HSBC Horror Stories

SD in Pennsylvania said: “Well after reading numerous statements about how incredibly horrible HSBC is my fiancée and I started putting 2 and 2 together. We have numerous accounts with them, including Suzuki and Kawasaki, which are the absolute worst. I advise anyone with plans on purchasing a motorcycle or ATV to stay away from the credit they offer. When we first had these accounts they were through a company called GE and we never had a problem, then they sold out to HSBC and our nightmare began.

Since our account has been sold we have gone through their interest games, where we received our bill just fine until about a year into it. Their policy was if you are current on your payments then your promotional interest remains, which sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Yeah, that’s what we thought until our bill never came and they started putting the wrong address or zip code on our mail.

HSBC did it purposely so we wouldn’t get it, our minimum payment went from $88 to $188 and then to $348 on our Suzuki account and our Kawaski account nearly tripled also. We tried calling them and didn’t get anywhere for a long time, then they finally agreed if we stayed current on our payments they would lower our payments back down to $148 and $188 on our accounts. Well, they came through on the Suzuki account but the Kawaski account remained the same and every time we called HSBC they said they had no record of us ever calling for that account.

It seems funny that we talked to the same person at the same time for both accounts but they only have a record for one. Don’t they record those conversations? Anyway, we have our own business and in the winter it tends to get kind of slow so we fell behind 2 payments on our Suzuki card. A third party collection agency called us to arrange a settlement, so I spent over a month talking to these people trying to work everything out and just when I thought we were in agreement a repo man showed up at our door to repossess the RMZ450 we had.

To make a long story short we no longer had the bike and had to go and buy it back, with money we really didn’t have. Needless to say we were pissed. How could they do this? The next day I contacted HSBC and they swear up and down that the account was never sold, so who were these people calling me, that had my account number and all my information? HSBC says they don’t have a clue.

We contacted them over 15 times and every time we called we got a different answer, until finally we got a hold of some lady who was a complete witch to us. By then I had it. How can these people handle your account when they don’t even know what the hell’s going on with it. We ended up just letting them keep the bike because it was cheaper then buying it back.

I researched this process and according to the law HSBC was legally responsible to send us a right to cure, which we never received. Upon talking to a representative, I was told that since I was signed up for online payments that I would have had to go online to receive this notice. That’s funny since they locked me out of my account for being past due, so how exactly do they expect me to make a payment or know what is going on if they don’t allow me access to my account?

HSBC does this so I have to call and pay a $15 processing fee just to pay my bill. The law also states that they are legally responsible to send us a letter 5 days after the confiscation of the bike to inform me of my legal rights and what they intend to do with the merchandise. I never received that either, the have yet to follow any of the legal procedures established for this kind of matter. Believe me I have read everything that there is on this subject, my question is what do we do now? We know that they are in the wrong, and that they are not following the law, but how do we press charges against them or exercise our rights?

If anyone has been in a situation like this or has any advise we would be very grateful for your help. Thanks.”