MacBoy Vs. Halifax and Hello To the Group!

[MacBoy]

Hello everybody

 

I'm just about to start a claim against the the Halifax for a current account that goes back almost 17 years with them (although I know that I am probably going to be limited to the last 6 of those.

 

I no longer bank with them as I moved to the A&L over a year ago (I am also considering claiming against them next to but that's another story!). I want to ask a question - although the current account I am about to start the claim for is long closed, I have a credit card with them that has a high balance, but is in good standing (although I have been subjected to penalty charges on this in the past too). Should I:

 

1) Claim for both now

 

2) Start out with just the current account (I am guessing that they might take some retaliatory action involving the card anyway even though the account is in good standing)

 

3) If I do go down the 'both' route, would it need to be a separate action?

 

I am obviously new to all this so am hoping that the 'old hands' on here will be able to help guide me! Thank you in advance!

 

Regards

Mac

[MacBoy]

Milestone Diary Entry No. 1

Saturday 31st March 2007

 

Decided to take sea-sidelady's advice and go for credit card on the same application as current account.

 

Still a little worried that I have a fairly high-balance on the card with them though (although this is in good standing) and that they may try and use this as leverage in some way. Posted SAR to Halifax.

 

Wish me luck!

[MacBoy]

sea-sidelady

 

Thanks for the advice. Hihihihi... I must be getting 'Compo Fever' today - also just decided to fire off a missive to Portman BS too, to try for a refund on an over-inflated exit fee I paid at the back end if last year...I like this, it's energising

 

PS Bankfodder - If you're reading this I tried to respond to your request in the sticky for volunteers for the media project on mortgage exit fees; but just got a mailbounce - PM me if you need me, I'd be happy to help.

[MacBoy]

Small update:

 

Got £104 back from the Portman within 4 days of sending the letter

Appealed a parking ticket the same day too and had that cancelled!

 

Still nothing from the Halifax though - their 40 days is up 10th May and have heard nothing from them by way of acknowledgment - sent the S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) letter 31/03). Is this normal?

 

Thx

Mac

[MacBoy]

Thanks for the responses, sea-sidelady. littlejam... I'll keep you up to speed with my progress

 

Regards

Mac

[MacBoy]

Update

Monday, 7th May 2007

 

Well, after having sent the S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) on 31st March, the clock is ticking inexorably towards the deadline, this Thursday 10th May - and not a peep from the Halifax. Have prepared the Letter Before Action (Data Protection Act Non-Compliance Template No. 3 from the library) and shall be sending this if nothing has arrived by the deadline.

 

I have decided that in addition to the DSAR team, I shall copy in Legal Services and Customer Relations this time (unless anyone has advice to the contrary).

 

Quick question - per sea-sidelady's kind advice, I have detailed my current account and credit card claims on the same initial letter, to save an extra £10. I've since realised that as I've been with the bank for a number of years, the card has been changed/upgraded etc. over time, there are additional account numbers.

 

Assuming that the Halifax will do the absolute minimum and stick to the letter of my claim (and they've never surprised me in this respect before ), do I need to either:

 

a) state in this next (and future) letters that the claim also applies to all predecessor Visa accounts?

 

b) issue fresh claims for the acccount numbers not covered by the first?

 

Advice would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks as always

Mac

[MacBoy]

Useful Info

Wednesday, 9th May 2007

 

Reading through the thread, you'll know that I'm approaching the end of the 40-day S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) compliance period for my claim against the Halifax. Having heard not a peep, I thought I'd give them quick, polite courtesy call today, to see if I could establish a reason for the delay before further progressing my claim.

 

After 20 mins or so of switchboard hell and being put through to the wrong people, I spoke to someone in Legal Services who said 'Oh we don't deal with that sort of thing here, but please call this number - 01422 391152.'

 

Just to warn people, this number contains a recorded message that merely says 'if you are callng regarding a Subject Access Request, please note that this should be with you within the next 40 Day given period.' The message repeats, then after approx. 2.5 mins the line disconnects.

 

Hopefully this will prevent anyone else going through this absolutely meaningless, useless and shameless fob-off.

 

No more well-intentioned attempts at dialogue. I'm preparing Non-Compliance as I post :grin:

 

Regards

Mac

[MacBoy]

Milestone Diary Entry No. 2

Saturday 12th May 2007

 

The 40-Day period has now elapsed. I have heard nothing. I have tried to reach Halifax by phone to ascertain the whereabouts of my claim. After much wasted effort, I did manage to get to speak to someone in 'Customer Care' (apparently different than 'Customer Relations'). I wrote a separate post about it so won't go into detail here.

 

I have sent a letter giving them seven days in which to respond in order to establish what has happened. It carries a threat of further action if they don't. I'll update you on progress hopefully next week.

 

Regards and have a good weekend!

Mac

[MacBoy]

Update

Thursday, 17th May 2007

 

The seven days given to Halifax to find and acknowledge receipt of my earlier claim expires tomorrow. Nothing yet. This worries me as I have just tried Track and Trace at Royal Mail Online and they have no information yet Am getting a little suspicious now.

[MacBoy]

Milestone Diary Entry No. 3

Saturday 26th May 2007

 

Have FINALLY received acknowledgment of my claim. In a letter dated over a week ago (but which only arrived this morning), the Halifax wrote as follows:

 

Dear Mr MacBoy

 

Further to your letter I am pleased to confirm the information you requested has now been ordered. Once these documents are ready they will be sent direct to you.

 

In relation to your request for information about any manual intervention on your acccounts, as the Halifax is not required to record this information I am afraid I am unable to assist you further with this request. (Significant?)

 

In your original letter you enclosed a payment of £10. As the Halifax has decided not to charge a fee for requests such as this, I have cancelled your cheque for £10 as a refund (er, how can you do that when I now bank with the A&L)?

 

Details of how we make use of your personal information can be found at Halifax - Privacy. The registered data protection notification details can be found at ICO – Information Commissioner's Office. If you have any difficulties accessing either of these pieces of information please let me know and I will be happy to forward you a printed copy of either document.

 

Yours etc..

 

A fairly garbled letter littered with punctuation errors which I haven't reproduced here for ease of reading. I would be happy to get feedback from the group about the above gratefull received; otherwise I shall sit and wait.

 

Regards

Mac

[MacBoy]

Stranger and stranger - despite the fact that they say they 'cancelled' my cheque (implying that they weren't going charge the S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) fee)....they did!!

 

Just looked at my bank statement online (I bank with A&L these days, not the Halifax) they cashed my cheque yesterday One wonders whether the left hand knows what the right hand is doing in this organisation

[MacBoy]

Thanks for the click

 

No worries, thenks for the help

[MacBoy]

Update

Wednesday, 30th May 2007

 

Previous readers (you know who you are ) will recall that I have had to send the Halifax several initial S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) Request letters after they ignored both the 40 day deadline and a subsequent 7 day LBA (or were overwhelmed with work - I'm not going to stoop to their level and assume that they were witholding maliciously, but after 17 years with them I wouldn't put it past them ).

 

Anyway, I finally got a letter at the weekend acknowledging my claim and informing me that my information will be with me soon and they had 'generously' waived the £10 fee.

 

Well, to my surprise and shock I got ANOTHER letter this morning (this time with a HBOS letterhead not Halifax), again acknowledging my claim but mentioning nothing of a refund (which does stack up as one of the cheques has actually cleared my bank account).

 

What are they playing at? is this a genuine error arising from the fact I sent more than one letter, or a case of left hand/right hand mutual ignorance; or are they really playing confusion tactics to divide and rule?

 

Can anyone see any potential problems arising from this? And should I seek to clarify things for them, or will this only make things worse?

 

Thanks

Mac

[MacBoy]

Closer inspection and comparison of the two letters reveals that they each have a different reference number - indicating that perhaps the 'cock-up theory' is correct.

 

However, one letter (the 'Halifax' one) has my account numbers and the other (the 'HBOS' one) merely refers to 'Your request for information about your account(s).

 

Mac

[MacBoy]

Milestone Diary Entry No. 4

Monday 4th June 2007

 

Current account statements arrived today. Initial count (I will double check) reveal £1721 before interest, for 5 years of statements (I changed to A&L in 005, so effectively lost a year on the 6 year rule due to my own inertia ).

 

This period was 'better' for me than previously, because during it I took advantage of home equity and low interest rates to do a remortgage to straighten myself out. The real bank charges were in the years prior to this.

 

So my question is - do I make this claim now for the above amount plus interest and continue to dig, or write back to them requesting earlier statements, with a view to making one full claim?

 

Many thanks in advance for learned opinions and help!

Mac

[MacBoy]

Thanks ripped off

 

I think my answer to your question would be - 'yes, I'd like to claim for the lot, provided it's not going to involve a prohibitive amount of hassle' (I'm prepared for some of course).

 

But I guess what I was trying to establish, was whether or not it was advisable (or current practice) to make the claim in two stages (6 years first) then go after them for the rest later?

[MacBoy]

If that's the case, should I make it clear in my Prelim letter that this is not everything and I will be going for the rest?

 

If so, any suggestions as to wording?

 

Would I need to file a Data Protection Act non-compliance letter in addition? I did ask in my original SAR for the 'a complete list of transactions and charges relating to my banking history with your organisation', making no mention of 6 years.

 

Thanks

Mac

[MacBoy]

So ripped, are you saying that I should just send a normal Prelim and proceed with the six years worth I have, but at the same time instigate an Information Commissioners Office complaint?

 

Then presumably start a 'second track' action against them to try and force them to hand over the pre-6 years info and on receipt of this (if I get it) start another case?

 

Sorry If I'm seeming dumb but i just want to get this right and not lose it by making any silly mistakes.

[MacBoy]

Dusary

 

Many thanks indeed for setting me straight !

 

Mac

[MacBoy]

Update

Saturday, 9th June 2007

 

OK, I know I've been um'ing and ah'ing about this, but I've come to a decision

 

As I asked them for full statements right back to the beginning of my banking relationship with them (some 17 years or so ago) and they've only sent me the six years, I'm going to fire off an LBA as a prelude to a Non-Compliance Letter asking for the rest of the statements. Drafting it now.

 

If anyone has any guidance to offer, or if they think what I'm doing is wrong, please don't hesitate to shout out - but I have to act otherwise they win; and reading through the threads (I have done very little but deep-read the threads over the past two days), it appears there is no clear-cut direction about what to do in this situation. So I've decided to draw them into a response in order to gauge their thinking.

 

I'll post the draft for peer review- your opinions are valuable to me!

 

Cheers

Mac

[MacBoy]

OK here's my draft - feedback welcomed as always This is just my current a/c - it appears that they are dealing with the Visa on a separate track:

 

LETTER BEFORE ACTION

Section 7 – Data Protection Act 1998

Current Account - Sort Code xx-xx-xx Account no. xxxxxxxx (closed)

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

Your ref: DSARxxxxxx

I am in receipt of the documents that you have supplied in response to my Data Protection Act information request dated (xx/xx/xx). The disclosure of personal data is incomplete in that at least the following documents are missing:

 

• You have failed to provide a complete list of transactions and charges. I asked for full disclosure of my complete banking history with yourselves. You have provided only current account statements from 30 Dec 2000 to 13 Dec 2005. My account with you as you are well aware goes back many years prior to this; to xx/xx/87 in fact. (awaiting confirmaton of this from a branch on Monday - but I think it's now actually 20 years!!!).
  
  

 

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, it is just an example of some of the information I am missing. Accordingly, I have to tell you that you have not yet complied with your obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.

 

The time for compliance with my request has now expired. If you do not comply fully with my Subject Access Request within 7 days, I shall apply to the County Court for an order to enforce compliance, together with damages at the discretion of the court.

 

Yours faithfully

Lord Mac Of Boy

 

My nice new CAG envelope stickers await

[MacBoy]

Thanks Dusary, yes, this will help depending on their response to the above letter. Once I get the actual commencement date of my account from my local branch (hopefuly this morning), I'll send it off.

Failure to disclose any manual intervention in my accounts undertaken by yourselves

 

Just to clear something up - they say in their initial response something about not being required to do this does anyone know what the actual position is?

[MacBoy]

Update

Monday 11th June 2007

 

Walked into my local HFX branch this morning to ask about my account opening date, which had slipped from my memory into the annals of time.

 

Very helpful enquiry person (not counter staff) asked for ID, fired up her system and produced a list of every account or product I ever had from them! That'll be useful at some point

 

Anyway, have now established that my account was opened at the beginning of 1987 so that's over 20 years Now to send the letter!

 

Mac

[MacBoy]

Milestone Diary Entry No. 5

Monday 11th June 2007

 

LBA - Data Protection Act Non-Compliance sent today. I've used this to point out to them thay they are non-compliant in that I have only received the initial 6 years' worth of statements (i have an account that was 18.5 years old at the time of closing). This should elicit a response from them invoking the Limitation Act 1980. They have seven days to respond.

 

I've also pointed out to them that I've only received statements for my current account - nothing at all from my credit card; and asked them to confirrm whether this is being dealt with on a separate track.

 

Let battle commence

[MacBoy]

Update

Friday 15th June 2007

 

Proof of delivery @RM online shows letter signed for by a named recipent 12/06. No response from HFX.

 

Mac