How can I avoid HSBC's new graduate interest rates?

[Deleted User]

do a search for barclays and bbc whistle blower.

The staff changed peoples products around without asking them so that they could bag commision put people of fee paying accounts etc. That and other things, thats what happeds when companies pay commision for staff to sell products, there staff will lie to sell. I imagine this goes on to varying lengths at most banks.

A interest free overdraft is great for stoozing but for gods sake dont think its your money, you want to be saving hard after uni to get out of debt quickly. It took me 2 months but i worked part time through uni so was pretty well off. If it takes 5 years to pay off 3K then your gonna be pretty !!!!!!ed when it gets to retirement!

PS Im presuming the barlays limits you posted are interest free ie 0% not that it matters for me, hence why i cant be ars*d to read the barclays site.

Money_Worrier_2

Regarding all the comments about the dirty tricks against students and trying to sting them straight away without giving them the opportunity and time to get into employment. This week my daughter received her letter on 16th July, the same day of conversion of the account. I enquired in our local LLoyds TSB about their graduate accounts to be told that they know that from September no students with HSBC will get interest free overdrafts. So they are going to sting the students immediately. Can this be true? If so they are going to lose a hell of a lot of accounts. I used to work for them and even I don't trust them anymore. New students beware!!! Don't go near HSBC at all.

MLC

I went into my HSBC branch today to get to the bottom of what was happening, they were really unhelpful and didn't really know, so I walked round the corner and opened an account with RBS. The process with RBS was very straight forward and I was given a £2000 interest free overdraft. The best thing about it all is they gave me the branch telephone number and told me they deal with all enquiries there. This is great, I've lost count of the number of times I’ve rang HSBC "Customer Service" and spoke to someone at the other end of the world who obviously had really poor training and didn't have a clue how to deal with my query. The only down side about RBS is that they don't have many small branches, so my nearest one is in the city centre. Its a small price to pay though!!:j

[Deleted User]

shouldnt be, youll just need to switch the direct debits to the new account.

[Deleted User]

declare to who?

if you have several current accounts for interest free overdrafts and your not having wages put in then they will remove the overdraft and pass the debt onto a debt collecting agency.

danish

Yant1 wrote: »

declare to who?

if you have several current accounts for interest free overdrafts and your not having wages put in then they will remove the overdraft and pass the debt onto a debt collecting agency.

ummm, dependant on t&cs and consultation with yourself.

Barclays did not mind me having my account open with HSBC however, I will close it anyway.

[Deleted User]

Both Abbey and HSBC passed my mates interest free overdrafts onto a debt collector as he wasnt paying anything in. First he heard about it was the knock at teh door demanding money, didnt get any letters before hand.

Was a few years ago tho

Petree

Rang the telephone 'helpline' a few hours ago. The letter states 'This will take effect for new customers on 16 July and after 28 July for existing customers'

But how can one switch from a student to a graduate account if your not an existing customer? to be told 'oh thats just how they word it'... so they word it so that no one can understand it?

So I rang up, simply to find out If the overdraft I have today (19th July) is being charged or not...and they can't actually tell me but they tend to start charging the end of the month!?! I have to visit the branch. Their response is can you visit tomorrow? 'No i'm at work' How about Monday? 'No i'm at work' Oh...well you'll have to visit your branch.... 'thanks for the help'

What an absolute disgrace and failure, the only reason for this would be is to switch us all to the tenner a month account, but the letter has no details about it, and when you ring up it wasn't sold to me so what are they trying to do?

Not looking forward to going into the branch either as they seem to have replaced all the staff with machines, and when you go up to the staff to do something 'oh...you can do this at the machines'... i'm fully aware I can but do you want a job next year? How do the staff not realise this :mad:

Well done HSBC another customer lost to RBS, well done on the 6 family members who are following me, well done on the loss of 2 Premier accounts!:money:

Gingham_Ribbon

I phoned round several banks when I was moving from student to graduate status and found the best deal for me. Of course, that was the days when you could speak to someone who actually dealt with what you were enquiring about. I don't know how difficult it is to get information when phoning a 'help' desk. I can't get any sense out of anyone when phoning HSBC. They have DREADFUL customer service. But I've moved banks more than a dozen times and it's easy to do.

The point is though that they are in competition with each other and it's worth doing a bit of research rather than thinking you have to stay where you are. You are the customer and you can take your custom elsewhere.

askintstudent

Hi guys,

I just wanted some advice about switching. I have only just found out today about HSBC starting to charge interest as a friend of mine made me aware.

I basically have an overdraft with HSBC and its at the £1500 limit and I would like to switch asap. I have not been in employment since early December as my final year was very intense. I am going on holiday in late September but will be looking for employment as soon as I get back but was wondering if I could still switch my accounts now?

I want to switch to an RBS account but I was wondering would I be rejected because I have not been recently employed or will RBS let me switch anyway. I feel really annoyed because of the way HSBC has handled this as I have recieved no notification from them that my account will be switched and 9.9 EAR will be charged!

Thanks in advance!