HSBC Holdings
Reviews and Complaints

Dear Sir,

Ref to your mail - Reference Number [protected]- dated 27.08.2009 by Abu Tahir - Customer Service Executive
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited. I request you to please check my account from last year. I have some problems which have to be resolve from your side.

1) Your service is very poor and no executives have knowledge to handle queries of Customers.

2) As per my bill I have paid Rs. 10000/- in June itself. If my intension was wrong not to pay you money then I would not pay this amount also.

3) At the time of issueing a card your executive told that their wont be any annual fee but in the month of July 2009, you charged Rs. 3000/- to my account. After that i stopped paying the bills. I immediately call custmoer care but they havent responded to my query.

4) Your all executives are hopeless. They literally gives me miss call on my mobile and also different executives call me by which i have to tell this problem to every one. and also the query doesnt solved yet.

5) Because I havent paid the bill you have charged me more interest and late payment fees.

6) I request you to give my case to one of Executive which will solve this issue. As i want pay the reasonable amount and Close my account.

7) I talked to Customer care they told to contact Collection Department. And your Collection Department told to contact Custmer care. My request is to reverse the unwanted amount you have charged and close my account as I’m ready to pay remaing amount.

8) Your Collection Department is threatning me from following numbers.
[protected]; [protected]; [protected]; [protected]; [protected]

9) I’m filing complaint against them, in consumer forum and police also.

Finally I’m requesting you to settle my accounts and close. Solve my issue as early as possble.

Regards,

Harshal Ramteke

Isn't there a law firm out there where we can file a class action law suit?!

Everyone should file a complaint with the state's attorney general's office and the insurance commissioner!

The complaints i've read so far regarding hsbc auto finance and the liability insurance they charge to their auto loan customers through balboa insurance is very similar to the problem i've been having with hsbc. hsbc is totally inept, and I beleive they are trying to defraud consumers by not crediting off the insurance premiums when an auto loan customer such as myself, has obtained his/her own private auto insurance policy. (I believe that hsbc is hoping that people are naive, give up and will just pay it! balboa insurance won't help you... they will send back to hsbc and hsbc will send you back balboa insurance. it the perfect example of getting the run around!)

I lapsed in my auto insurance from may 2007 through nov 2007. on or about dec. 7, 2007 I purchased and still maintain a comprehensive auto insurance policy through geico.in may 2007, hsbc charged my account $950.00 for auto insurance through balboa insurance co. for a policy effective; april 2007-april 2008. hsbc has a many times acknowedged the existence of my geico policy, and insists that they have credited my account for the months I had aquired my own policy through geico. the credit to my account should entail the months of dec. 2007-april 2008; $400.00 plus interest charged over the past two years.

As mandated by law, I wrote hsbc a formal letter of dispute describing the reason for the dispute, requested a comprehensive reconciliation of my account so I could see where they had "supposedly" credited me for the months I had my own insurance policy, and enclosed a check for the amount I believe I owe on the account. I beleive i've paid this loan in full and i'm waiting for hsbc to send the title to my vehicle.

Hsbc in response sends me a (2) page computer generated, "print screen" reconciliation of my account. one of the line items on reconciliation states; "insurance credit" $0.00. yes.. that's right... the insurance credit on my account said, zero! to this day hsbc insists that somehow there has been a credit applied for the unused balboa policy but they cannot show me where it is! last week the manager i've been working with at hsbc said she had gone through my account and swears that I owe the balance, but she can not produce anything to prove to me that the company indeed credited my account! it's ludicrous! the law states that the burden of proof that a debt is owed is on the creditor. the creditor must prove that debtor owes said balance.

Yesterday, a law firm/collection agencey contacted me yesterday. I told the gentleman I would pay the remaining $400.00 balance on my account if hsbc can prove they credited my account for insurance charged to my account from dec.2007-april 2008. the gentleman was taken back, and said he would contact hsbc.

I held a GM Card issued by HSBC for over 10 years. I never had a late payment. I had accrued over $5, 000 in "GM Dollars". HSBC sent me a letter stating that my credit card was being canceled for the sole reason of "lack of use". I would have 3 months to use my GM Dollars (I could only use a $1500/car purchase) and then they would be forfeited. I didn't need 3.3 new GM cars at the time, so that's what they did: My $5, 000+ GM Dollars vanished. I seems to me I lost $5000 and HSBC gained $5000 and I didn't do (and wasn't even accused of doing) anything wrong. How is this not stealing? I'm certain their lawyers figured out a way to make it legal, but its wrong. Has this happened to anyone else?

The history of my case goes like this.

I requested for a balance transfer from HSBC towards my CITIBANK credit card in the month of November-2008.

The request was raised on Nov-04-2008 (as per the statement) for an amount of 22, 000.00 INR for six months plan.

The same amount was debited (along with the processing fee and the eligible taxes) onto my card.

The check for the mentioned amount was issued in the name of my CITI card as per HSBC updates, but the amount never got credited to my CITI account.

Still, as a faithful customer, I made 2 consecutive payments of 2K each, hoping that amount would be credited to CITI account.

As a result of my sincerity, I was being charged by both, HSBC and CITI, so I made the payment of total outstanding on CITI and I stopped making further payments on HSBC, as the amount in question was never used by me. I made several calls to HSBC reporting the situation, but all in vain. Pissed off with the situation, I stopped ma, king calls, hoping that after some 3 or 6 months, the check would automatically get cancelled, and HSBC will have their money with them. Meanwhile, I kept getting calls from their collections department who kept asking for payment towards the outstanding, on which even a fat interest had accrued. I again took time and pain in explaining the situation to them to which they assured me of appropriate response and resolution.

Now, after almost 9 months of this torture, I'm being tortured even worse by HSBC's recovery department, who (some guy named Tarun) are threatening me of legal actions, in case I fail to pay the sum.
So, in summary, I'm being traumatized to pay a hefty sum of around 17K as the settlement amount, post which, I'll be issued a settlement letter, and will be barred from any further relationship with the bank ever in future.

For me, the total comes almost close to 22K (as I've already paid 4K), which I've never used, and, I'm deemed guilty and punished 'no future relationship' (though it should be reverse instead) without even utilizing a single penny.

I would like to mention that I’m sick of the pathetic and ridiculous services of HSBC's multiple departments (customer care, collections, recovery), and I'm strongly going to publicize the bad treatment that I've been subjected to by HSBC.

I'd request all the people to think atleast a 100 times before getting lured into any of the HSBC's credit card services and products as I myself have had enough tortures and harrassments for all my life times.

What do you expect from a foreign bank, wow these guys are unbelievable. I am a high net worth individual and I was repeatedly treated like one of the many cheap suits you can see walking around their head office in Vancouver.

Their securities department (stock brokerage) had no clue what they were doing. Their fees are astronomically high and their advisors are less knowledgable than your local mom and pop financial planner. They underperformed the market every single year I was with them and tried to lie about the performance to trick me. They pretend to have a global advantage but really they have absolutely nothing. Its the only thing they can say about themselves because they are inferior to the other big 5 banks in every aspect. Their track record globally is atrocious, look at their mutual funds performance. Yikes! Come to think of it, HSBC Securities canada is just a slapped together motley crew formed by prior failed independant dinky brokerages. They have no proper trade desk or analyst department! Just a couple of washed up advisors praying for the cheesy bankers to send them clients in return for the hockey games and lunches they send them to with your commissions.

I was told rudely that I was flat out wrong about their credit card policies when they charged me an annual fee on a "no annual fee" card. I was left completely unsatisfied and rudely delt with by someone that sounded like they were speaking jibberish with their mouth full of food. The manager talked to me like I was a child and talked down on me in that dreaded fashion that we have all come to recognize as typical old fashioned stuck up banker behavior. I swear they have the worst case of small paycheck syndrome out of all the banks in this country, and that is saying alot since their peer group doesnt have a great reputaion to begin with. The list of complaints goes on and on...

They will never do well in this country because of their stuck up attitude and complete inability to understand north american customer service. They boast about their "global reach" and "international expertise" but really that is absolutely worthless I have an easier time travelling with my TD account than I do with crappy HSBC, the only thing they are doing on a global scale is dissapointing customers and ripping people off. I hope their financial results dont have a global reach because they are completely floundering in Canada and the US and losing themselves a ton of money annually in the process. Keep it up guys, Moores would not be in business without you.

We have 2 vehicles financed thru HSBC Auto. During the winter 2008 we decided to garage the truck to save money. Although the truck was covered under my homeowner's ins., HSBC said we had to pay for their ins. thru Balboa. So we did. On Feb. 22, 2009 the ins. on the car cancelled and I went ONE week without ins. -an oops on my part! I called SafeAuto & got ins. on BOTH the car & the truck. Our policy began Mar. 1, 2009. During that one week of ins. lapse, HSBC/Balboa charged me ins. on the car as well. I had SafeAuto fax Balboa & HSBC both AND I myself have faxed the required ins. info. since Mar. 2009, we have ONLY paid our required truck & car payments. We continue to be charged for insurance and because we refuse to pay for it, have received countless collection phone calls and even a repo letter. We have changed ins. companies to State Farm & they have sent required documentation to both HSBC & Balboa as well. Our agent is frustrated with them as well. I pay our auto payments thru the HSBC Auto website and it shows on my statement page that I have insurance. it lists the companies I have been insured with. HSBC tells me that the issue needs to be resolved with Balboa. BALBOA doesn't work for ME, BALBOA works for HSBC. This has been an ongoing issue since Mar. 2009. Why is it that HSBC says, "Yes, we have received proof that you have proper insurance but you need to clear it up with OUR outside insurance company before we remove any charges to your account. AND in the meantime, we will call you every hour and send you repo notices until you pay the charges Balboa says you owe even tho WE (HSBC) know you don't." ? Early Aug. 2009 We FINALLY received a "refund" for charges on the account for the car, which was $116. HSBC refuses to send us that money & applied it directly to the principal of the loan. THAT ALONE IS BULL! Since we paid that money when we didn't need to to begin with, that money needs to come back to us to let us decide how we want to spent it, right? In the meantime, we are still being charged for insurance on the truck. We refuse to pay any money towards the insurance so HSBC is applying our payment toward the insurance & then PARTIAL payment to the monthly payment, resulting in them saying we are PAST DUE with the full amount of our truck payment. HSBC & BALBOA are worthless for each other. They can't seem to work together & get their ducks in a row for THEIR customers.

HSBC customer service department is in India and we wonder were all the jobs have gone... Belive me you will care when you have to call to work out a payment and you can't understand their accent and after the 3rd call they tell you that you never called in the 1st place and you start all over again. Time to realize that the jobs that Americans want are the stay in the air condition building with ties and sport coats making a decent living not the ones that require you to be in the kitchen washing dishes or in a car wash. Do not use HSBC unless you want more jobs to go to India. If they want our money they will have to invest it in AMERICA...

It’s really a mental harassment from hsbc bank…

Let me explain why…

I have a primary credit card (* 8537) with hsbc bank from last one and half year. I was shopping with that primary card any paying the bills as usual. last year april/may (not sure about the month) I got shocked when I open the bill statement received from hsbc bank. I got a bill statement of rs.75000/- from hsbc bank. immediately I called hsbc customer care and informed the same. they said, on your name one more card (add on card) got released to your address. I asked about the courier details, went to the courier office, and got the details from the courier office. but the bank has given wrong address and courier had delivered it to same address (not my address). that stupid fellow (recipient of the card) received the card and purchased what ever he waned and billed around rs.75000/- with in 4 days of time. but the bill statement sent to my address.

But I did not get any call from hsbc bank regarding that add on card. and did not get even sms or a call after billed rs.75000/-.

Finally the bank customer care people (nandini/meena – from chennai branch) told that we will investigate the case and asked me to send one hand written statement about the issue. I did the same and sent a hand written fax to nandini and meena. after few days I got a call from one person (tushar – from bangalore branch) and told me that, “ we are investigating the case and will close this as soon as possible. if you get any bill statement please ignore. if anybody comes for bill collection please inform them tushar is investigating on that so please contact him ”. after few days the collection department came to my home for the bill collection, I told the same as tushar told me. this happened continues 2 months and after that no body has come for the collection. I thought may be case has been closed. but still I am getting the bill statements.

Now, I applied for a personal loan (this is my first loan in my career) they enquired and rejected my application since this amount details has been updated in cibil credit history. you know, in future also I cannot get any loan or related things from any bank regarding this bad credit history.

So, last week I called the hsbc customer care and asked about the status of my case and about the credit history.

They said that card had closed. but still I did not get any letter from hsbc regarding the issue. I had sent a hand written fax last year june (2008), so its one year completed but still no response from hsbc bank.

I called bangalore branch as well as chennai branch customer care department. but they are really help less. they were telling that we don’t have the details about this issue you contact recovery department and they have given some phone numbers ([protected]-bangalore, [protected]-chennai) but nothing is working and no response from hsbc people…

- sreenivas

This is a horrible deplorible company... unacceptable.. their people starting from cashiers to manager don't know what they are doing. I went to this branch to open a new checking account with a check payable to me from their own bank, I approached the cashier and asked him if the check and account was good he turned around and checked with their manager on site and said that it was OK. A couple of days later I went and withdraw $4, 950 dollars cash from the account. A couple of days later I got a call from the manager of the branch Mr. Tony Nguy - saying that the check wasn't good and the money needed to be returned. I stope by the branch the following day, returned the money and asked him to close the account since they where going to charme $3 monthly fee and obviously they didn't know what they were doing. He told me that he would take care of this and a month later I got a statement saying that I owed $34.10, when I went to pay for this with my credit card Mr. Nguy said that I have to pay with cash because it was in collection. What a bunch of incompetent people they are, they have no customer service skills at all. DO NOT USE THIS BRANCH OR BANK FOR THAT MATTER.

I have been a cardholder of Red Mastercard for 2 to 3 years now. Last purchase using this card was made in August 2008. However, to my disappointment, after only 2 months of not being able to pay the bill, my account was transferred to the legal collection office of HSBC which is based in Davao. 16, 000 php was the amount that I had to pay last Dec. 2008. Other credit card companies are kinder to their clients. Since then, I have been consistently paying my bill with 2000 php or more a month.

Just when I thought my bill would be so small, a call was made by Mercy of Davao last July 28 using the landline #[protected], informing me that I need to pay 4, 500 php to close the account. She made it sound that it is a good offer by HSBC Head Office who lowered it to such amount from 8000 php. I have not seen my bill statements for a year now. But simple calculations would tell us that it cannot be 8000 php, not even 4500 php. HSBC is not even doing me a favor. I expect the amount to be as low as 3000 including the charges, or zero minus the charges.

I told her to send me my bill statement to my new address or fax it. I want to see the charges, and know how computation was done. However, I haven’t received anything from her since then. I have heard of the settlement offered by HSBC to other clients. They were simply asked to pay for the principal amount. I think the company has profited a lot already from the charges that I have been paying. I hope that this time, the charges are waived, and I only have to pay the principal amount if there still is, considering the payments I have made.

This complaint is regarding the HSBC collections department, Basavanagudi, Bangalore(At least, that is what they claim to be!).

I hold a Credit Card with the HSBC bank and I was unable to pay the dues for around 1.5 months as my nature of job involves extensive travelling, mostly to remote schools in the country. The incident happened yesterday while I'm still away at work at a place in Kerala, where there are no HSBC banks around. My job trip would end in 3 weeks and I would be back at Bangalore in the 2nd Week of August '09.

It all started with Mr.SANTOSH KUMAR, claiming to be the Manager of the HSBC Collections Department, Basavanagudi, Bangalore calling me up yesterday afternoon. He stated that "as it is the month end and they have to meet their target, I have no other choice but to make the payment for this month without fail".
As I was helpless, I told him that I would be able to make the payment once I'm back at Bangalore to which he said that I need to make some other alternative to make the payment. However, I could not arrange for any other alternative mode.

When I gave Mr. Santosh an option to send a person to collect the amount at Kerala, he collected the address details of the place where I was staying. And, I assumed that they would send someone. After this conversation, the calls kept coming in constantly from 4 different numbers(2 official numbers & 2 mobile numbers), one after the other till night, each of the other persons trying to persuade me to make the payment as they had changed their mind about sending a person to collect the money.

To my surprise, I received smses from their Mobile number stating " WE HAVE RECEIVED THE CONTACT DETAILS OF YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS FROM OUR SKIP TEAM. IN CASE YOU DO NOT ARRANGE FOR THE FUNDS, WE WOULD CALL YOUR FAMILY". [Is this Justified? How can a Bank get in touch with your family members? Isn't it against the RBI Directive?]

However, to my surprise, I received calls today from my parents who live in a different city & my spouse currently working in an other city stating they had received calls from people claiming to be associated with HSBC bank and that they were pressurizing them to make the payment on my behalf.

1. How did the Bank get their contact numbers? Their phone numbers are fairly new & the numbers were never mentioned in any of the bank documents? [I strongly sense my service provider leaking my recent call records to the Bank]
2. Can the Banks call the family members when you are still in touch with them?
3. How can the Banks intimidate, harass your family members?

Please suggest what should I do? I never mentioned that I would not make the payment.

Does anyone have complaints about aggressive debt collectors working for UAE banks?

Is so, tell a journalist at [protected]@thenational.ae

I have taken personal loan A/c no. 101-[protected] from HSBC Bank, Ahmedabad and preclosed with receiving letter from HSBC Bank Recovery Agency, dated 22/06/2009, REF: FFSPILNWOFFAHDHCDEV ENTERPRISE22062009758. I have given the asked amount also, whatever writen on the letter and received the receipt no.PLB2 0555424 of the given money.
Now on 11/07/2009 when i saw my Kotak Mahindra Bank A/c I came to know that Rs.5219/- has been debited through ECS to HSBC bank, which I already closed.
I request you to kindly guide me how to take back my money from HSBC Bank.
Ravideepak Verma

I once believed that hsbc was a decent company because of their commercials but all has changed. I just received a hsbc visa platinum credit card, and because of exceptional fees that can be charges, have canceled the card after 2 months of use.

The fees were incurred when setting up automatic payment. although I have used the same account number to set up other accounts for automatic payment (example ford finance), hsbc indicated that the payment was rejected by the bank as an invalid account. I then copy and pasted the account from a bank statement and once again the payment was rejected according to hsbc. I contacted the hsbc card services to confirm what the problem was and their representative said that it appears that the payment went through but to check back in a few days. when I did, I discovered a $35 charge for each of the rejected payment on same account that were used in setting up other automatic payment schedule. when I call hsbc card services about these fees, they said that there were legitimate fees and that nothing could be done because the account number provided was incorrect. this was the same account number that was copied and pasted from the back statement and all that was missing were the prefix "0000" that only their system could not handle, but other system can with ease. I feel that this is an example of credit card companies making a grab for cash from consumers using their product.

Results, I ended up paying $70 in fees for a $24 account balance. never again, and will advise all to stay away from this company and their credit cards. now I see why hsbc has to advertise so much, if I am an example of their treatment.

Ps: I thought that loan sharking was illegal, but this bank is able to charge and annual percentage rate of 35.20% on purchases. to me it makes al capone look like a saint when it comes to business.

I called to make a payment of $900.00 through my checking account and gave the correct account number on the system. Hsbc said it was accepted and they would charged me a $15.00 processing fee. A month later I recived a bill with the payment amount added to my balance where it was never processed plus an additional $29.00 finance charge. When I called the customer service department (which sounded like they were located in another country) they said I gave the correct checking account number, however, two extra numbers were added to my account number of which I did not give them. They now charged me extra fees for their mistake. I have paid off this account with the exception of these additional fees and feel I was unjustly charged this fee of $44.06. They have now charged me an additonal $2.00 finance charge on the $44.06 which is now up to $46.06. I feel that this is a situation that they created illegally to get additional money for their use. I feel that this is a gross injustice and they prey on consumers because we have no other resources available for us to fight against these charges.

A couple of months ago I went traveling around Western Europe. Before I left I personally walked into my nearest HSBC branch and informed them of my travel plans, told them where I was going and that I would be drawing money out from lots of different ATMs as I paid for youth hostels and the like. I asked if it was necessary for me to get a separate account for use abroad but they told me my existing one would be fine.

What was initially a problem was that HSBC do not let you check your balance on ATMs overseas (at least not at any of the ones we tried to) which seems ridiculous because if you were to become overdrawn then no doubt they would put huge charges on you.

Later on I was staying in a relatively isolated Spanish village a good hours drive away from any large urban areas and my bank card refused to take out any more money. I phoned HSBC and after putting me on hold for long enough to listen to 6 different songs (including Stereophonics, Madonna and Justin Timberlake and Sting to be specific) they put me through to a man who told me my card had been cancelled for suspected fraud and erratic spending behaviour.

This was a massive inconvenience to be because I only had access to my HSBC account abroad, but in fairness perhaps I should have had a back up plan or another account to prepare for something like this happening. However, it was less the fact that they cancelled me card without telling me and more that their advisor on the phone told me to wait 5 minutes and he would call me back with advice and then never did. I was shocked by this, because I had told him clearly on the phone that I was stuck somewhere with no money. In actual fact I had a friend with me who could let me borrow some but if that had not been the case then the situation could potentially have been very serious (I am a 22 year old female).

Furthermore when I finally came home and went into a local branch to enquire about my card, the advisor there told me it appeared to be working fine on their computer system and they had no record of it being cancelled. They then refused to let me withdraw any money while waiting for a new card unless I brought in my cheque book.

I would also like to point out that the friend that came with me had an HSBC account but didnt use it abroad because HSBC are particularly expensive to draw money out. He also told them in person that he would not be using his account for a couple months while abroad but then they phoned him up while we were away and told him they were going to close his account in 3 days unless he paid in a minimum of £150. This seemed entirely unreasonable since the lady in the local branch had told him that it would be fine to not use his account for that period of time.

I received several emails from hsbc bank bangkok saying I had won one of the yahoo lotteries for the Asis Pacific regeon I tried to phone the number on the email but kept getting answering service.made me suspicious.Then got email asking for $650USD to enable my win to be sent to me.It was one million american dollars.I am not sendig the money as I have never heard of a lottery that you have to pay to get your win.Ibelieve this to be a scam.am I right in believing this to be a scam F. D. Willows

a manager ben bamarki is supost send me my part payment worth 1, 500, 000, 00
here's my code of conduct (hsbc-121/2009..and he's supost do this for free
transfer number:xxx14146xxc. my password: 007199. relece code: 003352xx. can you find out when they will be sending it two me...sir or mam thank you

Dear sir
I recieved a notify that informs me that I had money transfer in HSBC bank & asked me to send them 1700$ because of British board of internal Revenue
I need your advice plz
Name : ashraf al sayed nawar
the e-mail I recieved from HSBC bank PLC South East london on
5-6-2009 signed by authorizer Donald Hitchcock

I bought an ATV in 2002. I paid if off in March of 2008. I have yet to recieve a title for it. I have called several times and have gotten no where. I guess I will have to take legal action. I have slammed their name every chance i get, and won't do business with anybody that does business with them.