my money back and to annul that -£170? How I have to write it down?

Help please.

Thanks.

[kecimot]

Hi, I am not exactly starter, I was here before many times and I proceed up to the point that now I want to file small court claim. (Halifax offered me approx. half charges as final settlement which I rejected).

But I have one problem I need help with.

During last 3 years Halifax imposed charges on my account approx. £900 and counting. Until September 2006 they actually took from my account approx. £750.

In September I started to use other bank account while on my Halifax account was -£60 (that minus was caused by charges, not by unauthorized overdraft) and from September 2006 it rocketed to approx. -£170 (all caused by continuous monthly charges for "unauthorized overdraft" of unpaid charges from September).

Here get question: What I have to ask for?

1. Do I have to ask now only for actually paid charges and start new claim after they will deduct this minus from settlement or

2. do I have to ask Halifax to refund my money back and to annul that -£170? How I have to write it down?

Help please.

Thanks.

[doo]

I take it you have sent prelim letter and LBA but stop just before filing court action. You can carry on adding charges up until you file your court action, so any you have incurred between this time just add on to your total.

[kecimot]

Hi

Thanks, but that is not exactly what I need.

I will ask all money which they actually took from my account - that is for sure.

But I don't know how to word removing of "unauthorized overdraft" which is now on the account and is caused genuinely by charges. - it is approx.£170 (and counting - they impose new charges on account every month because this "overdraft". I don't send my wages on that account any more so it is not cleared)

Do I have to ask them to

1. pay money on account (it will cause to nil overdraft) or to

2. annul this charges or

3. do I have to leave this for now and once they will pay refund of charges on the account and will automatically deduct current "overdraft" started to fill in new claim?

[kecimot]

Bit update: I just filed small claim against Halifax for total £909.86. I only claimed money which I actually paid from my account plus interest, payment for Data Protection Act request for information and Court Fee.

 

Rest of charges imposed on the account (£185) but not paid (because no money came on the account for few months) and stated as overdraft I will claim if they will pay back on the account and withdraw them. If they will pay by check I will ask for cancellation of remaining charges.

Hopefully this is the best solution for now.

[kecimot]

This is posted on Tuesday 6.3.07 but I will start from beginning.

 

Advice No. 1.

Do not wait to claim - they will not stop charges on their own.

I had a number of charges on my account in April 2006. I had some before but never too often - 3 - 4 per year. But In April last year I had some problems (lost job etc.) and I was hit by charges really badly. I was looking for some help on the Internet and came here. I thought that it is great that I can claim charges back. I even opened second account in case that they will close my but I never started any action. Few days after I cooled off and let it go.

In July 2006 I was in my branch to give some cash on the account and I asked member of staff if I have some payments coming for next two days. She told me that not. But I had and Halifax imposed charges because of bounced Direct Debits (DD). So much for their note that we can get informations in branch to avoid charges.

At this point I decided to go ahead and asked for Informations about charges under Data Protection Act (DPA).

 

Advice No. 2.

Stick to your deadlines - they will not

 

After 2 months I received nothing (in fact I received nothing until now). But as easygoing person I did not cared. In September 2006 I was hit by another charges. At this point I went mad and started to use my new account with different bank. As a result that I did not cancelled my DDs and my wages was coming elsewhere charges rocketed. I took all old statements and (fortunately) having all of them I counted all charges and send 1. letter claiming charges back. I stated 14 days for response but (again my rotten character ) waited longer. In October I got their response offering less than half of charges back. Thanks, but no, thanks response sent. Together with Letter Before Action (LBA). As a foreigner (anyone guessed it before now from my wording?) I had ahead of me happy month with my family visiting me here in October/November 2006 which I did not want to spoil with some ugly bank corporation. So I was lazy again. When my family departed and Christmas holiday was closing I decided to wait with Small Court Claim until I will come back after New Year. I did not want to have Court hearing scheduled on my holiday. So I started my claim on 23. January 2007. More about Small Court Claim procedures in Northern Ireland against Halifax later.

 

Advice No. 3.

Read everything (almost ) and do not be shy to ask questions

 

In meantime (from July 2006) I read and read and read. I know that here are so many threads and one can get confused by all this informations but this is most important thing which you can do. On this great site you can find answers for probably every question on the road to get your money back. Only thing which I could not find was informations about proceedings in Northern Ireland. (I find some since.) But I was too shy to ask - not so good English etc. It could save me another month if I did ask.

 

Advice No. 4.

Read letters from court carefully - they are important

 

I claimed On-line. After few days I had email that I have to decide if I want to proceed with Claim in Northern Ireland or if I will Claim in England. Reason was that by claiming in Belfast it will take longer but it still can be carried on. I answered on line that I want to proceed because although Halifax will send defence, afterwards they will settle whole as they don't want to go to Court hearing. But after another few days I got letter from Court. Beginning of the letter was the same as i email. so I did not read it (I know - silly me ). After another week (14/02/2007) I phoned to court asking if I won by default as I had no other post regarding my claim. To my surprise they told me that my Claim is on hold. In this letter was a form which I had to sign if I want to proceed. So I read letter, sign form an sent it into Court Office. !Beware!

If you will claim against England Bank in Northern Ireland They have 6 (six) weeks to respond!

So now my dead line is set for 28 March 2007.

As I don't want to wait so long I wrote email to few persons in Halifax today. I will post its copy bellow.

 

Hopefully my case will help somebody.

[kecimot]

This is email which I sent to Halifax tonight. Most of email addresses worked just 3 of them was not.

 

Dears,

I would like to clear few points regarding my Small

Court Claim against Halifax regarding unlawful charges

imposed on my account.

 

My details:

xxxxxx

xxxxxx

 

I phoned your Customer Relations Department to check

out if you have got Small Claim Pack but they could

not access my file as account is now closed. That is

why I decided to to send you this email.

 

1. As I am working from 7am to 7pm I can not go into

your branch to change my address but if you will send

me any post on my old address (this one which is in

your file) I will receive it. But I will appreciate if

you can use my new address for any correspondence.

Alternatively you can use my email address

xxxxxx@xxxx.xx, which you should have in

my file as well.

 

2. As a courtesy for you (that you will not miss on

Court deadline for response) I copied bellow (on the

very end of email) my Small claim Application and

contact details for court dealing with it (that is in

case that you did not received or misplaced your Small

Claim Pack).

 

3. As we all know, all banks (your self including) pay

all charges back before can Court hearing take place.

It will be greatly appreciated if you will not wait to

the very last moment and settle disputed amount

(Total: £ 909.86 - for details see bellow my Small

Claim Application) to my account ( Acc. No. xxxxxxx sort code xxxxxx)

ASAP.

 

4. On disputed Cardcash account (Acc. No. xxxxxx

Sort Code: xxxxxx) was (before you closed it)

outstanding balance approx. £-190.00 all caused by

yours unlawful charges. This amount is not included in

my claim and I have to make absolutely clear that you

have to set balance of above mentioned account to zero

by annulling all imposted charges. However, if you

take that approx. £-190.00 out of disputed amount

(Total: £ 909.86) I will start new proceeding to

recover all of my money.

 

5. In one of your last letters member of your staff

threaten me with imposing of default on my credit file

because of outstanding balance on the account.

All of outstanding balance on my account was caused by

your unlawful charges and account was in this time in

dispute. Imposing of default regarding an account in

dispute is against law (if you will need references I

can send them to you but I am sure that your legal

department can explain it to you why). If you did it

(and I will know soon as I asked for my credit file

informations) I will take legal action against you and

I will ask not only for removing of default notice but

also for damage compensations.

 

As you can see, I will continue to the very end with

this case and your approach can either spare us all

time and yours company money or can bring as to the

position where we both will lose wast amount of time

but I will get my money and your costs will be greatly

increased by legal expenses.

The decision is yours.

 

Sincerely yours

 

kecimot

 

Details of Small Claim:

xxxxxxxx

Unliquidated

SMCOLAPL

Form 125

Order 26, Rule 4

SMALL CLAIM APPLICATION FORM

Applicant(s): Respondent(s):

xxxxxx

xxxxxx

xxxxx

HALIFAX PLC

Po Box 548

Leeds

LS1 1WU

Take notice that the above applicant(s), intend to

apply to the Small Claims Court at LAGANSIDE

COURTS

 

(Belfast - town added by me to clarify where it is)

 

for a decree in respect of:-

My Claim for: £ 785.96

*Interest: £ 61.90

The Court Fee: £ 62.00

Total: £ 909.86

*Only include a figure if you wish to claim interest

and have given details of the rate and the

period covered within your claim description.

Claim Description

1. The Claimant has an account xxxxxxx with the

Defendant, opened September 2004

2. Since 08/10/04 the Defendant debited charges and

interest in respect of purported breaches of

contract.

3. Defendant is aware of all details as a list of

charges has already been supplied. Another copy will

be sent.

4. Claimant contends: (a) The charges exceed the

Defendant's losses caused by the breaches; (b) The

Term permitting the Defendant to levy such charges is

unenforceable under the Unfair Terms in

Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, Unfair Contract

Terms Act 1977 and at Common Law.

5. Claimant claims: (a) return of the amounts debited

of £775.96; (b) Interest per S.69 County

Courts Act 1984 of 8% - £61.90 continuing at 8% until

judgement or settlement at a daily rate of

£0.17; © return of £10 paid 10. July 2006 to

defendant by Post Check as fee for DPA information

(information never received!)

6. Alternatively, if the charges are a fee for a

service, then they must be reasonable under S.15 of

the

Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982.

7. Costs allowed by the Court.

Statement of Truth

07/009064

Unliquidated

SMCOLAPL

I believe that the above information given is true and

that the claim does not relate to a minor or

patient.

Signed by: xxxxxx

Company/Position held:

Dated: 23 January 2007__

 

Contacts to court office:

CIVIL PROCESSING CENTRE

Po Box 882

Chichester Street

Belfast

BT1 3JF

Telephone 028 9072 4566

Fax 028 9072 5956

DX Number 456 NR Belfast

E-Mail civilprocessingcentre@courtsni.gov.uk

Web Northern Ireland Court Service

[Bigmac versus]

Well done Kecimot you are well on your way to getting your money back.

[kecimot]

As stated in title, I cant find how to create signature. Anyone can help? Thanks

[sea-sidelady]

Because the site is so busy at the moment, the way to keep it going is to cut back on some things, hence the signatures and the avatars missing.

They will be back soon.

[kecimot]

I called to Halifax, just to speed it up a bit and was transferred to Matthew Ingham - Team leader of Customer relations. Bellow are his contacts.

 

 

 

MatthewIngham@halifax.co.uk napsal(a):

Thank you for your email

 

I will ensure this is processed before the 28th March 2007

 

Regards

 

Matthew Ingham

Team Leader - Regulated Sales

Customer Relations - Halifax

HBOS Plc

CB/2/CR/26527

Direct Dial: 01422 326 527

matthewingham@halifax.co.uk

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: kecimot Sent: 13 March 2007 12:48

To: Ingham, Matthew (Customer Relations)

Subject: Re: Court Summons

 

Following our phone contact I enclosed all relevant documents.

Hopefully all links will work. Bellow you can find my email regarding this account. Please reply to all of my questions. Thank you.

kecimot

[Struggling_Simon]

So , the deadline has passed - what happened out of interest?

[kecimot]

Partially won - I got £694.38 of 909.86. The rest is in post bellow.

 

I've got letter from Halifax where they said that they will pay me off but deducted rest of charges on account before it was closed down. As I did claimed just money which they actually took from my account, I replied:

 

Dear Matthew

 

I got a letter from Amanda Duncan ( one member of your team) regarding my Small Claim.

 

As in that letter was stated that you will pay £909.86 which I claimed, however you will deduct £215.48 which was written off when account was closed (making total to £694.38).

I will accept this offer only as PARTIAL UNCONDITIONAL SETTLEMENT against claim of mine.

 

In my email from 13.3. I expressly stated in point 4 as you can see bellow:

 

"4. On disputed Cardcash account (Acc. No. [edited for your safety]

Sort Code: [edited for your safety] ) was (before you closed it)

outstanding balance approx. £-190.00 all caused by

yours unlawful charges. This amount is not included

in

my claim and I have to make absolutely clear that

you

have to set balance of above mentioned account to

zero

by annulling all imposted charges. However, if you

take that approx. £-190.00 out of disputed amount

(Total: £ 909.86) I will start new proceeding to

recover all of my money. "

 

I see that you did not comply with my demand. As you did not fill in defense and my claim is now in stage, where I have to apply for default, I want to express clearly, that since I don't have to start new claim, if I will not have today ALL OF MY MONEY (incl. disputed £215.48) I will not hesitate to go into your branch with bailiffs and press, to make sure, that i will recover all of my money.

I expect your call today until 11 am on 07927004508 to discus when will be disputed £215.48 deposited in my account. If I will not speak with you until 11 am, I will go to court to apply for default.

I repeat - I claimed only money which was actually taken from me and I did not included disputed amount, which was caused solemnly by your unlawful charges.

 

To your information: In your letter is again stated that to avoid charges I can...quote: " also contact one of our banking advisers at any of our branches."

I started my claim because I was in branch with money and asked what payment is coming within next 2 days. Your adviser told me that nothing. And I was hit by charge next day. As a result to be overdraft (because of that charge) I was hit by second charge. I was in branch to avoid that and it did not helped. I was angry and searched for help. On Consumer action group I got help and here we are.

 

 

 

Yours sincerely kecimot

 

His reply:

Mr kecimot,

 

Thank you for your email. I tried calling your mobile this morning but was there was no answer.

 

Your claim was for £909.86. The maximum we can settle is the amount claimed, which we have paid.

 

Thank you

 

Matthew Ingham

Team Leader - Regulated Sales

Customer Relations - Halifax

HBOS Plc

CB/2/CR/26527

Direct Dial: 01422 326 527

matthewingham@halifax.co.uk

 

My reply today:

 

 

Mr Ingham,

 

1. you rang me at 9:55 when I was on the toilet. I waited for your next call and at 10:25 called you myself. You was on the meeting and one member of your team told me that she would forward message that I rang. I appreciate that you are busy man with all this claims for return of unlawful charges, but this is fault of your bank not mine. If you imposed charges which will not exceed your costs I will happily pay that and with me all of us, claimants. However this charges are punitive and greatly exceed your costs, which can be count in pennies not pounds. Anyway you could call again later if there was no answer. I think that anybody can go on the toilet if is in need.

 

2. Regarding your statement that you paid 909.86 I can proof that this is not true. I submitted to court (together with my application for default judgment) statement of my bank account witch clearly stated that somebody (probably you as this amount is the same as amount stated in your letter) paid on my account only £694.38. That mean you still owe me £215.48 plus daily interest £10.71 at daily rate £0.17 since 23 January 2007, when I started my Small Claim (see quote from my Small Claim Application bellow, point 5, letter (b) ) until 28 March 2007 and £0.94 (up today) counting at daily rate £0.047 (8% pa interest from £215.48) until whole amount will be paid off. Fortunately for you I did not know in time when I started my claim that I can use your unarranged overdraft interest rate (is it 32%?) as contractual interest, so I used only 8%. It does not matter anymore. I did not started claim to get your money. I started it to get my money back.

 

*It mean that up today (30th March 2007) you owe me yet £227.13* and that amount will grow each day by £0.047.

 

3. Regarding £215.48 which was stated on my account as overdraft (even though it was all only your unlawful charges), if you wanted that money from me you had to fill in counterclaim, which you did not. I know that you can't afford to counterclaim that money, because if you will, you have to disclose to court truly costs of your charges. And we all know that this is only thing which you can't - if you will disclose your costs it will clearly state that you are charging £38.?? more than are your actual costs and that will mean that your charges are unlawful and has to be lowered accordingly to your costs.

 

*Because you did not counterclaim for above stated £215.48 you had no right to debited this amount from settlement. This claim will not be settled until you will pay whole amount stated above. *If you are in doubts you can ask your legal department, they will explain it to you.

 

4. Regarding your notice that "The maximum we can settle is the amount claimed,...": a) if you mean that you can settle only amounts claimed in courts - we both know that this is not the case - your bank settled hundreds (maybe thousands - i was unable to read all of cases posted no Consumer Action Group website) of claims before thy reached court stage.

b) if you mean that you can settle only amount which was officially claimed from your bank - consider this email as my official claim for rest of my money - and now you can settle it. But still - you don't have to settle it and I will proceed with my Small Court Claim - see important notice bellow for my next steps.

 

I am sorry to corner you like that but - your bank is in breach of law with such charges, not me. State clearly your expenses with refused Direct Debits ( I was only once overdraft and that by pennies - all your charges was for unpaid Direct Debits) and I will pay it. Until then you have no right for my money.

 

*PLEASE NOTICE: !IMPORTANT!*

I would like to stress clearly, that if you will not pay whole amount stated above I will be more than happy, once will be default against

you granted, to go into one of your branches with bailiffs and press, and even with TV. I am sure that press will like to run story about small man beating big corporation.

 

 

*Quote from Small Claim *(full text on the end of email)*:*

"5. Claimant claims: (a) return of the amounts

debited

of £775.96; *(b) Interest per S.69 County

Courts Act 1984 of 8% - £61.90 continuing at 8%

until

judgement or settlement at a daily rate of

£0.17; (*c) return of £10 paid 10. July 2006 to

defendant by Post Check as fee for DPA information

(information never received!)" end of quote.

[Bookworm]

Why are you wasting so much time and energy on arguing with them? :-?

 

They know how much you are claiming, they know they will have to repay you 100%. The more you argue, the more you make yourself an easy target.

 

This would have been enough:

 

Dear ...,

 

Thank you for your partial settlement of £xxx.

Until you have settled in full the remaining amount of £xxx (including court fee of £xx and accrued interest of £xxx), my case continues.

 

Yours, etc...

 

That's ALL you need. STOP arguing with them, it serves no purpose whatsoever. ;-)

[kecimot]

Thanks BookWorm. I will do that from now on.

[kecimot]

So Halifax is playing roughly. They settled just part and now are not responding at all. On 11.5. I have court hearing where Judge have to decide how much I will get. I will claim Wasted Costs as well.