John Lewis/HSBC failing to let me have my refund from my "old" credit card

WillPS

Marchitiello said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

Just to be clear, as far as I understand it was a Co-branded product but in effect it was run by HSBC, which is who you as a customer signed up the financial agreement with. The particular co-branding agreement JL may have made at start up with HSBC May have included the clause related to customer portfolio being owned by JL and thus at conclusion of the JL/HSBC deal, HSBC would not have been able to offer ex JL cobranded customer an HSBC vanilla product (as it has happened many times with other providers like MBNA with Amazon and other Co-branded card run by them and Santander with some store cards). Now, the owning of the customer portfolio may indeed complicate a bit the thing with chasing an income payment into a closed  account, but just to be clear, unless they have made provision for a dedicated joint team to deal with those ex JL queries, normally you would expect to make all your queries and complaints to HSBC only as JL has no part to play with this any longer .

It wasn't a co-branded product, you are mistaken. The customers had a credit agreement with and a card issued by John Lewis Financial Services.

The customer had no agreement with HSBC. If HSBC (or New Day, or anyone else) wanted the customers they would have had to buy them from JLFS. That HSBC were part owner and effectively running the show does not mean they'd have been able to sell a core asset without the permission of the other JV partner.

In addition, unless we hear otherwise JLP are very much still a joint venture partner in John Lewis Financial Services and will be until the operation is completely wound up.

Edited to completely change my answer in light of the below from JL site:

”You will no longer be able to use your existing Partnership Card (managed by John Lewis Financial Services Limited which is a subsidiary of HSBC UK Bank plc)”

JLFS was a subsidiary of HSBC the same way as FD or M&S banks still are. So they may still have a department in place to deal with those queries but effectively you are not dealing with JL at all. 

Subsidiary does not mean wholly owned subsidiary. Regardless of ownership the fact remains it wasn't a co-branded card (same as M&S Bank isn't), unlike the present offering.

EDIT - in actual fact JLFS appears to be an entirely HSBC entity but still the point stands, JLFS was the lender on these credit agreements.

IanManc

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

Just to be clear, as far as I understand it was a Co-branded product but in effect it was run by HSBC, which is who you as a customer signed up the financial agreement with. The particular co-branding agreement JL may have made at start up with HSBC May have included the clause related to customer portfolio being owned by JL and thus at conclusion of the JL/HSBC deal, HSBC would not have been able to offer ex JL cobranded customer an HSBC vanilla product (as it has happened many times with other providers like MBNA with Amazon and other Co-branded card run by them and Santander with some store cards). Now, the owning of the customer portfolio may indeed complicate a bit the thing with chasing an income payment into a closed  account, but just to be clear, unless they have made provision for a dedicated joint team to deal with those ex JL queries, normally you would expect to make all your queries and complaints to HSBC only as JL has no part to play with this any longer .

It wasn't a co-branded product, you are mistaken. The customers had a credit agreement with and a card issued by John Lewis Financial Services.

The customer had no agreement with HSBC. If HSBC (or New Day, or anyone else) wanted the customers they would have had to buy them from JLFS. That HSBC were part owner and effectively running the show does not mean they'd have been able to sell a core asset without the permission of the other JV partner.

In addition, unless we hear otherwise JLP are very much still a joint venture partner in John Lewis Financial Services and will be until the operation is completely wound up.

Thanks for the clarification, it was a JV then, a bit like when M&S bank first launched, before being taken over completely by HSBC.

that will explain why the customers account could not be taken over by HSBC with one of their Vanilla card.

So has JLFS been liquidated or is it still in operation and/or who would run those queries? 

Back to the OP it may be worth to check if the vendor that issued a refund can re-call it and arrange a different refund method. 

Yes exactly. JLFS is still operational although recent returns suggest it is dormant.

I suspect JLFS calls and stuff are handled by HSBC, probably the same people who work on equivalent HSBC, FD, M&S credit cards. I'd imagine there's some sort of service agreement between the two entities.

The staff who "work on" M&S Credit cards are M&S Financial Services PLC employees who only deal with M&S bank products. They are all based in Chester.

WillPS

IanManc said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

Just to be clear, as far as I understand it was a Co-branded product but in effect it was run by HSBC, which is who you as a customer signed up the financial agreement with. The particular co-branding agreement JL may have made at start up with HSBC May have included the clause related to customer portfolio being owned by JL and thus at conclusion of the JL/HSBC deal, HSBC would not have been able to offer ex JL cobranded customer an HSBC vanilla product (as it has happened many times with other providers like MBNA with Amazon and other Co-branded card run by them and Santander with some store cards). Now, the owning of the customer portfolio may indeed complicate a bit the thing with chasing an income payment into a closed  account, but just to be clear, unless they have made provision for a dedicated joint team to deal with those ex JL queries, normally you would expect to make all your queries and complaints to HSBC only as JL has no part to play with this any longer .

It wasn't a co-branded product, you are mistaken. The customers had a credit agreement with and a card issued by John Lewis Financial Services.

The customer had no agreement with HSBC. If HSBC (or New Day, or anyone else) wanted the customers they would have had to buy them from JLFS. That HSBC were part owner and effectively running the show does not mean they'd have been able to sell a core asset without the permission of the other JV partner.

In addition, unless we hear otherwise JLP are very much still a joint venture partner in John Lewis Financial Services and will be until the operation is completely wound up.

Thanks for the clarification, it was a JV then, a bit like when M&S bank first launched, before being taken over completely by HSBC.

that will explain why the customers account could not be taken over by HSBC with one of their Vanilla card.

So has JLFS been liquidated or is it still in operation and/or who would run those queries? 

Back to the OP it may be worth to check if the vendor that issued a refund can re-call it and arrange a different refund method. 

Yes exactly. JLFS is still operational although recent returns suggest it is dormant.

I suspect JLFS calls and stuff are handled by HSBC, probably the same people who work on equivalent HSBC, FD, M&S credit cards. I'd imagine there's some sort of service agreement between the two entities.

The staff who "work on" M&S Credit cards are M&S Financial Services PLC employees who only deal with M&S bank products. They are all based in Chester.

Fair enough - I know I've read somewhere that First Direct call handlers also answer some HSBC UK calls...

Marchitiello

Just to be clear, from reading the OP, I understood that the OP was trying to speak to JL and HSBC and getting nowhere. Form that, I understand JL the retailer, not JLFS the HSBC subsidiary. If the JLFS subsidiary is now closed and dormant, I would expect HSBC (the parent company) to have set up a team within the main HSBC organisations to help deal with any outstanding issues coming form the closed JLFS operations.

for the record M&S Bank/Financial Services was initial a Joint Venture between M&S the retailer and HSBC. M&S decided a bit later to sell  their stake in the JV to HSBC, putting in place obviously a very solid agreement about branding and customer portfolio.

JLFS may have had a similar history. 

born_again

WillPS said:

Fair enough - I know I've read somewhere that First Direct call handlers also answer some HSBC UK calls...

They do, but only as they are trained to do this. They actually deal with some of M&S customers as well depending on the enquires. 
Same a HSBC employee's deal with FD, M&S & JLFS for background work.

The issue with the OP. Is so far noting has been proved that money is with JLFS/HSBC. As it is possible they bounced it back to the retailer.

WillPS

born_again said:

WillPS said:

Fair enough - I know I've read somewhere that First Direct call handlers also answer some HSBC UK calls...

They do, but only as they are trained to do this. They actually deal with some of M&S customers as well depending on the enquires. 
Same a HSBC employee's deal with FD, M&S & JLFS for background work.

The issue with the OP. Is so far noting has been proved that money is with JLFS/HSBC. As it is possible they bounced it back to the retailer.

This was my understanding of what happened until I was corrected a few posts up...

IanManc

WillPS said:

born_again said:

WillPS said:

Fair enough - I know I've read somewhere that First Direct call handlers also answer some HSBC UK calls...

They do, but only as they are trained to do this. They actually deal with some of M&S customers as well depending on the enquires. 
Same a HSBC employee's deal with FD, M&S & JLFS for background work.

The issue with the OP. Is so far noting has been proved that money is with JLFS/HSBC. As it is possible they bounced it back to the retailer.

This was my understanding of what happened until I was corrected a few posts up...

I've an acquaintance who works at Chester, and he told me that although the business is ultimately owned by HSBC they only deal with M&S Financial products, and that they do all the work associated with those products.  He's worked for other institutions before, and I asked him if it was easier than other places he'd worked because he only needed to know about the limited range of products that M&S do, but I he said that in other places you only need a basic knowledge of products across a number of brands and rely on computer scripts for anything more complicated; whereas at M&S you're expected to know their products inside out, so it is actually harder.

I've never worked in financial services so I can only go on what I've been told.

rothesy

IanManc said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

Just to be clear, as far as I understand it was a Co-branded product but in effect it was run by HSBC, which is who you as a customer signed up the financial agreement with. The particular co-branding agreement JL may have made at start up with HSBC May have included the clause related to customer portfolio being owned by JL and thus at conclusion of the JL/HSBC deal, HSBC would not have been able to offer ex JL cobranded customer an HSBC vanilla product (as it has happened many times with other providers like MBNA with Amazon and other Co-branded card run by them and Santander with some store cards). Now, the owning of the customer portfolio may indeed complicate a bit the thing with chasing an income payment into a closed  account, but just to be clear, unless they have made provision for a dedicated joint team to deal with those ex JL queries, normally you would expect to make all your queries and complaints to HSBC only as JL has no part to play with this any longer .

It wasn't a co-branded product, you are mistaken. The customers had a credit agreement with and a card issued by John Lewis Financial Services.

The customer had no agreement with HSBC. If HSBC (or New Day, or anyone else) wanted the customers they would have had to buy them from JLFS. That HSBC were part owner and effectively running the show does not mean they'd have been able to sell a core asset without the permission of the other JV partner.

In addition, unless we hear otherwise JLP are very much still a joint venture partner in John Lewis Financial Services and will be until the operation is completely wound up.

Thanks for the clarification, it was a JV then, a bit like when M&S bank first launched, before being taken over completely by HSBC.

that will explain why the customers account could not be taken over by HSBC with one of their Vanilla card.

So has JLFS been liquidated or is it still in operation and/or who would run those queries? 

Back to the OP it may be worth to check if the vendor that issued a refund can re-call it and arrange a different refund method. 

Yes exactly. JLFS is still operational although recent returns suggest it is dormant.

I suspect JLFS calls and stuff are handled by HSBC, probably the same people who work on equivalent HSBC, FD, M&S credit cards. I'd imagine there's some sort of service agreement between the two entities.

The staff who "work on" M&S Credit cards are M&S Financial Services PLC employees who only deal with M&S bank products. They are all based in Chester.

I've yet to speak to someone in the UK, nevermind Chershire.  They ones who I deal with are all outside the UK.

The_Nest_Folk

mattheal said:

Is anyone else having their credit card company hold onto their refunds for no good reason?

In the latter part of 2022, of John Lewis forced its credit card customers to move from John Lewis/HSBC to John Lewis/NewDay

 A refund of £120.00 was been issued to me by a merchant, on 7th March 2023, to my original method of payment.  Namely my “old” John Lewish/HSBC credit card.  The merchant, (a well respected company), has provided me with computer printout evidence that their part of the refund process was successful. “Acquirer response: Approved (00: Approved or completed successfully)”.  

However, John Lewis/HSBC had already closed credit card accounts with a balance of £0.00.  This included closing my account, removing my online access and John Lewis/HSBC are denying that they have my refund! 

John Lewis/HSBC are saying that it is not their fault that I haven’t received my refund, as they haven’t received it either!  Unlike the merchant, John Lewis/HSBC seem to be unable to provide evidence of the transaction or any rejection of the transaction.

Have John Lewis/HSBC or any other credit card provider held on to your money too?  Has the issue been rectified?  If so, how did you achieve this?  

They closed down access to the account and I cannot see whether I have an outstanding balance but I can’t find out what it is ….they have reported a missed payment and my credit score has reduced -104 to 870. 

I’ve tried the chat rooms but to no avail, I’m disabled and can’t talk on the ‘phone. What do I do? 

MarzipanCrumble

Raise a complaint - written.  Wait 8 weeks for an answer then if not resolved Ombudsman.

(I have only skimmed through this thread so I amy have missed something relevant.)