If any of you have opened a Halifax Credit Card account expecting to receive their €100 gift. Check your statements.
In my case although I asked for the €100 they instead gave me 6 months interest free. I only learned that I was on the 6 months interest free option AFTER the 6 months were up. Not much use when you don’t pay interest on your credit card.
When I enquired early on about why my €100 hadn’t been paid I wasn’t told about the mix up, I was told the €100 would be paid “soon”.
Needless to say the account is now closed. For the sake of €100 to fix their own mistake Halifax lose a customer.
They seemed promising early on, but to be honest in the time I’ve been with them I haven’t been particularly impressed. Their internet banking doesn’t even show Credit Card transactions. Really, in this day and age!!!
Muppets.
I’ll leave the Current account open with €1500 sitting in it as long as it’s paying decent interest and then I’ll close that.
I think €1500 has to move into the current account every month to get the nice interest.
I remember having to make a deliberate point to get put down for the €150 but never checked whether I ever got it. I will now.
I don’t reckon they’re that bad otherwise. This might not be a popular comment but I reckon we get good deals with personal banking in Ireland regarding current accounts and savings accounts. In Australia you’re made to feel lucky to get an account in the first place. Then you pay a monthly fee, then a fee everytime you withdraw you’re money or use EFTpos. And if a DD is unpaid or you go overdrawn by any amount you pay a $35 flat fee rather than say 12% pa on the amount overdrawn.
And then we get good rates of interest on savings. I had an account in NZ that paid 8% but the interest rate is 10%+.
They pay interest on up to €2000, monthly. They require at least €1500 shipped in and out per month. So keep your balance around €2000, deposit €1500 every month and withdraw ~€1515 every month (approx.)
Do you really want to have to work so hard for 150 euros? Shag them. I wouldn’t bother with it. Just go straight to Rabo or set up one of those 1000 a months 7% from Anglo or EBS.
Its no work at all, they have a standing order facility online. So get your wages paid in and set up a standing order to move em back out the next day, pretty simple, no work required(apart for about 2 mins to set it up initially).
€150 euro for 2 mins work is a pretty reasonable return I reckon.
I don’t think it would have worked. I spoke to 3 different people in Halifax about the problem and the attitude I got from all of them was “tough luck, nothing we can do”. There was absolutely no interest whatsoever in trying to keep me as a customer.
I really didn’t care enough about it to get angry. Their online access to the credit card was so awful that I probably wouldn’t have lasted long more in any case.
This thread is really more of a heads up. If any of you have signed up or are thinking of signing up, act quickly if your €100 isn’t appearing.
If you haven’t signed up yet, but would like to see your credit card transactions online, then this isn’t the bank for you. And €100 (which may or may not show up) isn’t compensation for such a poor service.
It improved a lot in the last year or two when PTSB and National Irish started offering Free Banking and then paying interest became the Norm.
I haven’t been able to find any bank that did everything well. So I’m ending up with my current account in one place, Credit Card in another, business account in yet another, savings in another.
When it comes to personal banking, you really are better with the more established banks. Part of the reason being that it takes years for a bank to fully get their act together, and it will be 2010 at the earliest before Halifax service is in any way similar to other banks. By that stage, they will have dropped all the sweet deals.
Sad but true. I think I’ve hit on the best all round solution. Do all my actual banking with either BofI or AIB, but keep 2K in a Halifax account earning interest.
Pay salary into Halifax and immediately pay it on to my real current account.
The rumour mill suggests Halifax will have credit card transactions online within a few months, but too little too late. And more importantly if they’re not willing to make any effort to hold on to a customer who’s leaving (because of their screwup), then where will they be when you really need them.
Mrs D. has had one or two small issues with BofI the most recent of which was technically her fault, but they refunded the charge to her when she called. It cost them a few euro but they’ve got a happy customer.
Halifax came in with a plan to be different, to appear as the friendly bank that was on the customers side yada yada yada. Somewhere between planning and implementation the ball got dropped.
Rant. These days large firms/banks seem to spend a fortune on marketing/advertising but really scrimp on front line service. They seem to have figured out that once they get a customer they tend not to leave OR more likely their staff get bonuses when customers join but no one takes responsibility when a customer leaves.
I can’t really agree with what was said in this thread. I’ve been a Halifax customer for six months now and apart from the problems with their credit card, I’ve found them every bit as good as AIB who I banked with for eight years. Their website (again, apart from credit cards) is as good, if not better than AIB’s, their customer service is always very friendly and competent and being open on Saturdays is a godsend because there’s no AIB near me at work.
The only issues I’d have are credit cards on the website and the fact that online transactions don’t take effect over the weekend. ATM transactions showing up three to four days later is wierd but not irritating.
This thread isn’t about getting people to close their Halifax accounts. It’s a warning for people who have opened a Halifax credit card account and expected to get their 100 Euros.
Halifax may screw up and give you 6 months interest free instead. which means that if you clear your balance each month you get NOTHING.
So, check your statement, and chase them up. And when you chase them up don’t take their word for it that it will be sorted out, only to find out after 6 months that it won’t.