HSBC safeguard experience?

madfish69

Hi,

I got the pesky letters, and I filled in the form reluctantly and sent it. Once again I got the letter threatening if I don't fill it in they will restrict my account to £50 a day.

I called them, saying I DID send the form...was told they'll have to set up a call from the safeguard team.

Unbelievable harrassment. Anyway, my question is have any of you had the safeguard call?

I was told the call may be long up to an hour!!! What???

What on earth can a bank ask me for an hour? My life history? Anyway, wanted to know if any of you can share experiences of the telephone call?

And the accounts I have are only savings accounts....not current account.

Thanks!

grumbler

>>hsbc 'Safeguard' letter
>>HSBC - Safeguard update information

What interest does the saving account pay? I guess very small. If so, vote with you feet and get away from these paranoiacs.

raineshoe

I had one of these letters so booked the appointment due to the threat of closing my business account.

All questions completely irrelevant. Even wanted to know who my accountant was.

For the most part I just quoted you have no need for that information and mentioned "data protection".

For example they wanted to know my top 3 customers names - er no data protection my customers give me their information in confidence.

I do hate using "data protection" as a get out as I don't like it as its banded about too much for silly reasons, but it did help with this.

Also one or two of the questions did say to them your the bank, you have access to my account you should know what I'm sending to companies abroad.

So far, nothing further from them. All a load of bull in my opinion and a fact finding exercise to sell you more products.

raineshoe

Oh and incidentally the woman I got didn't have a headset so kept having to put the phone down to type in the info and also could barely speak english so kept having to ask her to repeat the questions. Also told her I was sure HSBC, if she was from them could afford a headset for her. Ha ha.

KJSmith

raineshoe wrote: »

a fact finding exercise to sell you more products.

Nope. It's a Know Your Customer (KYC) exercise as part of their Anti-Money Laundering obligations. From what you've posted, they haven't asked you any irrelevant questions that are not in relation to AML.

If you're deliberately obstructive and don't meet their KYC requirements I wouldn't expect to continue banking with them for much longer.