Accessibility options


Jailed son needs to unlock Halifax cash

Jailed son needs to unlock Halifax cash



My son is in prison with a life sentence. When he was 17, he opened an account with Halifax. This was hardly used until, some years after he was sent to prison, he inherited £3,000. I subsequently paid in a further £3,000. Now he wants to withdraw £3,000 to give to his brother, who has turned 18. For the past year, we have been trying to access this account. Halifax says it has no way of proving that my son is who he says he is. It suggests he phones them to complete a security check. This is not practical – phone calls in prison are monitored, so not secure. Letters, too, are read. Halifax will not discuss the issue with me as I am not the account holder. We realise that my son could give me power of attorney but he is reluctant to relinquish what remains of his autonomy. He has written to Halifax asking to transfer the money to his brother's account but the request was stonewalled, citing security requirements. We seem to be stuck in a loop. JM, Cambridge

Advertisement starts



Advertisement ends

This is tricky. Halifax says that, normally, customers who go to prison write to the bank with their new address, the bank writes back to them in prison to make ID checks, after which they can continue to use their bank accounts. Even then, the bank cannot send cheques on their behalf to someone else, although they could transfer money through the governor. But your son did not want to receive the bank's letters or phone calls because he had no privacy. When I posed this problem to Halifax, it was sympathetic and agreed to look for a commonsense solution. It has found a way round the blockage and your son's cheque arrived in time for his brother's 19th birthday.

• Email Margaret Dibben at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Margaret Dibben, Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU and include a telephone number. Do not enclose SAEs or original documents. Letters are selected for publication and we cannot give personal replies. The newspaper accepts no legal responsibility for advice.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009

Advertisement starts



Advertisement ends

a high street scene

Consumer news

Get the latest on consumer issues and trends - from property, rip-offs and pensions to fraud, political angles and rising prices

Features and analysis

Top quality stories and analysis of the burning money issues of the day - get the bigger picture
Share prices
Shares news
Keep bang up-to-date with the latest news affecting share prices and the stockmarket
Family

Free guides and brochures

There's a whole range of useful information to choose from including investing, retirement and family finances
Skip to page content | Text onlyGraphical version of this page

Tiscali Quicklinks. Please visit our Accessibility Page for a list of the Access Keys you can use to find your way around the site, skip directly to the main navigation, to the page content, or to more links within money.

web |  shopping |  this site |  video |  local services

Page Footer


Access keys


You will need to use different key combinations in order to use access keys depending on your internet browser, find out which on our accessibility page.
  • (0) Navigate to Accessibility page.
  • (1) Navigate to Home page.
  • (2) Navigate to My email.
  • (3) Navigate to My Account.
  • (4) Navigate to Site Map page.
  • (5) Navigate to Contact us page.
  • (6) Navigate to Members channel.
  • (7) Navigate to Services channel.
  • (8) Navigate to News & Info channel.
  • (9) Navigate to Entertainment channel.
  • ([) Skip down to the Primary navigation block.
  • (]) Skip down to the more links within this section block.
  • (=) Bypass all navigation and jump to the content.
  • (x) Text only version of this page.
Background images used:
furniture images used in the site icons used in the site images used in the header