Unexpected call from HSBC

clever_username

The other night someone rang the house saying they were from HSBC and did I have a few minutes to verify some details. Obviously everything sounded professional enough and the woman began to explain that she would give the first part of my postcode and I would then confirm the next bit and presumably the address.

Anyway I politely said that I wouldn't risk doing this over the phone and said goodbye.

Do you think this was a legitimate call? I mean I do bank with HSBC and they got the phone number from somewhere so it could all be on the level, but in this day and age with all the fraud and identity theft and so on it seems a bit questionable for HSBC to be ringing round out of the blue asking people to verify details.

Dunno maybe I'm being to cautious but I'd rather they just sent a letter asking me to pop into a branch or ring them if they wanted details confirmed since then I would know who I was calling, when someone calls you out of the blue it could be anyone surely?

Storck

Why not give your branch a ring and ask them?

JulieElizabeth

Sounds well dodge to me. You did the correct thing.

PZH

clever_username wrote: »

Anyway I politely said that I wouldn't risk doing this over the phone and said goodbye.

Dunno maybe I'm being to cautious but I'd rather they just sent a letter asking me to pop into a branch or ring them if they wanted details confirmed since then I would know who I was calling, when someone calls you out of the blue it could be anyone surely?

Personally, I think I would have done the same. You can never be too cautious.

I while ago I received a call from Capital One Security and they asked me to confirm details over the phone. I politely refused, asked for a call reference, looked their number up independantly and called them back.

As it happened, the call was genuine, but they totally understood the action I had taken.

vuvuzela

This is what HSBC do. I get calls from them every now and then asking me to confirm my details before they can tell me what they are calling about (which obviously I never do). It's an utterly moronic way to do things.

PZH

vuvuzela wrote: »

I get calls from them every now and then asking me to confirm my details before they can tell me what they are calling about (which obviously I never do). It's an utterly moronic way to do things.

I agree. But, to be fair, can you imagine the outcry if they called someone by mistake and discussed your issues with them before confirming they were the right people?

I can understand why they do it - I just think it is so open to abuse and scammers.

Lokolo

HSBC have done it to me before and asked me stuff like this. I asked them for their number and said I'd ring back. The number they gave was the fraud department, I called back, my card was cancelled, fraud stopped and a new card sent the next day.

trumpton

We get this sometimes, it can be genuine. I always say, "You rang me up...why don't YOU tell me the details and I'll confirm it." I wish they wouldn't do it, though. Genuine companies using this method can put people off guard for when the call is actually a fraudster.

pricey85

phoodless wrote: »

I agree. But, to be fair, can you imagine the outcry if they called someone by mistake and discussed your issues with them before confirming they were the right people?

I can understand why they do it - I just think it is so open to abuse and scammers.

I've always been a bit intrigued by this, I worked in a call centre for a finance company, when inbound calls came in we used to to get them to confirm some details on the account that we held (contact details mainly), we then asked if the person calling was the person on the account. We were always told that if somebody answered the security questions and then lied about their identity to gain access to the info we held then they had committed fraud, the understanding was that we had taken all reasonable steps to prevent a DPA issue and therefore were not liable.

When doing outbound calls we were also asked to do checks, however it always struck me that if using the telephone number linked to the account got you through to a person claiming to be the account holder then that acts as a similar level of confirmation. Our situation was slightly different to this as the information we held was gathered in numerous ways from numerous sources including the account holder themselves, therefore it was not always as reliable as the information held by an intitution like a bank where information comes directly from the customer.

mr_fishbulb

I got this from my doctors when they rung me up asking if I wanted help giving up smoking. They wanted me to confirm lots of details.

That's fair enough, but when I went in there last week there was a pile of printed letters on the top of the reception and the top one was talking about some woman on antidepressants. It gave her name, age, address and what drugs she was taking.

Idiots.

kajstring24

Lokolo wrote: »

HSBC have done it to me before and asked me stuff like this. I asked them for their number and said I'd ring back. The number they gave was the fraud department, I called back, my card was cancelled, fraud stopped and a new card sent the next day.

Ditto. I was a bit unnerved when I had a message saying I needed to call the fraud department back asap, went on the Internet to look at the number they called from and it turned out to be legit. Luckily I had no unauthorised money taken out and my card got cancelled before anything bad happened. They've called me a couple of times to verify transfers.