Thousand leave Halifax over bank charge changes
January 22, 2010 by admin
Filed under News, News-Banking
It is reported that around seventy thousand customers have left the High Street banking giant Halifax amidst anger over changes to the way it charges for overdraft facility usage. There is also speculation that customers of the bank are still leaving, which means that eventually the changes may have cost the banking giant in excess of 100,000 customers. Many customers are said to have moved to rival banks, with many others trying to open new current accounts with an alternative bank so that they can leave Halifax.
The anger all comes from changes that the Halifax has made to the way it charges customers to using their overdraft facility. Instead of a fixed percentage for using the overdraft facility customers that use their overdraft – whether authorised or unauthorised – will have to pay a daily fee, and some officials are concerned that this could end up costing some customers hundreds of pounds each year in overdraft charges.
Under the new rules customers that use their authorised overdraft will be hit with a charge of one pound per day, and those that use an unauthorised overdraft will be stung by a five pounds per day charge. The bank, which is 43 percent state owned, is said to have lost around seventy thousand customers already, but officials have said that this could be more as it does not take into account people that have closed second accounts and not bothered to open news ones with rival banks.
Halifax has defended its move to make changes to the overdraft charging system, and has stated that if any customers have concerns over the way that their accounts are handled they should speak to bank employees who will be able to advise on the most suitable account.
Tags: Banking in the United Kingdom, fee, halifax, overdraft, Office of Fair Trading v Abbey National plc, Bank charge
I would like to say that it should have been illegal for Halifax new rates for overdraft etc these are loan shark rates and Halifax’s time scale for introduction and the way they informed customers or not as in my case.
Very unhappy at customer services attitude as well just go to Financial Ombudsman is there answer knowing nothing will be done someone needs to stand up to them.
These charges are just so out of order. I have banked with halifax for years, with a savings account, in order to access my savings it was recomended that i set up a current account, and was given a £300 overdraft. I went 49p overdrawn in july, but as my account was locked to telephone banking ( somehow they had my date of birth wrong). Also my two nearest branches have closed down, so i have to travel quite a way to reset my account. Point is unbeknown to me since then this 49p has become £116 in fees. I cant close the account cause i cant afford the £116. So the fees keep going on. The Halifax refuse to budge, they wont refund any of these fees, so my downward hole continues. Thanks daid (above) ill try the finacial ombudsman, and see if they can help.
well it worked, after 3 turned down complaints to halifax, went to finacial ombidsman as recomended above and yay, the fees were refunded – so now i can close my account, unfortunatley i cant take my mortgauge away from them yet as i’m locked in but as soon as i can i will.
I have banked with the Halifax for years, since I was 16 years old. They are charging this amount of money per day to make money from it’s customers. I was horrified to find that they had paid money over my overdraft and then charged my like £5.00 a day for the pleasure. I am not made of money and since my wages get paid into that account every four weeks and nothing else they are bound to make cash of me. I am not happy and have cancelled my overdraft and also I am in the middle of cancelling my account with them. I have a card cash account with them with no overdraft facililty but i heard somewhere they do not make any money out of that account and might be phasing it out so if that is true and they do get rid of it they can kiss my cash goodbye. All I want is an account that does’nt charge the earth and take most of my wages in charges. Who am I working for? Local goverment or the Halifax Building Society?