me vs the halifax

[gothicf0rm]

well i started litigation against the halifax last week for a little over 2000. after replying to the initial letter, complete with a "if i dont hear from you within 8 weeks i will assume you are happy" at the bottom they then ignored ALL attempts i had made to try and contact them.

the branch didnt care, said there was nothing they could do, they even claimed they only had access to my last month of statements so couldnt possibly refund any more even if they wanted to! how about that for XTRA customer service.

fed up waiting for a response i filled in the moneyclaim online thing, now the clock is ticking against them. i will of course let everyone know how i get on. once ive finished the court action ill be moving to a bank that does actually give a toss about it's customers - i know all banks have charges but it seems some put their hands up and refund the customer if the customer complains and dont stick their head in the sand.

also, it seems very tempting to set up a website along the lines of thehalifaxsuck.com complete with tales of lost cheques, cashing cheques in wrong currencies, electronic payments going missing (one i didnt realise that got lost actually got me sued in the civil court as it showed up as cleared and it had gone to the wrong account, the guy didnt believe me and issued a summons!) and so on. one lost cheque took them 10 months to sort out! only a couple of weeks ago they took almost two weeks to clear a BACs payment, since when is 8 working days the amount they say it is.

i particularly liked the agreement they made in a period last year to waive charges over it as i was changing income source and switching from an international to domestic merchant account is complicated and caused some financial hitches.

they wrote to me complaining i'd broken the agreement (i hadnt) and then when i tried to get those fees back which totalled about 700 quid in fees and interest over a couple of months they said they had no record of any agreement despite having sent me letters saying id broken the agreement. theyd even lost all records of me having telephoned their useless customer service dept, i suppose my phone bill was lying.

another thing they did was cancel my card saying i was overdrawn when i wasnt! it was a computer hitch they said, their people cant see my real time balance. when disputing this the guy on the phone just said "right im cancelling your card" and hung up on me whilst i was talking in mid sentence. i later found out it was a criminal offence to progress with such things when the debt is disputed. well if they cant see my balance how can i be expected to manage my account properly?

anyway my patience with them just completely snapped, ive never recieved a single penny compensation off them for any of their mistakes, and since then their behaviour just seems to justify things further. i hope every single one of their customers sues them for every single penny they have ever unlawfully taken.

[BankFodder]

Why don't you have an entry put ino the "Litigation in Progress" forum?

[gothicf0rm]

because it says only moderators can post there

[BankFodder]

Silly me. I meant to put up a note asking people to contact us with their details to put them up.

It's just that we thought that it would be better if it was just a bare list with no discussions. Discussions can take place elsewhere in the relevant forums.

 

We really wanted to have a sort of "Forum of Shame"

 

Would you mind PM-ing me and I'll put up the details.

Thanks

BF

8)

[gothicf0rm]

i will once the case is complete. i see that currently theres no response from the halifax... i wonder if they are burying their head in the sand.

[gothicf0rm]

i see they have finally acknowleged the claim. what happens next? i see they need more time so have tried to stall things for 28 days. how does an organisation making over 4 billion profit need time to deal with this??? dont they have enough lawyers already?

[BankFodder]

Firstly, would you like to have the details of your case entered into the Litigation in Progress section? PM me with the info if you do.

 

Secondly, have they supplied you with a defence? or is it just an acknowledgement?

 

Also I should say that you should do some reading up on the Small Claims procedure in the County Court. You should be fully aware of what happens etc before you start so that you are not phased by each step.

Have a look at the county courts link in the Library and also google around for small claims procedure UK and start reading.

[gothicf0rm]

no defence, just an acknowlegement which if im right means they have 28 days from when the summons was issued to file a defence or admit the claim, ignore it completely, or pay me off. i expected them to file their standard crappy defense, but obviously not what they do straight off. im not used to the moneyclaim online thing though, it takes a bit of working out to compare it to the forms i normally use. i dont really care though, the longer it takes them to settle the more money i get, its going up by over 3 quid a week in interest.

as ive said before, ill give you the precise claim details when its all settled.

i have one for you though from another of my friends who i advised -

nicki cairns vs the Bank of scotland. settled before a summons was issued for the full amount she demanded, a little over 500.

[BankFodder]

I don't know why, but I didn't read your post correctly. Must be the early hour.

 

The 28 days means that they have acknowledged and indicated an intention to defend.

 

They have to put the defence in in 28 days or else you can get judgment.

They will put something in - or else settle. But anyway, get the clock ticking and if they make a mistake and miss the deadline, get in there at the first opportunity and get your judgment.

 

Othere than that, read up on the process and wait to hear -either from the court that there is a defence or from them offering to settle.

[BankFodder]

We seem to be cross-posting!

 

The procedure with Moneyclaim is no different to starting the case at the court ofice.

In either case the defendant can lodge an acknowledgement and then get 28 days to defend.

I expect that all the banks will take their 28 days.

******************************

 

Good news about Nikki. Would she like to post her story? BoS forum is a bit thin at the moment and I am sure that they are no angels!

[gothicf0rm]

28 days to defend? heh. the 28th day is a sunday if they use their normal system then they'll find themselves a bit caught out.

i doubt she'd have a problem with it going up. her story would be i worked out the charges then she sent them the letter i drew up that got sent to my bank too. they acknowleged it, she sent them the same LBA i sent my bank, they paid up.

next up is christine mccrea vs the halifax. im having much fun wiping out all my friends overdrafts and costing the HBOS group a small fortune because they havent been treating me with basic courtesy.

[BankFodder]

It would be great if you could get all of these peple to register and post. We need to build up our userbase and our regular visitors.

 

As far as costing the Banks "small fortune" ... I don't think so. Have a google and find out what your bank's profit was last year

[gothicf0rm]

and how much do they have to pay lawyers an hour to deal with this... plus the office space for them, management systems to handle the claims and so on. there's a lot more to the banks costs in dealing with these than just paying out the money they owe. the longer they make it go on the more manhours they have to spend and the more company infrastructure it takes.

when im finished with them ill post the full stories on my own forums which are currently ranked the 61st most popular forum on the internet (or they were when i checked last month) and then about 200,000 people will read in the space of a week about what ive done. according to alexa my own website regularly gets more visitors than the entire halifax online banking site

i WILL cost them a small fortune.

[BankFodder]

Then I hope that you are linking through to this site.

We could use the publicity.

[gothicf0rm]

yes dave... i have a feeling if the halifax find out my "reach" they may just try and offer me some money to shut me up.

[gothicf0rm]

well i got a call from the halifax just now from their complaints department regarding the letter i sent almost 2 months ago. i quoted the law down the phone at them and told them there was legal action in process. it seems the person working for the complaints department was completely unaware of this.

[gothicf0rm]

ok, i got the forms from the court today, the halifax are going to defend my claim against them (yay! if they do) but they need 28 days to prepare a defence. id be right in thinking thats a crock of bs and they have no intention of properly defending it and are simply being awkward as ever?

[BankFodder]

I've just had a response from halifax asking to refer to my own statements for a schedule of the charges levied over the last 6 years.

 

You've mentioned that they were cagey with you about the amount of info they had on the history of your account, how did you extract this information or did you have your own records anyway?? And did you manage to get upto 6 years worth???

 

Would you mind starting a new thread for you complaint please.

It is much easier to follow what is going on and to be supportive and give advice if it is very clear which person and which claim we are deliang with thanks.

I'd be grateful if you would repost as soon as possible and I'll delete your post here so that it doen't attract repsonses

[gothicf0rm]

i have it from very good authority within the bank that the halifax have this policy for sending out statements

1) £5 per statement

2) £5 for ALL statements if they are over the same period with no breaks.

unfortunately they dont bother to tell customers about option 2 even though it does exist and at least some staff know about it. in not notifying customers of this second option it seems that every time they fail they break the banking code, they are supposed to tell you about options and costs (this was originally related to misselling of financial products).

option 2 however means that customers dont need to request their bank statements under the data protection although its a good idea to do so as their staff are pretty ignorant about things.

 

people who are going to do an ombudsman complaint after successful action might want to mention the small fact that the halifax isnt informing customers of the options available to get statements as it's something the ombudsman can act on.

[BankFodder]

Interesting. Could you give the paragraph number of the relevant code section, please.

Ta

[gothicf0rm]

5.4

[gothicf0rm]

the post just dropped through the door and the halifax have offered to settle with me in full paying me 1800ish this includes ALL the interest they charged me on their bank fees too.

[BankFodder]

Good news. Had you started an action?

Is it really evrything?

Are there no conditions?

[dolly]

That is great news.

[gothicf0rm]

no conditions at all. i believe im the first person to ever get a bank to refund some interest too that they had charged on the bank fees or on the overdraft as a result of the bank fees

my response to them is as follows -

 

Dear Sir or Madam:

Thank you for your letter dated the 15th of February with reference to my court claim listed above.

The offer for xxxxxxx to be credited to my account plus the £120 court fee is acceptable on the following conditions

· A further xxxxxxx in interest has accrued on my account or will be debited since court action began with an unknown amount for this month to be applied. As with interest stated in my ongoing claim against you this has accrued as a direct result of my impecuniousity that the Halifax Plc has caused. I will require this money to be refunded to my account too in addition to the xxxxxxxx.

· Although I have not to my knowledge ever been in default the Halifax will fully repair any references on my credit file that have been caused by any impecunosity of mine as this has occurred is a direct result of the unlawful behaviour of the Halifax Plc in failing to abide with established English contract law. Any negative references including entries such as “settled” will be regarded as defamation.

· The ongoing court action will be withdrawn only after the money and credit repair has been carried out. Should the Halifax Plc fail to do so in the time set by the legal system I will continue with the next step pursuing the action to the full. This may make you liable for further costs and interest owed under the County Courts Act 1984.

I look forwards to your prompt and final response so that we may settle this matter.