problems opening HSBC account(s)

neilydone

Hi

Can anyone provide any advice on opening a 'normal' current student account...I am trying to help my girlfriend who is an EU citizen, been in the UK since 2002 and currently has a basic NatWest Step account.

Upon starting uni, she has tried to open a HSBC Student account only for her to be refused. She was given several different stories by the customer services teams (branch said it was no problem, then she was refused when trying to apply online etc).

Despite HSBC customer services staff saying she should have no problem getting a student account (hey, students have bad credit-history, right?) she was declined and they eventually suggested that she open a International bank account. Because she was unfamilar with the UK banking system and, by this time, quite pressured, she did not realise that this costs £5 a month to run, signed up and she is now out of the cooling off period.

Of course, we now realise that there is no money in this account (as she didn't want to touch it when she realised that it was costing her money each month and wanted to close it) and so her credit file is probably getting hammered by this too. The bank say that you cannot close it until 12 months has passed....

Is there anything that can be done aside from the usual thing of getting a copy of her credit file from Experian? I suspect that the repeated searches may have something to do with her poor history. It seems that she cannot upgrade the Natwest account to a student account or 'normal' current account (which has been unsuccessfully tried).

Any tips or suggestions would be gratefully received.

Cheers

Neil

anniecave

Well when I was a student I didn't have a "bad" credit history!
If she wants to know what is on her credit file then I would suggest her getting a copy of a credit report.
I don't know what the rules are on "international" stuff - I would have a look on all the websites for terms and conditions of what bank accounts can be opened by people who aren't of british nationality and aren't. Or go into bank branches and ask them, then check the small print.

I would also put a few quid in the £5 a month account and complain to their complaints department or whereever about getting out of the account soonish!

anniecave

The HSBC "passport" account - which I think is the £5 per month one - doesn't give credit and I don't think they will have done a credit search for this, it's designed for people who have only just arrived in the UK.

jonesMUFCforever

A lot of banks stipulate that you must be a UK citizen to open a student account.
Does your girlfriend have a UK passport or is she still a foreign national?
Is she on electoral roll?

grumbler

neilydone wrote:

...she did not realise that this costs £5 a month to run, signed up and she is now out of the cooling off period.

I am sorry to sound harsh, but £60 is not too high price for a lesson to read documents before signing them. The Passport Terms & Conditions (PDF, 32Kb) take just about one and a half page (large print) and just about 800 words. And she had 14 days to do this after signing documents in the branch!

Also the clear information is available on their website: Passport . "12 month fixed term contract" is one of the "Key features" that are followed by:

"Passport has a subscription charge of either a one-off £50 fee when you apply, or £5 per month."

This is repeated below again:

"Passport has a subscription charge of either a one-off £50 fee when you apply, or a monthly subscription of £5 per month for a 12 month fixed term."



I don't think that this application involved credit searches recorded on her credit file(s). However, if she doesn't pay now and gets overdrawn as a result of £5 p.m. charges followed by further charges for unauthorised overdraft, the bank really can spoil her credit files ...