HSBC upping my interest rate. Bit confused.

Simon_Preston · 8 June 2009 at 9:18AM

Not by a lot. My latest statement says my simple rate is going up to 16.620% (effective annual rate 17.9%). That was from 15.9. But can anyone tell me what that means? Which figure will it be going to? I'd imagine the 17.9. But then whats the 16.62 about?

YorkshireBoy · 8 June 2009 at 9:26AM

The 'simple rate' ignores compounding. It's simply 12 x the monthly rate.

Simon_Preston · 8 June 2009 at 11:43AM

Ah cheers for that.

greenmantle · 8 June 2009 at 3:33PM

Exactly the same thing happened with me.

"My latest statement says my simple rate is going up to 16.620% (effective annual rate 17.9%)."

Query it. If you're behaviour has been fine, they should restore the 15.9% rate, as they did with mine (reply by online banking 'oops, you qualify for 15.9'). Think they're just trying to sneak the rates up.

Simon_Preston · 8 June 2009 at 5:11PM

How did you query it? Is there a section on the online banking to do it or did you phone them?

greenmantle · 8 June 2009 at 7:28PM

Hi,

I sent a query via the e-banking message facility, and they sent this reply fairly promptly:

'Thank you for your e-mail dated 13 March regarding the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) on your Gold Credit Card account.

I have forwarded your query to the department concerned. They will action on your request shortly.

Please e-mail me if you have any more queries or you can call our Customer Service Centre...'

Then they followed that up with two paper letters dated to the same day, one rather redundantly explaining how interest is calculated (gee thanks) and a second saying (I roughly paraphrase) 'thanks for your query, on checking your account we see that you qualify for APR 15.9 and this will be implemented in a little while' (I think it took 1.5 months). Now 15.9%.

I should mention that they upped the interest rate, originally, with no notification - don't get any paper from them, but no e-bank message either.

byebyedebt · 8 June 2009 at 8:25PM

Me too. From 15.9 to 17.9. Six months after an icrease from 11.9%.

Im taking the first to the FOS, but am being delayed by HSBC. Apparently after 6 months my complaint has gone to the Executive Dispute Committee because I keep asking for a letter of Final decision. Original complaint on fairness. They wouldn't give me the option to close and keep rate before they put it up.

Keep me posted on this. Thanks

Simon_Preston · 24 June 2009 at 11:59AM

Well after getting nowhere with the emails I decided to take the bull by the horns and ring them up. Wanted to know why it was being increased as I was a good customer. Asked if they would put it back on the original rate they said no. So I asked about closing down the account. Got put on hold for a good length of time then they came back with they'd reviewed my account and as I was a valued customer they put it back to the 15.9% rate.

Playing hardball with the big guns hahaha.
:beer:

nickmack · 24 June 2009 at 1:07PM

byebyedebt wrote: »

They wouldn't give me the option to close and keep rate before they put it up.

If this was after 1st January 2009, they should have given you this option.

http://www.choosingandusing.com/resources/documents/CreditCardFactsheet.pdf

greenmantle · 24 June 2009 at 6:10PM

So I asked about closing down the account. Got put on hold for a good length of time then they came back with they'd reviewed my account and as I was a valued customer they put it back to the 15.9% rate

:T:T Well done!

I think more people should try this - I bet they've been nudging up everybody's rate by a point or two and, without notification, hoping they wouldn't notice...

Simon_Preston · 24 June 2009 at 7:01PM

Yeah, funny thing is I'm going to try for another 0% card in just over a months time anyway to try and pay it off. So it probably shouldn't bother me whether the card had a higher rate of interest or not once it had been paid off. Guess it was the principles of the thing more than anything. Plus the card has a nice large limit which would come in handy should I need to suddenly shift a large amount of another card.

HSBC upping my interest rate. Bit confused.

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