HSBC woes

beeniemac

If anyone remembers my previous threads I have been unable to obtain a loan or credit card. I want to get all my debts onto a low APR loan or credit card with payment protection as I think I'm about to lose my job!

I have not been able to get any kind of credit whatsoever, all of them stating due to my credit scoring. I applied to Both Experian and Equifax for my history and was shocked to find the following.


Note that this is a current account with repayment terms of 0 @£0 - I have never been asked to agree to pay any kind of amount into this account and there were no 'minimum deposit per month' kind of things either.

I have a current account with HSBC, it has an overdraft limit of £650 and the balance has been at under £400 since Christmas. I stopped my wages paid into the account at this time.

I contacted HSBC to dispute this via the telephone and spent 45 minutes talking to a lovely Indian woman who spoke to 3 of her colleagues and her manager all of whom were adamant that HSBC do not deal with Equifax, nor do they provide any information related to current accounts to any credit reference agencies. She then told me to contact Equifax to have it removed - I told her that I deal with Experian and Equifax every day at work and they won't amend anything unless it comes from the company who provided the information. She then put me on hold for a while and told me to go to my branch, so I jumped on my bike and boogied on down into town.

I took a print out of the full report and showed this to the lady at the front desk, advising that I had spent 45 mins on the phone and wasn't very happy. She refused to accept that they deal with Equifax in any sort of manner and was quite rude to me. She went into the back and spoke to her manager - her manager said to phone CS and it was probably to do with a loan or CC :mad: I pointed it out that it said current account, and had the last 4 digits of my account number on it - she scurried into the back to speak to her manager again and came back advising me to put it all in writing and bring it back to the branch where they would send it to 'processing' whatever that is.

What the hell is going on here? Nobody has a clue and I'm in severe trouble Should I complain to the FSA or OFT or something?

clearskies

I would put it in writing to HSBC, send everything by recorded delivery and keep copies of absolutely everything. I don't think there's a quick fix to the problem, but other more experienced people will be along soon to help you.

Good luck!

sammy115

Rather than trying to get a loan or another credit card with a lower APR and payment protection, why not try to get Income Protection as a single policy. I am sure Martin has an article about it somewhere.

Be careful though, most companies (and even credit cards and loans) have a qualifying period and you are not supposed to know that you are going to be losing your job when you take out the policy.

Snaggles

I can tell you for a fact that HSBC do deal with Equifax, without any shadow of a doubt

I would write a letter of complaint to them, as then they have to respond within a certain period of time. Complaints have to be escalated with the company involved first, but if no resolution can be found, they can then be referred to the ombudsman. Good luck with getting it sorted out - if the information is incorrect, it should be able to be removed.

Edit - just a thought but they haven't removed your overdraft limit have they? I ask because the report shows a limit of £0, and if you have a debit balance on there, that would trigger the arrears status on the Equifax report.

Spend-a-holic

Hi
I had a similar problem with HSBC. I have a loan with them that I have never missed a payment on, I ordered my credit score and on there it showed I had missed three months payments. The call centre was useless, I did used to work for HSBC and I know from experience that I would not have known the answer. I went into a branch and they did sort it out after about 30 mins of me refusing to leave until they did. They have to send a memo somewhere and then they rectify the error. Perhaps try going into the branch again or try a different branch if one is nearby.

Hope this helps

S