Hi,
I was wondering if anyone can help me. I bank with Halifax and due to personal issues i.e my wife is overdue her delivery date so I have been sidetracked and forgot to transfer some money across from my savings to my current account. This meant I went overdrawn by a whopping £128!!, I changed my my overdraft to £50 due to my account being illegally used earlier this year. Halifax have said I owe them £35 per transaction plus £28 This means I owe them £168 for 2 days I have spoken to them and they said they will meet me half way! Which I think is rather unfair given I that am a loyal customer. I had a charge lifted last Oct due to a cock up on their part related to a cheque, but it doesn't show that on my notes it just shows a charge has been lifted. Where do I stand as I can't really afford to be paying out £98 for nothing?

Cheers in advance

Tell them you're disappointed given the circumstances and ask to close the account (have a plan ready in case they accept!)

just submit a response saying not good enough, claim the lot back and have a back up plan. Court case is still pending on legality of charges.

I said I am going to take my business elsewhere to the gadgie on the phone and he really didn't care 😯 . I have mad an appointment with my local branch this afternoon as I am not v happy.

Vote with your feet, i have been with a bank for 15 years and all of a sudden the account that we pay bills out of started missing the interbank transfer from one account to another so the mortgage started bouncing

They refunded the first time, it happened again which they flat refused to refund, so we changed the date to an earlier transfer, it happened againn so i spoke to them and was politley told it was my responsiblity to check that there were sufficient funds in the account, i pointed out that it was their transfer that had failed but they couldnt care less either

Just in the process of changing banks now and i get a call off the old branch bank manager asking why i am leaving, just told him a few home truths !!

Other than plead, beg and throw your dummy out by threatening to change banks (and having your bluff called – more and more banks are standing firm against this kind of threat), not much at all else you can do. They might give in and drop the charges and they might not. It is entirely up to them. Until there is a definitive ruling on the charges legal action at least.
You could help your case by taking in a financial statement of your income and outgoing and any mitigating evidence as to why you became overdrawn above your limit and a previously good account history should go a long way in your favour but ultimately, it's down to the branch manager.

i f'kin hate banks. they wont do anything i bet!

It's so frustrating as they are all nicey nicey until it goes a little bit wrong. I wouldn't minds as the gits did have the money albeit in my Halifax savings account. I feel sorry for whoever faces my wrath this afternoon 😆

I should also point out I was overdrawn for less than 48hours too!!

I was overdrawn by £1.23 for about 3 hours on monday. The result: £35 charge.

I've had similar problems with Halifax before, when new direct debits have came off unexpectedly and had 3x £35 charges in the one day/letter. All for about 40 quid overdrawn. I called them and had the first two removed but still had to pay for one.

Thing is, it's entirely your own fault and you choose to bank with them so don't really have a come back to the outrageous charges. I find that taking the tact of "I'm an idiot but these charges are killing me, can you help" usually gets the person on the phone to remove them.

I'd love to move from them but this would mean 3 different accounts, mortgage, insurance etc and I can't be fecked. The same can't be feckedness that results in me mismanaging my finances obviously.

I think TSB give you 24 hours from the point your account goes into the red to sort it out before they hit you with any charges. This coupled with a nice wee text or something would be perfect.

Surely it wouldn't be hard for an email to be sent to your account if you have gone overdrawn.

monkeychild – Member

Surely it wouldn't be hard for an email to be sent to your account if you have gone overdrawn.

If he'd had time to read emails, he could have made sure he didn't go overdrawn. I mean, how hard is it to avoid using someone else's money without their agreement?

Please be giving me your account numbers and i fix this for you ok?

Had this for years as a student, robbin bastids!

how hard is it to avoid using someone else's money without their agreement?

Well good for you Mr I have never made a simple mistake in my life!! What's it like up on your pedestal of awesomness??? 🙄

I mean, how hard is it to avoid using someone else's money without their agreement?

Equally – how hard is it for banks to offer a bit of good customer service rather than robbing them blind for minor errors?

It wouldn't be hard for them to make a call/email/letter and give the customer a couple of days grace to put their account back in order – £168 in charges is just **** abysmal – I hate banks, I really do, they are just scum.

When our business was in trouble last year, who were the first to kick us in the teeth – yep the banks!

Gits!!!!

£168 in charges is just **** abysmal

Especially when the amount overdrawn is £78!!!!! The feckers got themselves into allsorts of strife and we the tax payer bailed them out. Grrrrr grumble grumble etc

you choose to bank with them so don't really have a come back to the outrageous charges.

Er, b*ll*cks.

Well the best they could do 🙄 Was get rid of £98 of the charges I still owe £70 😯 I politely told them to stick their account up their arse, and that I was off up the road to Barclays to open an account. They can frig off if they think I am stopping with them. I will be following the bank charge case closely and getting ready to pounce when I can.

Er, b*ll*cks.

You really don't though ourmaininthenorth. Like i say it's up to them if they want to drop the charges a bit to pacify you but the reality is ( unless I'm totally mistaken) that there is no ruling yet which forces them to.

If there is then I'd love to hear about it as I could claim back about a new bikes worth.

There was no ruling originally because they didn't have a leg to stand on. Until this test case, almost every claim was settled by the banks. This one will probably go against them too – the banks are almost certainly in breach of UCTA and in general the courts in the UK hate penalty clauses.

As Brian Dean put it:

"They're f–king with our heads while they rob us blind. But other than that they're friendly."

Halifax are a bunch of robbin barstewards.

They tried to charge me £35 for going overdrawn for a couple of hours by about 38p – YES PENCE. it didn't even show up on our online statement as some went in and out on the same day and the statement showed we were within our limit at all time. grrrrrr

luckly I hadn't had a charge cancelled before so they kindly didn't charge me. but still the "£$%^&*s

My bank was being a cock once. They wont do it again. 😀 Saved me a good amount of money that did.

My bank was being a cock once. They wont do it again

Did you burn it down 😆

Nope. Their cockedness cost them quite a few thousand pounds though.

Nice one power to the people 😆

I too have had massive issues with the Halifax. I used a letter on the BBC website (Search 'bank charges') to claim back £3500 worth of charges; basically when I was at university I used to get 4/5 charges a month for being overdrawn. At £28/£35 a shot it soon added up!

Eventually they offered me a settlement of £2500 which I accepted. I have another account with them that they closed through my bad financial management, and I'm claiming back the £800 on that too.

The test case is likely to go in the account holders favour, as the financial ombudsman has stated three times that the charge should be no more than the cost of a letter and postage. I've found that using the template letter and its correct jargon really made the Halifax respond to my needs as a loyal customer!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6170209.stm