Rhymes with 'hunts'...

Pissin' Poonani · Post by **Pissin' Poonani** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 11:33 am

Mini rant of no particular worth ahead...

So, after a good month of being hammered by vets bills and having to borrow some money from my dad to cover the last of them, I receive a letter from the Halifax this morning, saying they've charged me £39 for being 18p short on the Direct Debit for my TV licence. Eighteen ******* pence short, and I get charged thirty nine quid. Bastards.

Rant over. Carry on.

KingMob · Post by **KingMob** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 11:35 am

£39? Is that the charge for being short nowadays? Blud-dee hell.
Commiserations, mate.

Pissin' Poonani · Post by **Pissin' Poonani** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 11:45 am

Cheers Mob.

Yep, that's the charge (at least, with these sods anyway).

The Letter I got says:

To cover our costs, we make a charge of £39 (maximum 3 charges per day) for any item we can't pay. We will take this money from your account seven days from the date of this letter. If this causes you to have an unauthorised overdraft, we will also charge you interest at the unauthorised rate and a monthly unauthorised overdraft fee of £28. However, if your unauthorised overdraft is £30 or less, the unauthorised overdraft charge will not be applied.

"To cover our costs"? At £39 a letter, who are they paying to do this? Random celebrities or something? Arseholes.

Post by **spiderfrommars** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 11:51 am

Fecking hell. Thats part of the problem with building societies though... being flexible is not in their vocab.

Bouncelot · Post by **Bouncelot** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:00 pm

Banks are just as bad with charges. Complain about the fee being unreasonable and out of proportion and there's a chance they'll refund it. Make sure you complain in person or in writing rather than over the phone.

Pissin' Poonani · Post by **Pissin' Poonani** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:01 pm

spiderfrommars wrote: being flexible is not in their vocab.

Very true, but fortunately my vocab contains such gems as 'thieving', 'robbing' and '*****', and the Halifax have a complaints line which is open Mon-Fri.

To quote Bill Hicks "I am the weaver..."

Metal Vendetta · Post by **Metal Vendetta** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 12:50 pm

Next time you're in credit, write them a letter saying that they owe you money, and that you're going to charge them £39 to cover your own costs.

Post by **Best First** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:34 pm

Utter balls.

get in touch with the papers mate, the G's particularly keen on this sort of thing:

http://money.guardian.co.uk/experts/

or use Watchdog. This fee is entirely unjustifiable.

Pissin' Poonani · Post by **Pissin' Poonani** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:04 am

Cheers for the advice guys.

I think I'll ring them tomorrow, and depending on how that goes, write them a letter afterwards. If there's still no joy, I'll do what Besty suggested. Hell, even if the phone call gets me what I want, I'll still complain in writing and to the papers.

What worries me is how many times they can do this-I know they can only do it for a maximum 3 different unpaid bills per day, but for all I know they could charge me £39 a day until it's paid off (although the person I spoke to said if I left it until Monday, I would only get charged the once).

Pissin' Poonani · Post by **Pissin' Poonani** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 9:28 am

Triple post!

Pissin' Poonani · Post by **Pissin' Poonani** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 9:28 am

Edit, edit, edit!

Pissin' Poonani · Post by **Pissin' Poonani** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 9:29 am

Blimey.

I've been a bit busy the past couple of days, so I've only just rung them.

It was basically a 2 minute phone call to their complaints department, and they've dropped the charge. I'm in a state of shock to be honest-I thought I was going to get fobbed off with some wank-speak, but the bloke didn't even try to argue the point.

Wheeeee!

Obfleur · Post by **Obfleur** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 10:16 am

Coolness