HSBC (merged threads)

Dave_C_6

Hi All. This is my first time at this so here goes. I don't know if anyone else has recently received a letter from HSBC ( my Bank) saying they have carried out a review of my Overdraft agreement and now want to charge me £25 for doing it and will do that every year! I was, to put it mildly, furious especially as I hadn't asked them to do it and they changed absolutely nothing. I have been with HSBC for 10years plus and set the Agreed Overdraft up at the beginning. I appriciate that I have to pay interest if I use this facility but now they were going to charge me an annual fee of £25. So I phoned them up (their Web site kept crashing when I tried to do it on line) and told them I was closing my account ( I would have as well!) but not surprisingly they immediately refunded me my money! If any one else gets the same letter you know what to do! FYI I did make one other call to Lloyds who do not make any set up or annual fees so, HSBC..you're making enough without taking more of us hard working people!

sad_gills_fan

Funny you should mention these new fees as last week I checked my account online and found a couple of strange things ....

I have an agreed overdraft and often dip into it by perhaps £50-£100, once or twice per month. Normally I am 'charged' just the debit interest, soemthing like £0.70 or so. This past 2 months I was charged over £5 for each month.

I called them straight away and was told by someone reading off of a script that I had to write in about it. I have an online account I told him, I don't do writing in .. he told me I could email instead so that's what I'm planning to do.

Firstly though I need to get rid of this flu and nasty cough that's kept me off work and having a miserable Christmas for 4 weeks. cough cough splutter splutter.

princess_leia_3

Ooh I got one of these letters and I knid of read it a bit quick as I thought they would take it away as we don't use the account really but they are increasing it by £400!! Didn't read anything about a charge so I will go and check now - thanks for that

Edit - just checked and they are not charging me and it also looks like they haven't changed the amount either!!

eager2know

Hi,
I have asked HSBC to cancel my over draft in last November. But now I just found out that they charged me £100 for cross the over draft limit at the end of November. I called them up and the cust. service guy said, that there was still an informal over draft in place. I told him when I asked them to cancel it I thought there is no more over draft on my account and any SO or DD will get bouced back. Then the guy said, if i have a complaint I can email their customer relations.

My question is will it be worth it? Besides why wasnt I informed that there is still an informal over draft which had a high rate of fees? and within the 12 days that I was in debit and these fees got accumulated why there was no attempt of communication from HSBC, I have several other accounts with them, its a simple matter to transfer the amount to the amount in debit ?

blueyuk83

For the last 4 years or so I've had a £100 overdraft on my current account with HSBC. Around October 2007 I received a letter from HSBC telling me that they had a new policy of reviewing a customers overdraft limit every 12 months. Further down the letter it says that it reviewed said overdraft and stated that they were going to set the new limit at £100 (bear in mind that I already had a £100 limit). Towards the bottom of the letter they write that they were going to charge me £25 for administration purposes to set this overdraft up.

I was/am absolutely livid at this especially because thay basically charged me for keeping my limit the same as it had been for the last 4 years. I rang my branch, which actually led me to a call centre which I suspect has been outsourced to India, and got put through to an advisor. He asked me if the charge had been taken and on what date. I asked him if he could wait while I checked online and he said that he would and then promptly hung up on me. Needless to say I'm furious at this whole situation.

What can I do to reclaim this money and is it worth pursuing for only £25? Any advice or sympathy would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Dylanwing

If it was me, I would vote with my feet, refuse to pay the fee and move to another Bank that does not charge annually for an overdraft facility.
Main problem is that the Banks have found that penalising customers who err has been very profitable, and effectively, these people have subsidised the well-behaved. Now that this practice looks likely to be declared unlawful, they are trying to find other ways of making money to replace the lost revenue. Logically, the fairest way would be to charge each individual according to number and type of transactions, less an allowance for any credit balances held (As they used to do), so that everybody pays for the services they use.
Tin hat on, into the bunker, as those who practice good financial management send over a barrage of abuse about the way that they would be suibsidising the reckless....... Even though in the Supermarket, you pay for what you take out, if you employ a tradesman, you pay according to how many hours they work, in a Pub you pay according to how much you drink, so why are Banks different????
Heavy shellfire heading for Chappers bunker! Duck!!!:p :eek:

chris147_2

Having been charged for going slightly overdrawn (£3) I was charged £25. As soon as a I noticed the account was overdrawn I transferred money to it from another account with HSBC (a day after intially going overdrawn).

I wasn't notified about it and when they took the £25 out a month later it made it once more go overdrawn. Now I know that it isn't illegal for them to make the account go overdrawn but I did object to them doing so without informing me as to what they were doing. In a letter I received back from them I got the normal response of "there is an ongoing court case, we shall await the outcome before any decision is made".

Now, my gripe with them is that they enforce their terms and conditions in order to take the money from you by saying "well you went over drawn and in the T & C's we can charge for that".

However, whilst reading through the T & C's I found a paragraph that stated HSBC must notify me 14 days in advance of any charges being withdrawn which they have not done.

This was also included in the letter but it appears they have forgotten/ignored that bit.

Has anyone else successfully argued that unless they stick to the T & C's themselves then surely they breach them meaning the withdrawal should not have taken place.

Also, one quick question, if the fees are to cover their expenses of you going overdrawn what work do they do to justify it? Both times I went overdrawn they haven't notified me so in effect I'm just being fined for going overdrawn.

Cheers
Chris

S3quence

chris147 wrote: »

Having been charged for going slightly overdrawn (£3) I was charged £25. As soon as a I noticed the account was overdrawn I transferred money to it from another account with HSBC (a day after intially going overdrawn).

I wasn't notified about it and when they took the £25 out a month later it made it once more go overdrawn. Now I know that it isn't illegal for them to make the account go overdrawn but I did object to them doing so without informing me as to what they were doing. In a letter I received back from them I got the normal response of "there is an ongoing court case, we shall await the outcome before any decision is made".

Now, my gripe with them is that they enforce their terms and conditions in order to take the money from you by saying "well you went over drawn and in the T & C's we can charge for that".

However, whilst reading through the T & C's I found a paragraph that stated HSBC must notify me 14 days in advance of any charges being withdrawn which they have not done.

This was also included in the letter but it appears they have forgotten/ignored that bit.

Has anyone else successfully argued that unless they stick to the T & C's themselves then surely they breach them meaning the withdrawal should not have taken place.

Also, one quick question, if the fees are to cover their expenses of you going overdrawn what work do they do to justify it? Both times I went overdrawn they haven't notified me so in effect I'm just being fined for going overdrawn.

Cheers
Chris

The same thing happened to me about a month ago I was £1 overdrawn and 3 things came out costing me £25 each. I realised and transferred the money but about a couple of weeks later got a letter saying that they are going to take this money out on 29th Dec.

I just went into the bank and said look im not going to pay £75! they gave me the crap about the pending court case and I just said well it doesnt help me now does it. I have a baby due in 2 days and ur gonna take £75 4 days after xmas. She apologied then said there is nothing we can do until the court case. I said ok then can I increase my overdraft to some rediculous amount so I never go over it? She said hold on a min and went to spek to her manager. She came back about 5 mins later and said that the charges have been removed but in light of the court case the bank is charging £25 to make any amendments to an overdraft, do I want to set this up now?

I just said I dont need it now if you have cancelled the charges and left :T

I understand that they need to charge people but £25 per transaction is a joke! Especially if I have 4 accounts with them all very much in credit! I wouldnt have objected them to taking £1 from that account!

chris147_2

Cheers for the reply.

It just wound me up that their own terms state they should notify you before removing funds and when you ask them about it they blank you but, when it suits them, they enforce the terms and conditions.

Might go in to my branch and whinge about it now.

:rolleyes:

nirvana_3

My daughter has had an account with HSBC for about three year, she had a £100 overdraft facility which she has not used. She received a letter in the post telling her that her existing overdraft facility is being reviewed and will remain the same and she will be charged a £25.00 arrangement fee for this. My daughter phoned them and was told it was a new policy to charge each year even though she had not made any changes to the facility.
She was told that all banks do this now I have an account with the Nationwide and have not been notified of any changes. Any advice ,should she change her bank? are they correct to do this?