Halifax Mortgage Review

Overall Rating

NO GOOD POINTS WORTH MENTIONING AS ALL THE BAD POINTS CANCELLED OUT ANY GOOD!

1st Halifax set up a direct debit from my account to pay my mortgage account...for a payment of 193 per month, but my payment was 350 per month.. I have never paid by direct debit, my question was who had authorised this, bearing in mind I had been a customer of theirs for at least 10 years.. had never paid by direct debit..when I asked Halifax to have a look at the signed direct debit mandate they didn't have one and couldn't explain how this had happened.
2ndly Halifax put me on a special payment plan for customers who are in arrears.. I have never been in arrears and had no knowledge of being placed on this special payment plan which meant it was affecting my credit rating. I only found out that I was on this plan when Bank Of England slashed their rates and I was written to by Halifax advising me my payments will be slightly lower as a result of the interest cut, but as I was on a special plan this meant my payments will stay the same.. I rang and complained they could not tell me or explain how this happened, in total I was on this special payment plan for nearly 10 months.
3rd Last but not least I went to make March 2008 mortgage payment and was told by the advisor that I was £103 in arrears. I was shocked as far as I was concerned I was up to date. From Jan 2008 to Feb 2008 I was up to date, so how can I be arrears from Feb 2008 and March 2008..I went down to my local Halifax branch, the telephone centre was to put it bluntly absolutely useless.. After insisting speaking to a manager at the branch on my lunch hour, a mortgage advisor appeared, I explained everything and promised to look into this further.. She rang 2 days later and explained how she and her supervisor had a look into the mortgage account going back 18months and couldnt find how the arrears had come about...clearly an error...which she apologised for, she cleared the 103 arrears.. Later thinking, my mortgage interest is calculated daily I was told my account showed being in arrears for 28days which meant I had paid daily interest on 103.. which I have asked for to be worked out and reimbursed, they tell me they will look into it. I was okay with Halifax till they the direct debit was set up and then after that I had to watch them with my account as I felt they really didn't have the specialist knowledge required or couldn't answer simple questions. When you ring to complain you get an unhelpful atttude.. In my opinion this is the worst company I have dealt with.. The only sad thing about this is I am locked in till 2009, saying that I am on one of the best deals out there at the moment.