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

NovaBlack_2

well after reading all the complaints on here i told my girlfriend to check her HSBC student account. she finished her 3 year course this year and had her graduation on monday the 16th of this month.

so she called up hsbc to find that on the 14th of this month (2 days before she had even graduated) they had switched her account. NOT to a graduate account (with the 9.9% that'd be bad enough) but to a current account with a whopping 17.7% interest!!

she found out that between the 14th and yesterday when she called she'd already been charged almost £3 in just 4 days!

No letter no NOTHING. if she hadnt called up she wouldnt have known until her statement came through at the end of the month!

she was FURIOUS!

so anyway headed down to Natwest today. only problem is we need her graduation certificate before they can open the new graduate account. the uni wont send one out till SEPTEMBER! that means she will be paying for the next 3 months till she can switch!

i suggested the egg card 0% interest till its switched but she is really against getting a credit card..

Anyone know if any other banks will accept less than a certificate ( i suggested a letter from the uni confirming graduation, but natwest said this would not be enough)

this is driving me NUTS. we went into HSBC an at least got put onto the graduate account at 9.9% which is less than the 17.7% they have charged already, but we got no real apologies , and said they would not pay back the charges over the last 4 days. even when i pointed out they had to give 30 days notice and had failed to do so contrary to the banking code, and their own TnCs!

even so tho, by september she will have paid almost £30 to HSBC in charges!!! i dont care if its £30 or 30p, im so mad right now they shouldnt have a penny of her money. its sneaky, and dishonest.

All we got from hsbc was ' oh yeah we know we are the only bank doing this right now but all other banks will follow suite soon enough.. so tough... you can always move if you dont like it'

I cant believe all banks would do this!! i mean the way i see it if one bank kept 0% interest for graduates wouldn't 90% of graduates go with them... and then its statistically shown most people wont change banks for most of their life after graduation.. i mean... for the sake £10 a month now , banks are gonna lose out on the 25k average that graduates end up earning each year... ? err.. find that hard to believe.

Plus at the end of the day if all the graduates this year from hsbc move elsewhere theyve at least got a gaurunteed interest free account for this year at least so its a pretty crappy argument. i mean did she expect us to say.. 'oh well if all banks will do it next year its ok charge us now then..' i mean what the heck?

lol the funniest part was pointing out that 10% interest is still more than the 0% everywhere else , to get the response 'oh well its not 10% ... its only 9.9% which really isnt that bad...' i mean lets face it ... its more or less 10% ... its like saying something for £9.99 is cheap because its under £10 .. i mean technically yeah.. but its a marketing scam..

Then they tried to sell us the graduate plus account (costs around £10 a month so get stuffed). Lol all she could say was 'yeh but you get free travel insurance as well as the 0% interest) . lol £120 a year.... for travel insurance. can normally get it for liek £15 and we arent planning on taking around 10 holdays this year... did you not understand the huge £1200 into the overdraft we just told u about?

Anyone got any advice on what to do? Natwest were really helpful , (and VERY suprised that HSBC have done what they did) but to wait til september with the HSBC B*stards leeching £10 a month off on an account they said would be interest free a year ago...

i mean what to other banks require? is it standard that we need a certificate? geez if only theyd given us notice she coulda switched when it was still a student account n had no problems..

danish

Gee, this really is getting to people and it's not hard to see why.

I moved to Barclays, they did not require any proof of graduation (as I had not graduated untill a week or so after I recieved my grades). I did however open the premium account, although not a great offer the mobile phone insurance and road cover was less then I was paying now, and the 3K overdraft has allowed me to stick the remaining money into savings.

I wish you good luck

Danish

Bella_b

Thing is with most banks you need to be in employment for them to accept you as well as have graduated. I don't have a job YET so thats no good for me. I think RBS is the best for me, but the nearest branch is very far away, and hsbc is in my local town. Natwest and Lloyds are also here, but not such a good account as RBS.

Bella_b

I went into my local branch of HSBC on tuesday, and the woman knew that they had changed the graduate account but said that wasnt anything she could do because the student and graduate accounts arent dealt with 'in branch' but centrally. She listened to my concerns and didnt disagree with me, but there was nothing she could do. I said I wanted to make a complaint. She gave me a booklet called "Listening to your comments" which has an address in it about who to write to regarding complaints.

The address is:
The Manager
Service Quality Team
HSBC Bank plc
Arlington Buisness Centre
Millshaw Park Lane
Leeds
LS11 0PP

email: [EMAIL="servicequality@hsbc.com"]servicequality@hsbc.com[/EMAIL]
Tel: 0800 88 11 55 (9am-5pm)

I'm also considering contacting Radio 4's Moneybox programme about this.

Bella_b

To Askintstudent, RBS should accept you because they don't need confirmation of employment, look on their website. www.rbs.co.uk and search for graduate account. I think the only ones you need a job to open the account is Barclays, Abbey and Lloyds. Natwest or RBS shouldnt accept you without employment, they are part of the same group anyway, the RBS group, so pretty similar im guessing.. but slightly better account at RBS for some reason.

NovaBlack_2

this is probably a DUMB question... but is there a group (like trading standards / orcom etc) that we can complain to about this? i mean its in clear breach of the banking code.

[Deleted User]

NovaBlack wrote: »

so anyway headed down to Natwest today. only problem is we need her graduation certificate before they can open the new graduate account. the uni wont send one out till SEPTEMBER! that means she will be paying for the next 3 months till she can switch!

Alliance and leicester do a 0% overdraft for anyone graduate or not. They should match it up to £1000 if you switch a standing order to them and give them evidence of the current overdraft limit.

If she has had a credit card before she should have a credit rating to get her a £1k credit card. Shell have to put her parents income down on the application as the "home income". Get an alliance and leicester credit card, they are backed by MBNA and they will allow balance transfers of overdrafts onto the credit card. You can do this with the rest of the money, itll be a small BT fee but it will be 0% for a while.

[Deleted User]

NovaBlack wrote: »

this is probably a DUMB question... but is there a group (like trading standards / orcom etc) that we can complain to about this? i mean its in clear breach of the banking code.

Kick up as big a fuss as possible, what about even starting a protest thread, get every student together that has been f*kd over by hsbc invite the national press and tv cameras down host a protest. Throw egg at hsbc employees to as that will raise the media attention 100 fold.



Start a thread in this forum, get together like minded individuals see if you can request soem of martins media contacts to send camera/photographers down.

People Power vs the evil bank

NovaBlack_2

Yant1 wrote: »

Kick up as big a fuss as possible, what about even starting a protest thread, get every student together that has been f*kd over by hsbc invite the national press and tv cameras down host a protest. Throw egg at hsbc employees to as that will raise the media attention 100 fold.



Start a thread in this forum, get together like minded individuals see if you can request soem of martins media contacts to send camera/photographers down.

People Power vs the evil bank

now THAT sounds like a plan!

I wonder if martin is listening if we shout loud enough... MAAAARRRTTTIIIN!!! HEEEELLPP UUUSS!!

i totally would be up for this its a disgrace what HSBC have done and as far as im concerned its practically theft. i mean theres gotta be SO MANY students that wont realise about this until their statement in say a months time... imagine all the £££ HSBC have made by 'omitting' the truth...


gotta say egging employees... that sounds like fun .. although perhasp we shoudl wait until just before the new UNI year (september) and protest outside our local branches to put off any more students signing up with them..

MLC

HSBC will loose out ultimately if everybody leaves them. I have had a student account with them for 5 years and been overdrawn for all of it, so they haven’t made a penny out of me. I guess their logic is we’ll look after them while they’re students and we’ll reap the rewards when they save with us once they graduate. Well they’ve lost out with me by making this decision and hopefully many others. Both me and my partner are now paying our salaries into our new RBS accounts. I had similar experience to others when I went into the branch to close my account with them, they just didn’t seem bothered. Surely this is going to hit them hard eventually. Most of my mates are with HSBC and all of them have said that they are going to leave.