Asked to VISIT A BRANCH!!

Neil_Jones

Maharg11 wrote: »

Just applied for a new HSBC Advance account which requires a minimum pay in. Had a letter asking me for evidence of income - no problem with that BUT I have to VISIT A BRANCH!!! How 20th Century is that. They are closing all their *****y branches. My nearest is a round trip of 41 miles......and I might have to make an appointment.

So did you not consider a remote possibility (however slim it might have been) that you may have had to visit a branch BEFORE applying for the account? Would it not have been more prudent to find out your nearest branch is 41 miles away BEFORE you filed in the application?

Your complaint is like saying you applied for job with a company, didn't bother to check where the company was based and later found out it was two authorities over.

Surely they could have enclosed an envelope for me to put the stuff in and send or let me scan it on email??

Email is not secure. Simple as.

Ironically my main reason for using them (apart from the £175 bribe) was that they have an app that lets you take a photo of cheques that can then be paid in online.

This is just poor planning on your part really, because that feature is also provided by Barclays and Halifax to name but two. However I suspect you really want the £175 but you don't want to do an 82 mile round trip to get it. Considering I used to work in a job where I would travel 80 miles in a working week to take home £172 at the end of the week (albeit a few years ago now), I don't know what you're complaining about in all honesty.

[Deleted User]

Neil_Jones wrote: »

So did you not consider a remote possibility (however slim it might have been) that you may have had to visit a branch BEFORE applying for the account? Would it not have been more prudent to find out your nearest branch is 41 miles away BEFORE you filed in the application?

Your complaint is like saying you applied for job with a company, didn't bother to check where the company was based and later found out it was two authorities over.



Email is not secure. Simple as.



This is just poor planning on your part really, because that feature is also provided by Barclays and Halifax to name but two. However I suspect you really want the £175 but you don't want to do an 82 mile round trip to get it. Considering I used to work in a job where I would travel 80 miles in a working week to take home £172 at the end of the week (albeit a few years ago now), I don't know what you're complaining about in all honesty.

He's complaining about an idiotic policy being applied by the bank, and a bank that has little or no understanding of what customer service means.

Ashen

johnsmith1890 wrote: »

He's complaining about an idiotic policy being applied by the bank, and a bank that has little or no understanding of what customer service means.

To be fair, I'd also consider it idiotic to apply for a bank that has their nearest branch 41 miles away and then complain that their nearest branch is 41 miles away.

Of course it's being done for a switching incentive, but I rather doubt that banks are going to be that bothered about losing that business.

Neil_Jones

johnsmith1890 wrote: »

He's complaining about an idiotic policy being applied by the bank, and a bank that has little or no understanding of what customer service means.

Firstly it was a rhetorical statement.

Secondly it is not necessarily an idiotic policy because most institutions can verify somebody's ID electronically and to pop into a branch is like a safety net if you like if those checks fail so that may be what's happened here.

And thirdly this particuarly thread isn't anything to do with customer service, its an MSE poster who applied to a bank who's nearest branch to him is 41 miles away. That's a somewhat ridiculous thing to do in the first place.

[Deleted User]

Neil_Jones wrote: »

Firstly it was a rhetorical statement.

Secondly it is not necessarily an idiotic policy because most institutions can verify somebody's ID electronically and to pop into a branch is like a safety net if you like if those checks fail so that may be what's happened here.

And thirdly this particuarly thread isn't anything to do with customer service, its an MSE poster who applied to a bank who's nearest branch to him is 41 miles away. That's a somewhat ridiculous thing to do in the first place.

I applied to Marcus not long ago. They are about 280 miles away - that's if they have any branches at all. I would have thought these days the distance to the nearest branch - which is going to get farther and farther as time goes on, what with continuing closures - is a minor consideration.

enthusiasticsaver

The bank means a round trip of 41 miles for the OP , that is not the same as the branch being 41 miles away. Our local town has zero bank branches left now so I daresay if I were to apply to a new bank it would also mean doing a round trip of around 20 miles so not as bad as the OP but still. However they do need to verify id etc but with many of the new banks not having any branches surely there should be a way the traditional banks can do this without a physical visit to a branch?

20SmthngSver

And high streets still do. My local high street has:

Santander (two in the same road at one point)
HSBC (So First Direct too)
Lloyds
Halifax
Barclays
NatWest
TSB
Saffron Building Society
Nationwide Building Society
Handelsbanken

I use most, most weeks, and there are always queues with people using them. Multiple villages and towns within 15 miles me too with all or most of these providers as well.

MisterMotivated

johnsmith1890 wrote: »

He's complaining about an idiotic policy being applied by the bank, and a bank that has little or no understanding of what customer service means.

You're right, their policy is idiotic and their customer service in this situation is an utter disgrace. I suggest the following remedies are put in place by HSBC (and, in fact, all banks):

To address the customer service issue, they should send a staff member to the OP's house at a time convenient to him/her/them, to hand deliver his/her/their free £175 payment alongside another £175 for the inconvenience of having to answer the door and another £650 as an apology for operating branches which occasionially force people to interact with other people. They should also offer an additional £245 for having to take the OP's newly-acquired £1,000 worth of polymer rectangles back to the branch to deposit them in his/her/their account (after all it is careless of the bank to risk his/her/their money like that).

To address the idiotic policy issue, they should adopt a new policy of accepting potential customers calling up (though I appreciate this would be rather early 21st century of them), saying "fuh-real blud, itz me, now quit oppressin' me in my safe space, y'getme" as a means of verifying their identity in the few instances where the online verification fails. In addition, all future policy proposals will be put to a representative panel of customers for approval before implementation. Existing policies will be subject to ad-hoc review and acceptance, amendment or rejection by customers as they see fit.

pafpcg

Maharg11 wrote: »

Just applied for a new HSBC Advance account which requires a minimum pay in. Had a letter asking me for evidence of income - no problem with that BUT I have to VISIT A BRANCH!!

Even after you've jumped through all the hoops, there's no guarantee that HSBC will accept you as an Advance account customer! Check all the previous threads about the HSBC Advance account on this forum for posters complaining that HSBC rejected them for no apparent reason.

ffacoffipawb

Credit_Struggle wrote: »

Out of curiosity does FD have the cheque imaging option? I haven’t seen it if so

Not yet, coming soon, no date for this though.