If the only bank left in the UK was the Halifax, I'd personally burn all my money rather than give it to these incompetent idiots.

An opening paragraph which, I think you'll agree, tells you all you need to know about my experience with these arrogant huxters. But, allow me to elucidate further, just for my own personal amusement. And for your forewarning.

The fun started when we wished to move home. Since we'd had a mortgage with the Halifax, which admittedly was fine, we decided to stick with the Halifax for the mortgage for our new house. This was more stupid than transplanting a chocolate hand onto a steel welder - more ridiculous than giving a live grenade to a small child as a plaything - more frankly ludicrous than delivering a hundredweight of prime beef to a vegetarian convention.

Since we were both earning quite handsomely, we didn't reckon it would be a problem. We asked the nice man at the local branch. "Oh no", he said, "it'll be just fine". So, we signed the bits of paper, and relaxed. Moving would be just fine.

Four weeks later, I called the Hellifax and asked them how things were doing. "Oh, didn't we tell you? We've been trying to get your employer details." Right. "But because you haven't started working for your new employer yet, we can't proceed."

So let me get this straight. We can't have a mortgage for our new house, because we haven't started the job that we moved down for. "No." And if we don't get a mortgage, we can't move down, and we can't start working for our new employer. "No." So, we're completely stuck. Any ideas how we can proceed? "No."

Well, this wasn't a good start, but we persevered, primarily because to start all over again would have taken a long, long, time and time wasn't really on our side.

It turned out that our branch thought
that we should have a mortgage, but the mortgage department didn't. We got personal friends, who worked in the bank elsewhere, to give us a personal recommendation. No change. We got someone who could afford the entire house to give security against us. No change.

We nearly lost our house twice, we nearly lost our jobs, we became ill with worry, and the Hellifax didn't budge.

The incompetence didn't stop once we finally managed to get our mortgage (due, in part, to threats of violence, turning up unannounced and making my point hugely forcefully in a branch full of customers, and close friends working in the media and working in government).

We then got the feedback forms.

The feedback forms were fun. I filled them in. I enjoyed filling them in. I sent them back. The last sentence (on both) said: "I bet you're so incompetent, you won't even reply to this form". And guess what? They've never replied.

So, I called them, to be told that they do not respond to any complaints on feedback forms: they go to a third party. Huh? What's the point of that? The guy I spoke to took my mortgage account number, and called back later in the day to say they couldn't find either of my feedback forms. Their incompetence beggars belief, frankly.

I've since closed my ISAs, my savings accounts, and pulled as much out of the Hellifax as I can.

==UPDATE 1
Good to see the Halifax treating their customers with contempt; the latest round of interest rate cuts (May 2001) was responded to by the Halifax "instantly for new customers, and on 1st June 2001 for current customers". Riiiight. So you keep a higher interest rate for one month just because we were stupid enough to sign with you. Mmm, that makes sense. That's customer loyalty for you. Ingrates.

Their incompetence and arrogance even extends to their advertising agency. Getting the branch manager for Basi
ldon singing along to current chart hits and dancing badly, while trying to brainwash us about their poor service and poor-value credit cards, really takes the biscuit. Please, please, stop it. Now.
==

==UPDATE 2
And the stupidity continues! "I'm writing to thank you for being a customer over the past year", writes Howard M Posner, Managing Director and General Manager of Halifax General Insurance Services Ltd, who I can't say anything nasty about because libel laws won't let me, though it's probably not his fault, I bet he's a nice man when he's not at work, and I reckon he rues the day he got a job with these people.

He was writing with details of our buildings insurance - insurance arranged with the Halifax because, in their own words, "we're really competitive these days". The excess? £100. The premium? £301.39.

A quick phone call to Norwich Union Direct, who inherited our contents insurance when we found out that the Halifax does this monthly so we could cancel sooner, gave their quotation... £50 excess (ie half as much)... for a premium, in total, of £91.72.

If you're not so good at maths, Norwich Union Direct gave us a saving of £210... and BETTER COVER.

I would't wish my worst enemy to deal with these twits. I mean, really, even if you hated someone so much that you wished they die horribly in a nasty accident, even then they don't deserve to deal with the Halifax. Even if Satan and Satan's children needed mortgages, they'd give the Halifax a wide berth and go for people nor nearly as nasty, like the NatWest for example.
==

Please don't even touch this lot of complete nincompoops with someone else's bargepole, much least your own.

And, for those of you who've been commenting: "Ah, but every bank's like this", I refer you to my opinion about firstdirect, STILL the world's loveliest bank.
And the bank that'll have my mortgage as soon as we've finished creaming off the Halifax's introductory rate next March. Idiots.