HSBC complaint advice needed

helenrachel_2

Hi

Bit of a long story this one so sorry for the long post. Basically what i want is some advice on whether we should accept the £100 HSBC has offered or whether we should report them to the Financial Ombudsman where they will probably get a much bigger fine but we would probably get nothing or whether we should do something else.

Basically HSBC changed my husband's current account into a joint account in my maiden name and his name 9 months after we requested it, after telling us at the time of request that they had lost my paperwork, of a copy of my passport and a current utility bill. In the time that passed between request and them changing the account over my passport expired and also the utility bill was not dated within the time they say they will accept. Next they sent a PIN number and a letter telling me i had a card for his account to the address on the utility bill which was my old rental address. I hadnt lived there for 2 months and only received the letters because my ex landlady dropped some post into our new place. They never checked whether we still wanted to go ahead with the change despite it being 9 months later and for all they knew we could have split up. They then had the cheek to say that I had breached security on my husband's account as i was the one to call up to query what was going!

Anyway we are pretty disgusted with what has happened and complained to them asking for a full explanation. Their complaints department seem to be a bit incompetent too. They have said that they dont know what happened but they can only assume that someone in the servicing centre found the paperwork and actioned it. They've offered us £100 as compensation, which we dont know whether to accept.

We sort of feel like taking this higher as we think they should get into a lot of trouble for this. On the other hand it would probably be a hassle to do this and we are not sure whether they would actually get into trouble as no financial losses occurred because we did get married and the letters they sent to the wrong address didnt get into the wrong hands.

What do you guys think?

Thank you,
Helen

SparciaM

I think you should write and say you'll accept the £100 as compensation for the stress and hassle that you've had to put up with, but still take it further, as what happened if you had split up? Then you both would've had access to an account that you shouldn't and then fraud and alsorts, a lot of money could've been lost by there "human error".

I would say you're happy for the £100 as "compensation for stress/hassle" but take it further, but that's just my opinion.

helenrachel_2

Sounds like a good idea saying we accept the money as compensation but i'm not sure whether this would stop us taking it further.

Pound

Usually if you accept money offered to you it's usually considered that you've reached a settlement and they're unlikely to entertain requests for more money. I don't know whether it's worth taking it further but either refuse the amount and take it further or accept the £100 and move on.