Funny thing about regulation – we hear so much about IT – yet see so little of IT.

Once upon a time, a Halifax “Special Offer” landed on the hall mat of a family friend – unsolicited mail – and of the type that the Citizens Advice Bureaux have urged the Government to ban since the turn of the century.
It contained a page of blank cheques that the Halifax customer, a credit card holder, was invited to use to transfer a balance from store cards or other credit cards.

Great emphasis was put on how the customer would “save money”, and make a “real saving” by doing so. The offer was to last for six months, and the dazzling tease was that it was interest-free for that period. Give yourself a cash boost. Treat yourself to a holiday. Pay for some home improvements.

So incensed was I at this deliberately fraudulent promotion, I complained to the author, Mr. Stephen Webster, who describes himself as Head of Customer Services at Halifax Card Services. A copy of my letter follows:

23rd April 2007.

Dear Sir,

I shall keep this correspondence as brief as possible.

I BELIEVE THAT THE FEBRUARY PROMTION BY HALIFAX PLC IS DISHONEST AND DISPLAYS A DELIBERATE STRATEGY TO DECEIVE.

Example: If a customer had been sent some cheques by Halifax Card Services and that customer decided to utilize the funds to their credit limit of £12,360 – will they actually pay 0% p.a.??

Let us closely examine the language used in this “Special Offer”. The key word we are searching for is cleverly omitted from the main text of the front page (copy enclosed), although inferences to it cannot be denied. That word is INTEREST, and in spite of its absence, “low rate” and “lower rate” are a direct reference to IT.

Interestingly, we have to read the small print at the bottom of the page before IT physically appears, where we are treated to its use no less than six times.

So – how does The Concise Oxford Dictionary define “interest”?? :

6. Money paid for use of money lent.

The up-front “handling fee” is a travesty (from the French verb travestir – to disguise) The cheques are included with the “offer”, and are available on condition that the card holder “must not exceed your current Halifax Credit Card limit”. Hence, the loan is pre-arranged, whether the cheques get used or torn-up. The Banking sector was warned last year, in no uncertain terms, to bring their charges down to the level where those charges (more realistically) reflect their costs.
Once again, the sector raises two fingers to its toothless regulator in its routinely tiresome manner.

HOW CAN THE HALIFAX JUSTIFY CHARGING THE CUSTOMER ABOVE £360 FOR CLEARING ONE CHEQUE??

THEY CAN NOT, so instead, our Halifax Credit Card holder is charged 6% p.a. INTEREST, infinitely more than the 0% p.a. advertised. We would expect a company with underlying pre-tax profits of * £5.54 billion (2006) to have a better command of the English language. If you consider that the first edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary appeared in 1911, their definition number 4. of interest is quite spooky:

SELFISH PURSUIT OF ONE’S OWN WELFARE.

yours faithfully,
David Neil Thomas
* [£5.54 billion = £5,540,000,000.]

Anticipating that any reply to my letter would contain neither apology nor credible defence, I wrote to the organisations charged with consumer protection, those whose job it is to prevent you, me and all of us from getting robbed. Or, whose job it is to sort things out when we do get shafted.

As it happens, the first response was from the Halifax, and was emitting the pungent aroma of early evening pasture where bulls have been grazing all day. (what goes in – must naturally come out)

The author was one Jillian Lorimer (middle name: Fibber?) who claimed to be from: Complaints and Consumer Guidance at Halifax Customer Services ( treating us like idiots?)

Correspondence With Halifax (Letter 1)

Correspondence With Trading Standards Officer

Correspondence With Financial Ombudsman Service

Correspondence With Advertising Standards Authority Service

Correspondence With Carmarthenshire Trading Standards and FSA and Conclusion