For about a year I have been conducting what, until recently I thought was a one-man campaign against a former British building society, but thanks to the good old internet, I now realise that I am no longer alone.

A building society in the UK is a society owned by its members for the purposes of both saving at slightly higher interest rates than those offered by the banks and to enable its members to obtain long-term, low interest loans to purchase property. Following the lead of several other building societies, the Halifax, one of the UK’s largest, decided that it would convert from a building society to a bank and in the process, it would grant shares to its 7.6 million members. The members duly voted for the motion and the Halifax became a bank in June 1997. The average member received 350 Shares, which are currently valued at just under UK3,000 (BD2,000).

Unfortunately, I found that I am not an average member, simply because I happen to live overseas and therefore not surprisingly, my registered address with the Halifax is also overseas. The bank in its infinite wisdom decided that even though I have been a member for over 20 years, they could not issue me any shares, simply because I live in Bahrain.

I was a little bit miffed about this, especially as the Halifax did not even have the courtesy to inform me of the impending flotation and thus enable me to take steps to ensure that I had a UK address. I therefore commenced my campaign to attempt to extract justice and to get my hands on the loot, to which I feel that I am entitled.

Anyone who has attempted a similar mission with a large, faceless company may have experienced the frustrations, which are often encountered in such an action. Each time I write, a different person answers my correspondence. So far I have received letters from seven different people from two different offices. The respondents frequently fail to answer my questions but frequently give me answers to questions, which I have not asked. I usually takes weeks if not months to receive a reply, in fact a letter which was written in October 1997 still remains unanswered. Frustrated? Angry? You bet! Until, that is, I discovered UNHAV on the Internet.

UNHAV is an acronym for United Halifax Victims and is a group of people who have found each other through the Internet and banded together to jointly fight the Halifax and hopefully become HAVs. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 Halifax members did not receive shares simply because they live overseas and currently about 600 victims from over 50 countries as far afield as Mongolia and Papua New Guinea have contacted world co-ordinator Brian Hazlehurst, who lives in Rio de Janeiro. Brian has conducted an on-line campaign which has resulted in many of the members of UNHAV contributing UK50 (BD32) to a group legal campaign. They have recently appointed a British lawyer to act on their behalf and intend to jointly fight the Halifax through the courts and ultimately receive the shares, which they feel that they and others are morally entitled.

Is this a first for the Internet? I certainly hope so. Not only because I would like to receive my shares, but because I would like to see the arrogant big corporation humbled by the small man-in-the-street. After all the man in the street created the society in the first place.

Should any GDN readers be victims of the Halifax, they will find details of UNHAV at http://www.rain.org/~jmhmps/unhav.html. Alternatively, they may contact me through the GDN and I will be pleased to provide details.