Household HSBC Watch

Seen in the comments section of Market Watch: “Companies like HSBC should be run out of town. They are crooks. Try getting them on the phone about an error. I hope they go broke.” The article is titled “Wednesday’s Personal Finance stories” and the actual web page is titled “credit-card gripes grow, but borrowers shoulder some blame.” You can see it here. Judging by the complaints published in our Horror Stories blog and the poor 73 percent HSBC credit card disapproval rating there might be some merit to the opinion voiced on MarketWatch.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, this is just another example of HSBC Plc giving up some respect and street cred to own a lender like Household International, now called HSBC Finance. Don’t mention the USD$30 Billion plus that HSBC lost, and you can count the $14 Billion paid for Household. It is a loser too. But as an example, this complaint came to us today:

“For several weeks I monitored my online statement. That statement showed a due date of 8/8/08. About 7am I went online to make a payment for the balance of the account. I was told in order to avoid a $30.00 late charge I would have to pay a $12.95 rush payment fee. If Orchard Bank required the payment on 8/7/08 the statment should have reflected that date. I have sent an email to request the charge be dropped, but received a response from “Predeep” (I assume from a call center in India) that the charge would not be dropped. HSBC’s statement was misleading in order to collect another fee. I have since closed the account.”

The complaint came from the email system of a large investment bank. To protect the sender we will not disclose which investment bank it is. However, it is another example that justifies our point. Bankers and investment bankers scammed by HSBC Finance do not take such matters lightly. It also reflects poorly on HSBC Finance, HSBC USA, and HSBC Plc.