Halifax in ‘Fuck Off’ mailing gaffe

Halifax Bank has been forced to issue an embarrassing apology after it sent out a direct mail campaign promoting its Clarity credit card, which referred to the recipient as ‘Fuck Off’.
Steve Smith, from Lancaster, was sent a letter addressed to ‘Dear Off’ and an application form with ‘Fuck Off’ printed on it. The schools examination officer said he had been thinking of switching to a Halifax account, “but there is no way I would now”.
Smith said: “I couldn’t believe the bank has no system for picking up such profanity. Luckily my daughter is four months old, not four years old, as I wouldn’t want her to read such filth, especially from a trusted banking organisation.”
He added: “Unbeknown to the Halifax, I was about to move my current account to them. But there is no way I would now as they’ve already told me to f-off! At the minute, banks have a bad reputation, and this type of thing really doesn’t help their cause.”
Bizarrely, the plastic window on the envelope had been broken and someone had tried to scribble out the name with a black pen. “It was clear that somebody had noticed the derogatory term, as the window was broken and the name erased out,” said Smith.
He called Halifax’s customer services to complain about the letter promoting their Clarity credit card, but was astounded at the bank’s relaxed response.
He was brushed off by an operator, who said the offensive note had probably been the work of an employee with a grievance against the company. Smith said: “I thought their attitude was a disgrace.”
A spokesperson for Halifax said: “A regrettable error in systems allowed a spurious application to progress beyond initial checking. We will apologise to Mr Smith for the distress caused by this oversight.”