Halifax Uk Bank Help?

[jbossk]

First may I apologise if this isn't the correct place to be posting this, there are many, many forum pages on here but I thought maybe this might be the best to be seen.

Basically I bank with Halifax UK, I came out on Mon, yet Halifax have frozen my account today, even though I told them I was travelling on set dates. I rang them up in the UK, and was told the only way it gets resolved is if I pop into a branch??? I can't go into a UK one, so am I stuffed now for cash and do I have to fly home, or are there branches/banks here that I can sort this out?

Many thanks.

[MaiDong]

I've had the same thing over the years, just keep calling them and bugging them and you will eventually get to your funds, good luck!

[jubby]

I've had the same thing over the years, just keep calling them and bugging them and you will eventually get to your funds, good luck!

Why would they freeze your account ? . Try to explain that they've put you in an impossible situation. Its your money afterall right !? . ... Then change Banks at the earliest opportunity.

I tried to setup an account with them a while ago while I was in the UK. To much messing about for sure. I gave up. Now I get weekly emails telling me I need to take some action with the account. I'm not even sure its legit, seems like spam to me.

Good Luck.

[sarahsbloke]

Many banks in the UK seem to do this ..... Alliance and Leicester did it to me even though informed, etc.

When you come to Asia, best to have CCs from 4 or 5 different sources with you.

Card companies that worked for me

ASDA

Natwest

Nationwide

When they stop the cards, it will take you longer than your trip to get it working again, don't bother.

If you are desperate for cash get a pal to Western Union some over.

[gregchambers]

Too late now, but you have to set up telephone banking passwords before you go and/or get the branch telephone number for whoever looks after your account and say hello before you go, that way it is possible to get the debit card reset on the phone. So many card cons in asia it is no wonder. I also had one of my internet bank/credit card access accounts frozen after logging in from Asia (Egg Bank) but using telephone banking (awful voice recognition system to go thru) was able to reset it (using the same info for logging in to the internet and info that I could have got from the accounts on-line, so utterly pointless from a security point of view). Since being taken over by Citi they have turned nasty if they are not making money out of you on the credit card (delayed payments between accounts) and making you pay to reset the account by telephone every other month. Ironically, when you log-in you use the whole password rather than random bits of it so their basic security is crap anyway. They do respond to being threatened with the banking ombudsman, though...

Possibly, you can get someone to wire you money to a local account or Western Union? It is worth having a local bank account if a regular visitor as you can send over money when the exchange rate is good.

[gorber]

They probably mean you need to go into any bank.

It has happened to me also whilst in Thailand. You just need to take your card and passport into a local bank (krung thai or whatever) and you can get your money.

Cheers,

Andrew