Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

[Horsemad]

Can anyone advise me on what's best to do. I went over my authorised overdraft limit with the Halifax by quite alot recently and the next thing I know I've been passed to their retail bank collections, they withdrew my agreed overdraft and are sending threatening letters.

I sent them a letter with an offer of payment which I faxed and posted, but they say they never received it and as such have cleared out my husbands personal account as well as taking all of my monthly wage from the joint account, leaving us with £200 and still all the monthly bills and mortgage to pay and a 2 year old daughter to support. They say because there was no agreed offer of payment in place they are allowed to do this. They suggested I contact Payplan to get a repyment schedule in place and once this is done no further ofsetting will take place, but just don't know if I can trust them. Am due a telephone appointment with Payplan on Tues 6/1.

Im so frightened this will happen again, but my husband has been with them since leaving school and does not want to move and it's my fault the account is so overdrawn. They owe me about £2.3k in bank charges on the overdrawn account but am scared to reclaim now in case they take money from my husbands account again. Don't know what to do for best, feel like Im in a right mess.

[Birdie]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

Hi,

Sorry to be harsh, I can understand to a point your husband not wanting to move banks, however, when the going got tough, the bank did not look after you and your family!

My husband and I have had a very similar situation with Nationwide. We had to take the decision to open a basic bank account with Natwest, move my salary, direct debits etc etc just to ensure initially that we have enough money to pay our bills, without it being swallowed up every month by the bank charges etc, unauthorised overdraft etc.

If you do this ie open another account/s with another bank or building society, you could then start looking at the charges and may be able in the long run to keep the account/s with Halifax open?

Would you qualify under the "Hardship Rules"? take a look here Hardship Claims - Legal Beagles

[TUTTSI]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

As Birdie says, the bank has not looked after you and have taken your Mortgage monies etc, so I see no reason not to have a second basic bank account.

If you do fall under the hardship rules, you must deal with this ASAP as with mine they offered me 100% of our charges which fell within the 6 year period.
I will post a link to my thread and the other hardship cases which have already been paid out.

http://legalbeagles.info/forums/showthread.php?t=3966


http://legalbeagles.info/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=106

[Amy]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

Was the account the money was taken from in your name only?

Then they also took money from your husband's personal account followed by the joint account?

They are only permitted to take money from an account or accounts in the name of the person that owes the money. Therefore, they are not allowed to take money from your husband's account if it is in his name only.

[carrie52]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

Can anyone advise me on what's best to do. I went over my authorised overdraft limit with the Halifax by quite alot recently and the next thing I know I've been passed to their retail bank collections, they withdrew my agreed overdraft and are sending threatening letters.

I sent them a letter with an offer of payment which I faxed and posted, but they say they never received it and as such have cleared out my husbands personal account as well as taking all of my monthly wage from the joint account, leaving us with £200 and still all the monthly bills and mortgage to pay and a 2 year old daughter to support. They say because there was no agreed offer of payment in place they are allowed to do this. They suggested I contact Payplan to get a repyment schedule in place and once this is done no further ofsetting will take place, but just don't know if I can trust them. Am due a telephone appointment with Payplan on Tues 6/1.

Im so frightened this will happen again, but my husband has been with them since leaving school and does not want to move and it's my fault the account is so overdrawn. They owe me about £2.3k in bank charges on the overdrawn account but am scared to reclaim now in case they take money from my husbands account again. Don't know what to do for best, feel like Im in a right mess.

halifax does.nt deserve any loyalty no matter how long youve been with them
when you have probs they give you a good kicking ive been with them 18 yrs [so been there done that ]

l opened a basic account with the co-op had all my wages/dd ect transferred to it then proceeded to smack the halifax where it hurts most in their profits !!
l claimed all my bank charges bank so pse dont be scared to do that there,s all the help and support you need right here for every step of the way
then kicked up a fuss about all the interest charges got them frozen

lm with CCCS on a dmp ,have been for nearly 2yrs now , but still done all of this during that time

then started on the mis-sold ppi + got that refunded and in doing all of this, l eventually got approx £6,000 knocked off my debts ... still waiting for the ppi refund , have got the letter agreeing but still on the debt [ typical halifax good at gobbing off on the phone to you but crap tying things up ] FOS dealing as we speak :beagle:

as the halifax are notorious bulls***rs l had to take each claim to the F O S [after the halifax said go scratch !!]
who investigated each one and ruled in my favour that the halifax was in the wrong

RESULT !!

yes its a hard slog, but its YOUR 2.3 K your claiming back , you go for it
all the help+ support is here for the asking ........... good luck xx

[Horsemad]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

Thank you all for your advice. Firstly, no the overdrawn account is a joint account, but it was never really used by my husband I used to get my wages paid into it and paid the bills out of it and the reason it became so overdrawn is because I paid a cheque into it that didn't clear but the halifax still paid out all the dd's and so's etc.

I have another account elsewhere ,that I can use to get my wages paid into, but our HR dept is useless and Im worried that the same thing will happen again next month if HR can't get it through on time. I will however pursue claiming the charges back, I'll have aread up on the hardship rules to see if I qualify and hopefully Payplan will be able to negotiate a more reasonable monthly repayment for me, Halifax did say that once a repayment plan was agreed they would not offset again - but who knows....

[fuzzybrain]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

We had our first appointment with Payplan today. It took about an hour to do and we went through all our income and outgoings.

They were really nice and not judgemental in any way. They gave us several options and explains the pro and cons of those options.

Good luck with your appointment, they will be able to help you out, they told us that's its a good idea to get everything transferred into a 2nd account with abank you don't have any debts with asap.

Try applying under the handship wavier - after all, nothing venued is nothing gained!!!

[Birdie]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

HR Department - insist in writing that they make the payment to the account you want them to.

Are they a public sector company?

In any case, if they are not based near you, fax or email the details over to them, - ensure they receive it - ask that they have received it, request it in writing, even an email.

It does not take long for an HR dept to process the details. Ensure their competence in this respect - tell them it reflects on your household and any bounced direct debits, you will be going after them for the costs.


Keep us posted

[Horsemad]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

Will do, thanks again for your advice.

[Amethyst]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

Can anyone advise me on what's best to do. I went over my authorised overdraft limit with the Halifax by quite alot recently and the next thing I know I've been passed to their retail bank collections, they withdrew my agreed overdraft and are sending threatening letters.

I sent them a letter with an offer of payment which I faxed and posted, but they say they never received it and as such have cleared out my husbands personal account as well as taking all of my monthly wage from the joint account, leaving us with £200 and still all the monthly bills and mortgage to pay and a 2 year old daughter to support. They say because there was no agreed offer of payment in place they are allowed to do this. They suggested I contact Payplan to get a repyment schedule in place and once this is done no further ofsetting will take place, but just don't know if I can trust them. Am due a telephone appointment with Payplan on Tues 6/1.

Im so frightened this will happen again, but my husband has been with them since leaving school and does not want to move and it's my fault the account is so overdrawn. They owe me about £2.3k in bank charges on the overdrawn account but am scared to reclaim now in case they take money from my husbands account again. Don't know what to do for best, feel like Im in a right mess.

Sadly they can do this and offset accounts against each other.

did you receive any warning they would be offsetting the account from the other accounts ?

do you have evidence/receipt of sending the offer of repayment ?

did they give warning that they were removing your overdraft ?


I agree with the others too, do not be loyal to a bank that is not loyal to you. Look after number one. They do NOT care.

Well done on getting in touch with payplan - do you have other debts to contend with, and have your circumstances changed recently.

You do have a right of appropriation of your money for essential living expenses, but it has to be instigated before they help themselves to your money - you need to write to them 7 days before your money is due in, telling them how much is due in, how much you need to appropriate for living costs.

[Horsemad]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

Hello Amethyst and thank you for your reply. I have a copy of the letter that I faxed and posted to Halifax, but they say they never received it and that they would not accept this offer without it coming through Payplan first? I do have other debts but have negotiated reduced payments with all my Creditors myself and have been paying them on reduced installments for about a year.

No I did not receive any notification from the Halifax that they would be removing my overdraft or offsetting, all I got was a notice of debt but all it says on it is that I must pay or make arramgements to pay within 7 days or further action would be taken.

I sent an email to our Payroll dept yesterday which they have read but no response as yet. What do's appropriation mean? Does this mean I can write to Halifax and ask them to only take what I can afford from the account after my living expenses have been met?

Thanks for your help.

[Amethyst]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

they would not accept this offer without it coming through Payplan first?

that as may be but you made an offer and it should have opened negotiations not lead to them swiping all your money from other accounts. Theres no requirement to use payplan or anyother debt management service.

I'll check on the rules around notification of offsetting.

Appropriation - yes you got it - have a read of this letter Legal Beagles

Banks don't conveniently know much about it and its common law rather than statute but councils recommend its use for keeping back things like rent payments etc when banks are offsetting and skanking you for charges so is worth a try if you don't get your pay switched over in time. Need to do it at least 7 days before the payments due to hit your account.

[Amethyst]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

no they don't have to notify you legally - have a read http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.u.../40_setoff.htm

[Horsemad]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

Thanks for that. They made it sound like they would only negotiate reduced installments and freeze interest if it came through Paylplan - which seemed strange, which is why I rang Payplan.

The monthly installment they wanted me to pay if I wasn't with Payplan was equal to my monthly wage and was only for 10 months which I honestly cannot afford at the moment. As I have sucessfully negotiated reduced installments with all my creditors thanks to advice and letter templates from this site, I am more than happy to do the same with the Halifax, is there a suitably worded letter that I could send them to make them negotiate with me without the need for Payplan getting involved? Thanks.

[WendyB]

Re: Large unauthorised overdraft with Halifax - HELP.

Your husband doesn't have to close his account - just divert his money to somewhere safe where the bank can't swipe it.

There's bound to be a template letter on here somewhere, have a look in the library. Bear in mind that they will ask for loads of money - they always start with stupid amounts but ON NO ACCOUNT agree to pay any more than you can afford.

Get your money moved to somewhere else, then you will feel easier about negotiating knowing that your wages are not going to be swallowed up each month.