Halifax not closing credit card account when requested!!

Jaysoose

Basically i paid off my card in full on the 8th of this month (happy day) and rang the customer care people and was told to lodge a further €30 for the goverment credit card duty thing and the account would be closed, ok fine so i transferred the money that day and thought no more of it.

Got a new bill yesterday with a balance of -13 euro, basically they did not close the account and let the interest accrue. Rang up yesterday and was told a flat out lie that there was no order for the account to be closed and they need me to put MORE money into the account for the goverment.

Absolutely fuming on phone but kept my cool and told the guy that they will not be receiving another cent from me and i want the acount closed immediatley or i will be taking my case to the regulator. Also told him that as he had no authority to close the account as requested a number of times that i had no interest in going round the houses with him and to put a senior member of staff on the phone, still waiting for the "closure agent" to ring as promised.

Bit of a rant i know but they had better check the telephone records of the two original calls were i explicitly said "so if i transfer the €30 you will CLOSE the account" and get their act together. I know its only 13 euro but it took me long enough to clear the thing so im not ponying up another red cent.

Shower of cnuts.

brettmirl

Always close accounts in writing, not over the phone. It's the only way to ensure it will be done.

Jaysoose

Fair enough point and i will be doing this in future. If halifax had asked for it in writing i would have done that but then i suppose its a lesson learned. Just on to them there and a senior closing agent is gonna ring me back in "two minutes" clock is ticking.

brettmirl

I'd send it to them in writing too, just in case.

I cancelled mine a while back. Don't get any bills, but it still shows up in my online banking with a zero balance.

Jaysoose

Agent rang me yesterday and gave me a completely different reason than the first guy, told her that i would noy be paying as she actually admitted that the figure her company gave me to settle the credit card was wrong. As they have admitted its their fault im not for paying the balance as i followed the instructions to the letter.

dotsman

Writing is the only way to get things done in this country I'm afraid (usually followed up a few days later by a phone call to confirm they received the letter!).

I'm still not sure if my Halifax Credit Card is canceled. It took me months of writing to them and ringing them (I had already intentionally overpaid the final bill by €30 so that wouldn't cause an issue). For ages, they continued to send me out statements for 0.00, before eventually stopping. Every time I would ring them, they would say that they hadn't received any notification to close the account. When I'd point out that I sent a letter and that a previous rep had confirmed the letter, they would come back with a "oh yeah, I just found that - don't worry, I'll close the account immediately).

Halifax customer service is notorious. They are on a par with NTL. But what do you expect from a bank that proudly regards itself as the Ryanair of banking:mad:

JJ

I'm surprised they didn't tell you that you had to put your account closure request in writing. To close just about any sort of account, you have to put your request in writing. I've closed two MBNA credit card accounts in the past and they told me to put the request in writing and I found MBNA's customer support to be absolutely dire.

Jaysoose

Brief update to this, received another statement from halifax after having paid off the last balance (begrudgingly) to which they have applied a Card protection fee of €50!!! rang up and was told that this charge was pending around the time of the last statement. Asked him was the account closed to which he replied yes it is closed, obvious question next from me "what do i want card protection on a closed account for and how could you not tell me it was pending when i specifically asked how much i needed to pay to close the account" cue stunned silence and he comes back with "the charges are not illegal"???? manager was unavailable apparently.

Have lodged my shiny new complaint with the ombudsman this morning and still waiting on the customer care manager to ring me back.

Card protection on a closed account!!! WTF.