HSBC closed account due to Safeguard

DiddyFinance

I didn’t receive HSBC’s letters advising I need to complete some Safeguard steps.. so they just closed my account and froze my money. They say they have written some since May but not received.

They said it’s an FCA thing. FCA said they’ve asked banks to check customers’ details, but not to close their accounts if their request for info did not get received by customers.. which is what happened here.

I didn’t get a text, email or call or see the message in any other way. (Including on the website / no banner warning or whatever as I hear that some people do have.. I don’t log in that often to be fair, we not actually a business but got told we had to open a business account for our joint account of 4 people, long story.). 

k3lvc

DiddyFinance said:

we not actually a business but got told we had to open a business account for our joint account of 4 people, long story.). 

Presumably, long though the story may be, it'll hold the clues on why they've chosen to close your account rather than continuously chase you for the extra details

Thrugelmir

DiddyFinance said:

 I don’t log in that often to be fair, we not actually a business but got told we had to open a business account for our joint account of 4 people, long story.). 

And you took no action between you? 

dunstonh

They said it’s an FCA thing. FCA said they’ve asked banks to check customers’ details, but not to close their accounts if their request for info did not get received by customers.. which is what happened here.

Banks can withdraw services for a number of reasons.    Most common are breach of T&C or too many suspicions and issues to make it commercially viable to keep you as a customer.

 I don’t log in that often to be fair, we not actually a business but got told we had to open a business account for our joint account of 4 people, long story.). 

That doesn't make any sense.   Consumer joint accounts can have more than 2 people.   And business accounts are only for those operating a business, charity, club. group etc.   If you operate that activity through a personal account, the banks may withdraw banking services.

Sometimes, it is a totting up of issues.  Such as not responding to their requests for information and minor breaches of their T&C which by themselves may not result in withdrawal of services but together could do.

MWT

DiddyFinance said:

I didn’t get a text, email or call or see the message in any other way. (Including on the website / no banner warning or whatever as I hear that some people do have.. I don’t log in that often to be fair, we not actually a business but got told we had to open a business account for our joint account of 4 people, long story.). 

HSBC have been getting rid of small business accounts with low/no transaction volume for a while now so any reasonable excuse to close an account will be taken.

There will have been a number of letters sent to the contact address registered on the account, perhaps that is not actually your current address?

I would strongly suggest opening another account elsewhere and then do what is necessary to release the funds from HSBC.

This is probably not the right forum section for this either...

DiddyFinance

k3lvc said:

DiddyFinance said:

we not actually a business but got told we had to open a business account for our joint account of 4 people, long story.). 

Presumably, long though the story may be, it'll hold the clues on why they've chosen to close your account rather than continuously chase you for the extra details

Thanks actually they didn’t close our account because of the long story of why we have a business account and we’re not a business. - They are actually going to finally open it again -

The reason they closed it is because their letters didn’t get to me so I didn’t see them so I didn’t complete their data checks.

Pretty simple, but very flawed.

DiddyFinance

@Thrugelmir We’ve started an HSBC ‘complaint’. But the Safeguard team made it clear they’re not reviewing their process. And they don’t believe it is flawed or they’re in any way ‘culpable’ if that’s the right word.

Overall then - you don’t receive the letters - we’ll not try to contact you any other way. And we’ll close your account.

don’t believe their FAQs on the website - saying ‘limited services - they’ll close it down

HobgoblinBT

Many people there days don’t open what they believe to be “junk mail” when in fact some letters do contain important messages such as a Safeguard letter.  As there are 4 parties to the account, has one of the others received the letter and not acted upon it?  

Ironically, today I received a Safeguard letter advising my relationship manager will be in touch to carry out a safeguard review.  

Thrugelmir

DiddyFinance said:

@Thrugelmir We’ve started an HSBC ‘complaint’. But the Safeguard team made it clear they’re not reviewing their process. And they don’t believe it is flawed or they’re in any way ‘culpable’ if that’s the right word.

Overall then - you don’t receive the letters - we’ll not try to contact you any other way. And we’ll close your account.

don’t believe their FAQs on the website - saying ‘limited services - they’ll close it down

Where did the letters go then? That seems to be the real issue not the system, 

csgohan4

I moved away from HSBC 2 years ago, awful Customer service and clunky E banking. Move to Starling and very happy, it's free as well for business banking

If you are using your personal account for business banking, you only have yourself to blame tbh. You shouldn't really 

DiddyFinance

csgohan4 said:

I moved away from HSBC 2 years ago, awful Customer service and clunky E banking. Move to Starling and very happy, it's free as well for business banking

If you are using your personal account for business banking, you only have yourself to blame tbh. You shouldn't really 

Thanks
yes we will look elsewhere once we have our money back. I’m sure Starling would try to contact customers a little harder than Hsbc, via, well, something like email, text etc if they cannot receive a reply by mail

We didn’t want a business account but HsBC moved our joint account to a business one, without option. Monthly fee is proportionally very high for the small amount of money we all on put in - another reason to move once it’s sorted