My suicide note (Halifax in general)

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	Halifax in general
Date:	21/08/09 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You get to make Mr Hornby rich

Disadvantages: No help, hypocritical, High rates, no common sense

I'd don't use the Halifax, let me make that obvious now before I get told that I don't know what I'm talking about, instead however I work for one of the agency's hired to pursue those behind with their credit card repayments. I probably have a better understanding that most about the Halifax ethos when it comes to their credit cards (and from the people I talk to on a daily basis it seems like I know more about their cards than they do, or their willing to admit to). So I feel it's only fair to actually give an insiders expose into the credit cards of Halifax (yes I'm happily putting my job at risk here, so if Sir Victor Blank or Eric Daniels want to know about there new toy...).

Let me just point out that the Blank and Daniels this is that they are two of the key people at Lloyds Banking Group who have recently taken on the HBOS group as a subsidiary. This now means that the HBOS group should (in theory) be operating to an equal sort of a standard as Lloyds TSB...I'm worried if your a customer of Lloyds readers.

OK in my job we call from a call centre in Barrow-in-Furness, asking those who have missed a payment for the payment, the reasons why they didn't make it and we pretend to care (well some of us do). Fair enough you may think, banks are a bit up the creek at the moment and need to try and get their grubby little mitts on every penny they can, if they recoup "their" money they won't need "ours" (the tax payers). Fair enough, it's true, if the banks have liquidity they won't need to borrow from the Bank of England (funny "The Bank of Scotland" is borrowing from "The Bank of England", shove that up your independence smoking Bagpipes Mr Salmon). Problem with this to start with is that the customers often have really good reasons for not paying, which is exacerbated by the stupid and ludicrous pay off's for people like Andy Hornby. Who? Well the man who is currently on a £60,000 a MONTH deal as a "consultant", this is one of the guys behind HBOS losing over £10,000,000,000 in a year. Or how about Dennis Stevenson (or Baron Stevenson of Coddenham) a guy with no previous banking experience was given one of the top roles at the company.

So I, like others, need to ask people to pay £5 that's slipped them by because their brothers in hospital with cancer, because some fat cat is on £60K a month for sitting on his arse after almost ruining a company? I have enough common sense to know if my bosses read this I'll get sacked, so what the heck, they'll likely be googling themselves right now "consulting" each others practices. So how do Halifax (and Bank Of Scotland) help those that can't meet their payments? They don't they fob them off to Debt Management (CCCS or Payplan) and let them do the leg work we can't be bothered to do. The "but their professionals and do this all the time" doesn't really cut the mustard, unless we are willing to say "we are going to be sewage company as we have a habit of being a bit crap". Hearing customers saying "I wrote to HSBC and they've agreed to stop the charges and interest to help me get on my feet" makes me wonder "Why don't we do the same?" How much is it going to cost us? REALLY cost us when we remember our consultant Mr Hornby on his £720,000 a year deal. We are in a time when people are losing their jobs, where people will struggle, yet the credit card folk at Halifax don't care. Quite frankly they couldn't give a monkey's.

Any caring banks would stop the ludicrous interest that allows a customer's account to build up, then they go over their limit due to charges. Then it spirals to the point where they need a lottery win to help them out of the mire WE'VE got them in by not not taking a step back from the idea of being a money grabbing company. Yes banks like most company's are a profit organisation, but you send the customer to the point of bankruptcy you're not profiting a penny.

There is a little known part of any credit agreement, where if a bank holds any of your funds (in a current account for example) and you also owe them money (be it on a mortgage, a loan or a credit card) they have a Right Of Set Off (ROSO). This allows them to use your funds without warning, to cover your debt, fair enough in theory, until sometimes you realise people have been laid off work and you're taking their benefit that they need to buy food with. Until very recently HBOS' appeal system for reversing a ROSO was nigh on impossible to understand, but due to pressure from others they've made it easier. So well done, shame they did it 6 months after the others stopped doing it full stop during these times.

Another problem I've started to see are reduced credit limits WITH OUT informing the customer, and when the limit was reduced guess what...it sent the customer OVER the new limit. Odd really how a bank can do that isn't it? This in turn forces an automatic £12 penalty on that customer. Hey Mr Hornby mind donating just 0.02% of your MONTHLY income to some of the customers you have left footing the bill for your enormous mistake? Yes the customers aren't totally innocent here, but when they are a few hundred in debt it seems hypocritical for a company that lost what was it again Mr Horny...£10 Billion in a year...do you remember that? To be hounding people for being behind.

Hounding, yes hounding. We are now (this is a Lloyds policy here) leaving each customer upto 3 answering machine messages every day, what this achieves is simple. Full inboxes. It's obvious after you've left 4 of any single phone and they've not called back, that they won't be starting any time soon, and why should they call a premium rate number (thus "helping" their debt some more) to talk to a bank that are acting like a bunch of rabid dogs chasing a fox. The bank aren't willing to actually help the customer directly but we are happy to send them mentally so the point of no return, we often help send them financially to ruin and seem to expect them to be happy.

Halifax Credit cards...unhelpful, unfair and hypocritical slimy toads operating them. I'm sorry for our customers.

Summary: ...Sack me, I dare ya.