Unintentionally emptied my bank account! HELP?

[Thorpy]

Apologies for the long winded story!

Wednesday (2nd)

• Setup Halifax Help To Buy ISA, tried to transfer initial deposit (£1200) online via debit card (HSBC). I got an error message stating that the transaction was not complete and that no money had been taken. Tried again and got the same error.

Thursday (3rd)

• Went to my local Halifax branch confirmed that no money had gone in and that the ISA was set up correctly.
• Checked my HSBC online banking CR £1400 available balance £0. Panic set in so rang HSBC they said they cannot stop the payments. Rang Halifax they said pretty much the same thing.
• I then went to my local HSBC and it showed that I had two pending payments for £1200 to got to Halifax. they said I needed to see Halifax. So I went to Halifax and they said the payments haven't shown up on their system.

So neither bank seem to be able to do anything! I have no access to my money.

I have been told that I have to wait it out for the payments to "bounce" which could take up to 5 working days!

From what I can gather the initial payments were too big for the ISA and refused, but because it was a debit card the money has been allocated by HSBC and deducted from my "available balance" and waiting for it to clear with Halifax which it never will. My money is in no mans land!

Is there nothing they can do or are they pulling my leg?

Any help or clarification would be great.

Cheers Thorpy

[davepoth]

At least you were only sending the money to yourself - it'll definitely turn up again. You need to complain a lot harder. Get yourself a Twitter account and moan to their Twitters. That seems to work very well in a lot of cases. Get back onto the phone and keep asking for someone's boss until you get hold of somebody who can help you. Keep concentrating on the point that the website gave you an error, and make sure to lay it on thick about not having any money.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Just draw out some cash on your credit card to tide you over.

Once the issue is sorted make sure you pay back the credit card cash asap because interest will almost certainly be running from the date of withdrawal, not date of your next statement.