HSBC nightmare

helenmumoftwins

Hi

We have a debt management plan through Christians against poverty. My husband pays them every month by bank transfer using mobile banking. Last month however we discovered when I rang to withdraw money from savings, that this money had never arrived. Husband rang HSBC and discovered that this money was in a holding account along with 2 payments from a year ago. He was told it would be sorted in 3 days but over 2 weeks later there's still no sign of the money.

He went into a branch but they were no help. His card has now been stopped and whilst he can't access his account via mobile banking, he can't get into telephone banking at all. We've managed to pay the rent up to date thankfully. We're still waiting for a response to his complaint. He's asked for a manager to ring and has made a formal complaint but we can't afford to be without over £1400 for 28 days whilst they work out what's going on.

Is there anything we can do to get this money? We're desperate

Organist

This must be very worrying for you. Have you spoken to your CAP contact?

eskbanker

If lack of access to the HSBC account puts you into hardship and continuing to escalate the complaint isn't getting anywhere then you might ask the ombudsman to intervene, on the basis of time being of the essence, i.e. you can't wait for the usual complaint timespan to run:

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

Looking at the broader picture, there do seem to be some other issues - if they've suspended/withdrawn access to the account, why weren't you notified of this in writing? Do they have your correct address, if the underlying issue first happened a long time ago and you hadn't picked up on multiple missing credits, and their impact on the account, from statements?

In terms of other potential sources of short term funds, where are the repayment bank transfers coming from? If you have savings with HSBC, are these accessible or they considering using setoff rights to apply them to the debt?

Edit: apologies in advance if I've misunderstood the situation - as with xylophone below I found it confusing!

xylophone

I can't quite work out what is going on.

OP, do you mean that you have a savings account with CAP (credit union style) and you make debt repayments to CAP?

Have CAP advised you that three debt payments are missing?

HSBC have advised that the payments that should have been made to CAP are in a holding account because they were unable to apply them to a CAP account/ they were returned by CAP to HSBC?

You have £1400 in your HSBC account but access to this account has been suspended?

nyermen

Sounds like a compliance alert has been triggered (AML etc) i'm afraid
Follow the advice above - if it has, they won't tell you and wont give you a resolution date.

sheramber

Trying to understand this.

Do you pay money to CAP to hold for you on a debt management basis to ensure you can pay your debts?

When you tried to withdraw some money from CAP you discovered not all the money sent has been received by CAP?

Have you not noticed that the balance held by CAP was not what it should have been when payments from a year ago did not transfer?

Can you withdraw money from CAP to cover you until HSBC sort things out and you can pay it back?

Kentish_Dave

I cN’t Understand what’s going on here either. You suggest by being in a DMP that you owe HSBC money, and are slow paying it back, but if this is the case why are you asking them to pay money out to you?

helenmumoftwins

Sorry if I wasn't clear.

Husbands wages get paid into his HSBC account. He then sends a payment to cap who pay our creditors and a small sum is held in savings to cover costs like unexpected bills. We don't owe HSBC anything, he literally has this bank account. I ring up when I need the money from savings and it's transferred back to me. It was when I rang to do this so i found out that cap hadn't received last month's money. HSBC say that they haven't made the payment and it's in their holding account but cannot tell us any more than that.

The two payments from a year ago were to different people. One was to his ex wife for maintenance (it was as stepson left full time education so I think she didn't mention it because she had assumed she'd had the last payment. They don't communicate) and the other I think he said was something to do with PayPal.

helenmumoftwins

Oh and even more weirdly he managed to transfer funds to me to pay rent and some money to cap using mobile banking without a problem out of this month's wages

xylophone

The HSBC account is not a joint account?

If not, how are you able to use telephone banking on the account?

The account is not actually suspended at all since your husband can withdraw/transfer using the app?

If your husband has been making regular payments to CAP it seems very odd that this one has failed - did CAP's bank reject it?

Clearly you want an explanation from HSBC but I don't quite see where the hardship lies if your husband can access the account.

If the £1400 you mention is the payment to CAP, you wouldn't have expected to have it since it would have been paid away - with regard to the maintenance and paypal payments, your husband has only just found out that they weren't paid and are in the suspense account?

jonnygee2

HSBC say that they haven't made the payment and it's in their holding account but cannot tell us any more than that.

This doesn't fully make sense. If I understand it correctly - you found out there was a problem when you spoke to CAP to access the savings they hold for you?

As this is your husband's account, I assume that he is the one speaking to them. The problem is that what you have said that HSBC has said doesn't sound a lot what banks normally say. There are holding accounts, but if money gets stuck in them by error, this is normally reconciled very fast. If they suspect fraud they will freeze access to the whole account, but they cannot move funds out of the account or hold them elsewhere.

Are you hearing this second hand by any chance? Sorry to be blunt, but how sure are you your husband is being fully honest about this situation?