Halifax now sending payment notifications

[DrFfybes]

This morning I ad an email from halifax Credit card, rather odd as the last one was over a decade ago.

"Your payment of £nnn made on 31/10/24 is now complete."

Eh, what?? I thinks. Never seen that before, and having been to Spain last week and used the card Iwas confused.

The "Report Suspicious Activity" line was busy, a 10-15 min queue, however I eventually got through.

"Yes Sir, if you pay you bill in full each month automatically and get paper statements, our system now notifies you that the payment has been taken successfully."

"Oh" I replied, feeling slightly foolish "Yes I can see now the figure matches the balance on the last statement"

"Don't worry sir, I've spent most of my morning explaining this, and looking at the queue screen there are another 16 people behind you proably all about to ask the same question".

So at least i'm not the only Luddite using a Hx credit card

Paul

[JohnB]

Ah-ha. I got one of those messages, and worried about it, but did nothing because the sum was so small. Another company attempting to waste my time with spurious messages

[Lootman]

Lloyds started doing this as well. I actually like it, although I worry that it is the start of an attempt to stop sending me paper statements. M&S just tried that on and I had to complain to get paper statements reinstated.

[londoninvestor]

"Your payment of £nnn made on 31/10/24 is now complete."

I got this too. This month's payment was the first after I'd switched my DD to come from a different account, and I'd assumed this was a strangely worded one-off to confirm that the new DD worked correctly. Obviously not!

(FWIW, I don't get paper statements.)

[pochisoldi]

The notification is broken and only acts as a confirmation that the direct debit was successfully taken. Any additional payment doesn't trigger a message.

Background:
I have a fixed direct debit for £10 as a historical workaround for the "additional payments won't reduce your direct debit" "feature".
This acts as a "the lower of full statement or £10".
My usual balance is sub £10 for a USD subscription.
Last month's statement was for more than £10, and was cleared in full by a £10 direct debit and a scheduled bill payment on the same day.
I only got an email for the £10 DD
Nice try, no cigar.

[Seasider]

Lloyds started doing this as well. I actually like it, although I worry that it is the start of an attempt to stop sending me paper statements. M&S just tried that on and I had to complain to get paper statements reinstated.

Halifax have already tried that with me. First it was some problem which meant they would miss a month but then it went on for another month and the system showed me as paperless. I had to tick some box to reinstate the paper statements.

[Lootman]

Lloyds started doing this as well. I actually like it, although I worry that it is the start of an attempt to stop sending me paper statements. M&S just tried that on and I had to complain to get paper statements reinstated.

Halifax have already tried that with me. First it was some problem which meant they would miss a month but then it went on for another month and the system showed me as paperless. I had to tick some box to reinstate the paper statements.

Yeah, M&S forced me to miss one paper statement before reinstating them, so I did not use the card that month.

My feeling is that card issuers are more likely to try this on if you set up an online account/app to manage things. Ideally a card issuer of mine won't even have my email address, which means they cannot force me to be paperless. I had one provider keep writing to me asking for my email address, but of course I refused to give it.

[the0ni0nking]

I’d imagine that in due course you will be charged for the privilege of remaining on paper statements.

It’s already the case re paying by DD you get cheaper rates on energy so this is a logical extension.

I don’t understand the obsession with remaining on paper statements but I suspect I’m at the younger end of the spectrum here and am just used to using apps or online for everything.

I know my parents are firmly in the “paper is the only way” category and will remain that way until they move on from this mortal existence!

[Lootman]

I’d imagine that in due course you will be charged for the privilege of remaining on paper statements.

It’s already the case re paying by DD you get cheaper rates on energy so this is a logical extension.

I don’t understand the obsession with remaining on paper statements but I suspect I’m at the younger end of the spectrum here and am just used to using apps or online for everything.

I know my parents are firmly in the “paper is the only way” category and will remain that way until they move on from this mortal existence!

Partly an age thing, for sure. But I find it easier to flick through a pile of paper statements looking for an item than visually scan PDF files. And there is something about having a paper statement that is reassuring. Although that said I shred them after a couple of years or so.

[DrFfybes]

I
I don’t understand the obsession with remaining on paper statements but I suspect I’m at the younger end of the spectrum here and am just used to using apps or online for everything.

I know my parents are firmly in the “paper is the only way” category and will remain that way until they move on from this mortal existence!

If I didn't get paper statements I'd have to buy envelopes to write my shopping lists on.

[the0ni0nking]

If I didn't get paper statements I'd have to buy envelopes to write my shopping lists on.

Good gracious, people still make shopping lists on actual physical paper

I'd have thought you get enough marketing crap (certainly felt like I did, mainly from WWF, the RNLI, the BHF etc) to think they'd be better off spending their money doing what we want them to do with the money given to them as opposed to spurious marketing and a free pen.

[Seasider]

The free pen comes in handy for writing the shopping lists.

[stevensfo]

I’d imagine that in due course you will be charged for the privilege of remaining on paper statements.

It’s already the case re paying by DD you get cheaper rates on energy so this is a logical extension.

I don’t understand the obsession with remaining on paper statements but I suspect I’m at the younger end of the spectrum here and am just used to using apps or online for everything.

I know my parents are firmly in the “paper is the only way” category and will remain that way until they move on from this mortal existence!

I've worked in four countries and if I hadn't kept careful paper records of everything, I'd probably be in a looney bin by now - or whatever the politically correct term is.

A simple filing system allows you to locate the bill, statement, letter etc within seconds and do a quick p/copy.

You have the original paper version. This is very important. Very important letters I keep in their envelopes as well.

Simple. Send as attachment and perhaps use the post to send it registered as well.

The alternative is to waste precious hours trying to find it online, stress levels going up as you realise that there isn't a print-ready format or no pdf version, so have to save it yourself, making it look like a badly photoedited fake.

Ten years in France taught me to be more bureaucratic and annoying than the bureaucrats. This saved my bacon a few times! Documents stored, pdfs saved.

It's a question of balance. So often I read posts about people spending hours on the phone. Why?? Just send a letter. Then the ball is in their court.

Steve

PS In Italy, you are advised to keep all important bills, documents, statements for minimum 7 years!!

[jaizan]

I think paper statements are a damn nuisance.

If I store them for 10 years or so, they take up a lot of space.
I can't check them when away on holiday.
They take longer to find.

What I'd like is optimised e-statements.
1 Logical & consistent file names that can be sorted easily. e.g. 2024-01-25 Halifax Clarity Credit Card Statement
2 The facility to download all the statements for a period with one click
3 An option to download all the transactions between any two dates to a csv file.

I'd also rather not fund the Royal Mail, either directly or indirectly.

[the0ni0nking]

Ten years in France taught me to be more bureaucratic and annoying than the bureaucrats. This saved my bacon a few times! Documents stored, pdfs saved.

I suspect Spain rivals France in terms of the bureaucracy.

I’m less bothered about the bureaucracy per se but am frustrated by the inconsistency between town halls as to what documentation etc might be needed to achieve a specific thing.

It’s also frustrating that you can only do certain activities at the town hall/police station in the area where you live as opposed to the one nearest to you.

For example, when my work phone fell off my bike mount and went into the canal, to get the crime report needed by our tech department I needed to go to the national police station in Orihuela (c30km away and I don’t have a car so cycled it) as opposed to been able to go to the one in Torrevieja (c6km away) as it could only be reported in Orihuela. It took all of 5 minutes when I was there to get the reference number and statement before I had to cycle back albeit it is quite a nice ride through some pleasant scenery.

Also, getting a digital certificate (to basically allow you to interact with all govt departments on line rather than in person) requires different paperwork / number of copies to get depending on which town hall you go to.

One of my first purchases when I originally bought in Spain was a printer/copier as everything is always needed in triplicate

[stevensfo]

I think paper statements are a damn nuisance.

If I store them for 10 years or so, they take up a lot of space.
I can't check them when away on holiday.
They take longer to find.

What I'd like is optimised e-statements.
1 Logical & consistent file names that can be sorted easily. e.g. 2024-01-25 Halifax Clarity Credit Card Statement
2 The facility to download all the statements for a period with one click
3 An option to download all the transactions between any two dates to a csv file.

I'd also rather not fund the Royal Mail, either directly or indirectly.

You buy a nice filing cabinet and put a decoration on top. We have a lamp and a bluetooth speaker.

All very important documents, you scan and send to the cloud. We were robbed 21 years ago and they took our passports. We had new ones very fast. I sent the pdfs! All except our eldest son. I had to send an old pdf. The lady had a sense of humour and processesed them in record time.

Who cares about Royal Mail. You do what is appropriate for you.

Steve

[the0ni0nking]

When I moved to Spain, I did a big tidy up of my "retained" documents.

This involved me moving the grey bin near to the back door and spending probably 90 minutes or so shredding old bank statements and other documents directly into the bin.

I'd estimate the bin was probably half full of unbagged shredded paper. (Shredded paper apparently can't go in the green bin).

When it was collected, the result was probably a 200m trail of shredded paper down the main road as they clearly didn't activate the "compactor" or whatever it's called immediately.

Hopefully none of the neighbours realised it was my bin otherwise I wouldn't have been that happy. Mind you, within a few days it had all blown away and presumably was starting the decomposition process.