HSBC refuse £200 overdraft when they have over 10k of my money !

nurquhar

I have a number of checking and savings accounts with HSBC, a result of having been a customer for nearly 30 years.

One of the accounts is a Joint account I have with my wife which we use for various domestic ins and outs. We both have other current accounts.

Now on occasion, because were just too busy to keep a daily eye on it the account occasionaly goes overdrawn by typicaly £50 for a few days. The usual cause is the window cleaner sitting on 2 or 3 cheques for several months and then putting them through in one go. I would love to pay him with chip and pin card but it seems he don't have a reader on his bucket.

Now as soon as the account goes into "unauthorised" overdraft they slap me with an admin fee equivilant to the amount of the overdraft. ie if I go £35 overddrawn they charge £35. I am being robbed !!

I rang them up to ask if I could get a modest overdraft on the account of £200 so that any small runs into overdraft would not attract excessive unautorised fees.

After doing a credit check they refused saying it was because they have no more money for overdrafts at the moment ! My credit rating should be good as I have no credit card balances, HP or loans other than my mortgage, also with them. I have never defaulted or been late with any previous loan or credit card payments. Even our mortgage is well covered since the debt/equity ratio is less than 25% as per the mortgage valuation of 2008.

Now whilst on the call with them I ask the woman total up all the money/overdrafts on all my current and savings accounts and it came to nearly 20k. So in effect they are refusing to lend me for few days £200 of my own money. It just happens to be in other accounts.

Now they don't refuse my unauthorised overdrafts so it seems to me that realy they don't want to agree to authorised overdrafts because they will loose all those lucrative charges.

Now how do you make a complaint to this bank since there is nolonger a local bank manager who used to grovel to me to bring my business account to the HSBC. They just a snoty nosed kid who probably can't even spell Manager.

I might consider moving some of my accounts in protest but I don't want to get into the hassle of moving morgages as were on a good bank base rate tracker.

How can I persude them of thier absurd position with regard to poking a good customer like me in the eye ? After all if I pull all the savings accounts from them they will be left holding all the negative accounts and someone else will have all the positives.

ILW

You could pay the window cleaner with cash.

dunstonh

I am being robbed !!

You could argue that you are robbing them by using an unauthorised overdraft.

After doing a credit check they refused saying it was because they have no more money for overdrafts at the moment !

That's one of the funniest fob off reasons I have ever heard. Its complete bull as it doesnt work that way.

My credit rating should be good as I have no credit card balances, HP or loans other than my mortgage, also with them. I have never defaulted or been late with any previous loan or credit card payments. Even our mortgage is well covered since the debt/equity ratio is less than 25% as per the mortgage valuation of 2008.

Although you say that you have gone into unauthorised overdrafts a few times. That will work against you.

Now they don't refuse my unauthorised overdrafts so it seems to me that realy they don't want to agree to authorised overdrafts because they will loose all those lucrative charges.

More likely they dont refuse as either the item is guaranteed and cant be bounced and/or its because you have £20k sitting with them elsewhere.

I might consider moving some of my accounts in protest

I hope the "snotty nosed kid" lets you do that. You may have issues with the bank but there is no need to be rude about the staff that work there.

Why dont you just transfer £200 of your savings into your current account and run your accounts more efficiently. The bank is not there to do that for you. You are just being lazy and expecting the bank to go along with that.

the_insider

Have you made an appeal to the underwriters? Usually you can put your case to them and they will assess it on an individual basis rather than through their standard 'yes or no' criteria. Do you regularly fund the account? As in every month? Unfortunately they are not obliged to offer you an overdraft so there's no guarantee that they'll be able to do anything if you don't meet their criteria. Have you tried reducing the amount you asked for to say £100.00 to see if they can offer you that?

And it sounds like cash might be a better option for the window cleaner.

LeeSouthEast

Why not just add an extra £200 to the account, and aim to always keep it there? You get to create your own overdraft, and not have to pay the bank for doing so...

nurquhar

Let me tell a bit more about the kid at the branch.

He rang me in the middle of last year, "just for chat" he said. He told me since I have HSBC Plus service, which I pay £10 a month for, why don't I have it on the joint account as well. I asked him what it would cost. An he said it would be free. Not beliving this at first I triple checked with him that he was offering to put the additional joint account onto the Plus service for free. He told me three times it would be free. So agreed to let him put the service on my joint account for free in addition to my current account, all for £10 a month. After all thats a good deal is it not ?

A few weeks later I find the bank are sending new cards for the joint account and current account. The logo's on the card indicated that my current account has been black balled from the Plus service and the Joint account been elevated to the Plus status.

On ringing the customer service line (you can't phone the kid at the branch direct) I find that the chocolate tea pot at the branch had transfered the Plus service to the Joint account form the Current Account instead of just adding on the Joint Account. I told the CS Operator that the kid from the branch had offered it to me for free. They told me he did not have the authority to offer me that. After insisting the bank was at fault they told me that they, the customer services could not put the situation back as it was, only the kid the branch could do that and they would send a message to him to contact me to resolve the problem.

It took over a week of reminders to CS to get the branch to finaly ring me up, admit he had got it wrong and he would put it all back to how it was.

Its taken me 6 months to finaly get all the changes and charges put back correctly.

davidgmmafan

Do you get good value for the £10/month? If not why are you paying for a free service.

Also as others have said, and I appreciate this may sound harsh. Why don't you just transfer £200 or even a grand into the current account as a buffer. Yes you'd be foregoing interest but one or two charges would swallow a big chunk of your interest for the YEAR.

I'm sorry if I appear unsympathetic but well I am in these circumstances. If someone didn't have money set aside, and was living literally hand to mouth then I would because they don't have the option of taking evasive action. You do and should!

dunstonh

Don't fall for the banks patter. I am with lloyds and pay nothing. I have the old fashioned current account (called classic). No fees and no extras but does exactly what a current account does. You dont need to pay this £10 for a nothing service.

Premier_2

ILW wrote: »

You could pay the window cleaner with cash.

As this is a money saving site, maybe the OP should consider cleaning the windows him/herself ?

That would probably save several hundred quid a year alone, let alone the bank fees the OP then sometimes incurrs.

Premier_2

dunstonh wrote: »

Don't fall for the banks patter. I am with lloyds and pay nothing. I have the old fashioned current account (called classic). No fees and no extras but does exactly what a current account does. You dont need to pay this £10 for a nothing service.

If you pay in at least £1000 per month, then I'd suggest you upgrade (for free) that to a classic plus account and earn decent interest on balances up to £2500.

In my experience, the £1000 per month is not strictly adhered to (as long as you don't completely take the mickey). I think they used to say you had to access online banking too, but they never seemed to enforce it and I think may have now removed this requirement.

natweststaffmember

To be honest, I think what ILW said was the first thing that crossed my mind since the OP stated that they were paying them by cheque and that the window cleaner was cashing them 2 or 3 at a time.
Whilst I agree with Premier as well on cleaning the windows yourself as well as that would save money as well. For a change I kinda agree with ILW and premier. Either pay cash and that avoid an excess on the account or do the windows yourself and save money on cleaning the windows.
And get rid of the packaged account because the benefits of them is that the bank gets anything between £7-£15 a month and you can probably get them cheaper online