HSBC Horror Stories

BLS in British Columbia said:
“In the recent past I applied for and received an HSBC Mastercard credit card that had its limit set at $5,000.00. Over the past year or so I have used the card on a regular basis, routinely made monthly payments that met or exceeded the minimum required and paid the balance off in full on several occasions during that time.

On November 08, 2007, I paid $4,852.99 on the card (the current statement balance). On November 27, 2007 I paid another $200.00 on a current calculated balance of 104.84, thinking that, with Christmas approaching, I would be using the card off and on during December so I didn’t mind if there was a credit on the account temporarily.

On November 29 I took my son to the orthodontist, where I was required to pay a deposit of $1,800.00. I gave them my HSBC Mastercard, knowing there was no balance on it, and to my embarrassment, it was not approved.

When I returned home I went online to check my Mastercard account. It showed a credit limit of $5,000, a current balance of just over $300 and available credit of just over $164, which made no sense to me, so I called the customer service number provided online. They informed me that due to a review of my credit report, they had reduced my credit limit to $500!

This new information was quite a shock to me since I had always kept my account current and never had any indication from HSBC that they were going to do this with my account.

In March of this year we purchased a house for $590,000 (knowing we would have to add approximately $50,000 of repairs and maintenance post purchase, which we did). When we approached our RBC mortgage specialist about amount approval, we were told that our credit was excellent, and since we were paying more than 50% as a down payment that we had a blank cheque for the mortgage amount. We only had to decide how much we wanted. Does this sound like a customer that’s required to have their zero balance credit card limit reduced to $500? After reading the HSBC Watch Site I have to think that they were beginning to set me up for the late fees/incomplete payments scam by not telling me my limit had been reduced by $4500 for no reason.

I have to say that I was already dissatisfied with HSBC customer service and their policy of wanting to charge me for online access to my accounts, and their policy of charging one of my employees $5 to cash their pay cheque which was drawn on an account domiciled at the branch where it was presented. The picture of a money grabbing, greedy corporation began to emerge. I have now moved my business account over to Coast Capital Savings Credit Union. This latest debacle only serves to reconfirm the poor quality of customer service provided by HSBC even though their mission statement says that they are to deliver “an outstanding client experience based on excellence in sales, service and solutions”.

Tomorrow I am sending a letter to the President of HSBC Bank of Canada with cc’s going to every member of the HSBC Board of Directors, including the chairman of the board who lives in England.”