HSBC/FIrst Direct Scandals

ValiantSon

mxhoward84 wrote: »

This obviously but im still moving away from HSBC. Had 2 phone calls in the last month asking me 1001 questions about my occupation and about my account activity. Doesn't help that i could hardly understand what they were saying but while no other bank is that intrusive i see no reason to give them my business.

Also i was rejected for a first direct account a few years ago and tried again recently. Got a email asking me to call them and they explained as i had already applied i would need to do a telephone interview which would take 45 minutes! My credit report is excellent and have been able to open accounts with ease at every other banking group.

So First Direct had the temerity to want to explore your finances and your reasons for wanting an account before they would offer you one. How outrageous for a business to want to ensure that they make sound decisions! :wall:

Elvie100

Just use FD for their regular saver. HSBC is our mortgage provider and we have such a good rate I definitely would not give that up. As other people have said, they are all as bad as each other.

eskbanker

flomingo wrote: »

Although I really love this website, I sometimes wonder why you are encouraging people to switch to HSBS or first direct, which is a part of the HSBC group, when they have found themselves in scandals over and over again? Surely, we should be directing people away from this banking group.

So at the time of posting, the poll results are that 97% of respondents disagree with you but one person agrees (maybe you voting?!).

Perhaps if it's outraged pitchfork-wielding lynch mobs that you're after then you should try the Daily Mail?

System

Herbalus wrote: »

Ah, so the reason for your disdain is that first direct wanted to ask you some questions about how you would use their product before accepting you as a customer.

Nothing to do with any scandals.

ValiantSon wrote: »

So First Direct had the temerity to want to explore your finances and your reasons for wanting an account before they would offer you one. How outrageous for a business to want to ensure that they make sound decisions! :wall:

I wanted the bank account to put money in and out isn't that the point? Its just my personal opinion that a 45 minute telephone interview to open a bank account when already having a HSBC current account is totally unnecessary and a waste of my time. They are welcome to conduct their business how they please and i am welcome to not be a customer. Lloyds group/Barclays/santander and the rest manage to offer accounts without the third degree and monthly calls to interrogate me so will stick with them.

ValiantSon

mxhoward84 wrote: »

I wanted the bank account to put money in and out isn't that the point?

I never said otherwise, but First Direct are entitled to decide who they do business with and to have procedures for making that decision that suit them.

mxhoward84 wrote: »

Its just my personal opinion that a 45 minute telephone interview to open a bank account when already having a HSBC current account is totally unnecessary and a waste of my time.

First Direct is run as a separate business. Your existing relationship with HSBC is irrelevant. Furthermore, if you were to apply for a different account with HSBC then they would still go through a process of assessing and approving/rejecting your application.

You consider it to be a waste of your time, and you are entitled to do so, but First Direct are entitled to consider it a valuable use of their time. You were not obliged to have the interview, but if you wanted the account then that was a hurdle you had to get over. You chose not to.

mxhoward84 wrote: »

They are welcome to conduct their business how they please and i am welcome to not be a customer.

Yes, so why were you complaining about it? Your post actually suggested that you considerd it an affront to even question whether you should be given an account because, and I quote, "My credit report is excellent and have been able to open accounts with ease at every other banking group." This is, however, utterly irrelevant; you were applying for an account with First Direct, not, "every other banking group." Your credit report is not, "excellent". Your credit report is simply a list of data, and the individual company to whom you are applying will decide whether or not they consider it to be excellent, good, satisfactory, poor, or any other subjective and largely meaningless epithet you wish to ascribe. Furthermore, your credit report is not the only data on which they base your appication, but rather they consider the whole of the application in the round.

There are a number of people on these forums who have moaned about not being given an account by First Direct as they seem to believe that they have a right to such an account: they don't. Banks are commercial institutions and each has their own policies and criteria for assessing applications.

I have no particular love for First Direct (as a quick search of my post history will show), unlike MSE, but neither am I particularly opposed to them.

mxhoward84 wrote: »

Lloyds group/Barclays/santander and the rest manage to offer accounts without the third degree and monthly calls to interrogate me so will stick with them.

Then do so. Each bank operates as they see fit (within a legal and regulatory framework). Nobody is forcing you to bank with First Direct.

meer53

First Direct were happy to go through an application with you but you took your bat and ball home. Your decision, nothing to do with any so called "scandals" Grow up.

anselld

One of very few banks not to require vast amounts of bail out by the tax payer.

OceanSound

anselld wrote: »

One of very few banks not to require vast amounts of bail out by the tax payer.

'one of the very few banks..'???

According to this source:

the rescue package was open to these banks:

Abbey, Barclays, Clydesdale Bank, HBOS, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Chartered Bank.

of which Lloyds and RBS were the the only major recipients. The others on the list chose not receive any government money. So, how can HSBC be one of the very few banks?

Mind you, I have heard this notion being branded around before. So, you are not the only one.

The economist magazine says this:

HSBC has never been bailed out, nationalised or bought, a claim no other mega-bank can make.

Notice the 'mega' in 'mega-bank'.

Samsung_Note2

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

OP so you are telling us that in the whole of your life up to now you have not done anything wrong?
If like 100% of other people you have done wrong things should they now stop dealing with you?

It's fine to have a rant - we all do it at times but the poll I'm afraid is a bit of a joke - even you have not voted no!

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

Why should a business be any different,after all its not actually the business but the people running it.

OceanSound

@OP: Surely you must have done something outrageous like run through a wheat field when you were little?
You cannot possibly expect us to ban children playing because of the minor damage it caused to the wheat field.
BTW: As for the corporation itself not being liable except the people employed by it. I invite you to take a look at this:

TOKYO/LONDON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Britain's fraud prosecutor has charged Japan's Olympus Corp and its British subsidiary Gyrus with misleading or deceiving an auditor, dragging a $1.7 billion accounting scandal back into the spotlight two years after it first erupted.

Also reported here:

The Olympus case and a small handful of other cases apart, few companies have
been prosecuted for economic crimes.