Who gives you extra ? Not the Halifax !

I've discovered since my bankruptcy hearing on August 3rd, that the banking industry treats bankrupts very much as lepers were treated in biblical times.

Before my hearing, I conducted a lot of research on the ramifications of bankruptcy, which included a chat to the Official Receivers office, who here in England become your "minders" for the period of your bankruptcy.

Firstly (and I can only comment on my dealings with them), they are truly professional, helpful and friendly. The office I deal with is based in Newcastle Staffs.

The first thing I learned before my hearing, is that neither the court or the Receiver's office have the power to freeze your bank account. Freezing and closing of accounts, is at the discretion of individual banks.

Though I thought it a naive move, I wrote to my bank HSBC the day before my hearing, advising them of my impending bankruptcy and making it plain that whilst I understood they might want to reduce the facilities offered me, I still needed to use my account to pay my bills and lodge cheques.

When I got home from court the next day, there was a letter from HSBC refusing my request.

Immediately the judge declares you bankrupt, your financial statement is faxed off to the Official Receivers office and shortly after, you take part in a telephone interview with them.

The receiver asked if I had any money in my bank account. I told her there was about a hundred pounds to cover direct debits going out in the next week. She told me to withdraw it the moment I left court (which I did).

The next day, I realised I needed to find banking facilities pronto and set about doing a little research using Google UK.

I found a lot of cowboys offering full banking facilities with the high street banks (for a hefty fee of course), which raises the question; If the high street banks are turning bankrupts away, why are they offering cheque books and credit cards galore via these internet Joey's?

I then found a BBC news article, which listed a number of banks who had been known to show sympathy towards bankrupts, with limited facilities. On the list, was the Halifax, whom I called.

The conversation went a little like this: "Morning, I have been recently declared as bankrupt and I am looking for limited banking facilities".

"No problem" came the reply and the young lady proceeded to advise me on the choice of accounts, which was two. One of these accounts could be set up on the phone (an Easy Cash account), and finalised by taking in some positive ID like your drivers licence to the chosen branch. I did this and about a week later, I received a PIN and a withdrawal card which I never got to use.

Two days later, I received a letter which said my bankruptcy had been reported in the London Gazette and in line with the Official Receiver's wishes, had been frozen.

Additionally, it was not the policy of the Halifax to offer banking privileges to bankrupts and so, once the account had been released, it would be closed.

Now you will recall, that I mentioned my pre bankruptcy research and the information the Official Receiver had given me over who it is who freezes bank accounts.

This strongly suggests that The Halifax are telling porkies when they say the account is frozen in line with the requirements of the Official Receiver.

I'm still waiting for a response on this one from their CEO.

My first move was to discuss this with my case officer at the receiver's office and she agreed with me, that this was ludicrous. My account with them had been set up quite legally, post my bankruptcy and was outside of their area of investigation, meaning they would not be writing to the Halifax enquiring as to what funds were in that account.

She very kindly wrote all this down in a fax instructing them to release this money to me, as it was classed as living expenses (quite true considering it was my Job Seekers Allowance).

With their help, I managed to retrieve my funds the next working day, with little or no fuss, but to date, I have no explanation as to why my account was processed and opened and then closed and furthermore, no apology from the Halifax for the extreme distress caused me.

As a fall out from this episode, my Vodafone was disconnected because I was unable to get at the cash to pay my August payment and it had a knock on effect with my car insurance, which is the next story in this journal of disservice.

I have set about writing to all the banks on the BBC web site listing, which admittedly was from three years ago and I shall be publishing their comments here as a guide to others in my position who are looking for a simple bank account.