HSBC's New £120 Switch Offer

Gers

Gers wrote: »

Thought I would have a go at applying.

Got refused an Advance account and offered an 'ordinary' account - so not failed the credit reference searches.

Did a formal complaint.

Heard back today that I don't meet the eligibility criteria for funding the account.

Called the customer services agent and was told the following:

"The account has to have mandated monies, salary or pension, coming in by BACS every month. Minimum of the £1,750.

Money (in my instance, savings) cannot come from ANY other account from ANY other bank."

:huh:

She wasn't budging even when she read out the criteria from their own website ' what is means is...' was the the reason.

I've now sent of a formal complaint to the FOS. Think it's deceitful to give out such woefully misleading information.

norm_ wrote: »

My account sees £1,750 a month come into it by standing order the source of which is savings. The fact it's by SO means it's mandated? :cool:

Reading my post back I realise I should have put something like an 'i.e.' between mandated monies and 'salary or pendion'. The lack of it may have confused the meaning. Sorry.

dicky73

Got a rejection letter too today. Packaged it all up into the envelope supplied and sent it back. Sounds like they want to reel you in with the switch incentive, then fob you off with a crappy account.

jhyt89

I encourage anyone who has been rejected to complain to the FOS.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact/index.html

This is quite clearly an attempt to acquire market share through devious means.

I will cancel my bank account.

Herbalus

jhyt89 wrote: »

I encourage anyone who has been rejected to complain to the FOS.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact/index.html

This is quite clearly an attempt to acquire market share through devious means.

I will cancel my bank account.

Can you explain your cause for complaint? I presume you don't mean the switching bonus is "devious", so you must mean the rejection and offering of another account, right? But that's precisely what the Ombudsman/Martin Lewis/the government wants them to do. It's part of the campaign to stop people going from bank to bank with rejections and marks on their credit file and never getting anywhere.

And you can't blame them for having strict criteria for the advance account - as a commercial company they have every right to not offer anybody that type of account if they don't fit their target profile. There's no right to it just because a person thinks they meet the criteria. It may well be annoying, but it's not a cause for complaint.

Herbalus

Gers wrote: »

Got refused an Advance account and offered an 'ordinary' account - so not failed the credit reference searches.

Did a formal complaint.

Er, sorry, but what? I can't believe you formally complained because you weren't offered the account you wanted? On what basis? They seem to be being very selective with applicants, so if you don't meet the profile they're looking for then what can you do?

I don't know what their criteria are, but presumably from the data they've got on you (maybe they don't accept unemployed, or if your income on a recent credit application is below what they're after), they're after a different type of customer. I'm sorry to say that you don't have an automatic right to the advance account, even if you fit the criteria that they've published.

And if thats your cause for complaint i.e. you were misled into thinking you were eligible, credit cards work exactly the same way. E.g. a credit card might require you to be over 18 and earn more than £10k. That's most of the UK, but not everybody who fits that will be accepted.

dicky73 wrote: »

Got a rejection letter too today. Packaged it all up into the envelope supplied and sent it back. Sounds like they want to reel you in with the switch incentive, then fob you off with a crappy account.

If you're not the typical customer profile they want for the advance account, would you prefer if they didn't offer you an alternative?

Nationwide8

Why cannot they not put in the T&Cs made public that the £1750 needed a month for the Advance CANNOT be funded by savings ?instead of it just being in their internal criteria,people would say fair enough.( and it is there people have been shown it ) ....well we can guess why but that dosen't leave you with a favourable view of HSBC.

Dird

I wonder how many on this thread would formally complain to someone for being turned down for a job role where they seemingly met the job criteria

gingercordial

Gers wrote: »

"The account has to have mandated monies, salary or pension, coming in by BACS every month. Minimum of the £1,750.

Money (in my instance, savings) cannot come from ANY other account from ANY other bank."

That is a ridiculous thing to say to you. I got my Advance account last week and I told them during the interview that the monthly funding would be coming from my Natwest account, and that I didn't intend to switch or change where my salary goes in the immediate future. They were fine with that.

gingercordial

HSBC Advance oddity of the day: received my new debit card by post, except there are two of them. Both stuck to the same letter, both with the same embossed account number, sort code, expiry date, both contactless Visa Debit, both in my name. The card numbers end differently. The second card is definitely not the credit card I also opened. It's almost as if there's an additional cardholder/joint account holder, but that additional cardholder is also me...

Anyone come across this before? I can't think of a reason so will have to ring them tomorrow.

Gers

Herbalus wrote: »

Er, sorry, but what? I can't believe you formally complained because you weren't offered the account you wanted? On what basis? They seem to be being very selective with applicants, so if you don't meet the profile they're looking for then what can you do?

I don't know what their criteria are, but presumably from the data they've got on you (maybe they don't accept unemployed, or if your income on a recent credit application is below what they're after), they're after a different type of customer. I'm sorry to say that you don't have an automatic right to the advance account, even if you fit the criteria that they've published.

And if thats your cause for complaint i.e. you were misled into thinking you were eligible, credit cards work exactly the same way. E.g. a credit card might require you to be over 18 and earn more than £10k. That's most of the UK, but not everybody who fits that will be accepted.



If you're not the typical customer profile they want for the advance account, would you prefer if they didn't offer you an alternative?

Have you bothered to read the posts properly? Their published criteria and T&Cs are misleading which is the basis of my FOS complaint, not that I wasn't offered the account.