Hi all,
This is my first post I guess, so I hope I’m doing this right 🙂
I’ve been having an ongoing battle with HSBC which I thought had stopped until tonight.
I must be the ONLY Canadian in all of Canada who has a US HSBC account (sarcasm here).
So far my problems have been the following:
- not being able to log into my own online banking area because their webiste coders & programmers are terrible coders & haven’t validated their site properly because they almost told me I couldn’t use Fire Fox when accessing my account until I put my foot down that they can’t tell me which browser to use and which browser not to use.
Can you imagine not having access to your own bank account?They have this screwed up keyboard thingy on their site & if you don’t hit the keys with the mouse exactly the right way, it declines your password.If you do this twice in a row, it locks you out.When I threatened to switch banks, while they didn’t want me to leave, they didn’t do one thing to stop me either saying this is for my own protection. I checked with Wells Fargo after that & they have no such animal that causes problems so that customers can’t log in easily.I have accounts with Bank of Nova Scotia & ING & both have easy ways to log in, all they’ve done to upgrade security is get you to log in using different fields, but none of this keyboard panel to use for logging in.
- having customer service reps blaming the merchants I’m purchasing from online because my card is getting declined for no reason. First it was Google, then it was my marketing consultant. Both reoccurring billing. After trying to go up the ladder, I get a supervisor named Jules who was a real bitch. She ended up being sooo dysfunctional, she ended up putting a message on my account saying it was delinquent. When I asked to speak to her manager, she ends up telling me she is the highest in the company, as if I’m sooo stupid I believe that she’s the largest shareholder in HSBC. After calling several times, I got another CSR telling me that my address was all screwed up, that they 000000000 in the postal code field, Canada in the State field & god knows what else. I started getting very furious because this has wasted my precious time for about 2 weeks now every time there was a problem with a transaction. I finally got Jule’s manager – Donna. Donna was nice enough, but when I had to call her back a week or two later, I got no return phone call. She also explained that what I was seeing in one of the windows in online banking that said FC & 0000-0000 was only for their records & the CSR didn’t understand what she was reading.
I was unable to get anyone else, so I ended up having to write to the Office of the President because a lot of these HUGE corporations want to make it hard for you to complain & they figure you won’t waste your time.I then got a very nice call from a woman named Gloria Amarol. She helped me & told me that if there were any problems, I should let her know.
Well about 3-4 weeks later, I find out again that my marketing manager’s transaction wasn’t going through, so I call & leave a message for Gloria with all the information.
She calls me back & leaves me a message.
I leave her another message asking her not to keep calling me back, but to take the info I gave her & actually start doing something about it. This is how I do biz, I don’t play telephone tag for days on end.
She doesn’t return my next two calls, so I have to track down her supervisor who turns out to be Norma Alvarado.
I’m told Victor Hanson is supposed to call me back, but he never does.
The next thing I know, I’m talking to Norma & I think she’s nice & we discuss that once I get the declined transaction dates I will give her a call.
I give her a call within a few days (tonight) & she’s stone cold on the phone while I’m being nice & joking around.
I ask her if she can just call the merchant because this is all pissing me off.
She’s saying something about how if the merchant isn’t inputting the right information & I stopped her. I said the merchant doesn’t input the information, I do. She says that’s wrong, I tell her no it’s not, I run online businesses & the merchant never inputs anything, the customer always does.
I guess she doesn’t like me telling her she’s wrong, but then I think maybe I’m misunderstanding her, so I start asking her if she means the merchant, or the merchant’s bank.
I start trying to understand what she is saying & told her that I have just recently moved & the merchant doesn’t have my new address. She doesn’t get this, she thinks I said the bank doesn’t have my new address.
I ask her to read me off the address & I realize how if I don’t type it in exactly, it won’t authorize, so I try to make it easier by doing what we do here, which is put the townhouse or apartment first, then a dash, then the street number.
She sounds confused. I said don’t you guys (meaning the States) do that over there & she says “no”.
Then instead of listening to me when I asked her to just deal with the merchant, she starts reading off to me what I have to tell the merchant & yes, this did start pissing me off.
She wanted me to put FC in the State because that means “foreign country”. Yes, Canada is soooooo foreign to the US. We live in igloos & have no electricity etc.
Then instead of the postal code she wants me to put in 0000-0000 or something like that.
Clearly she has no clue how things work at HSBC either.
I said I’m not going to put that in there every single time. I said I never had to do that before. I was getting pissed here & I do have a tendency to do that every time a US company doesn’t configure their site, database system, or shipping procedures to accommodate Canada.
I’ve never been anti-American, but ever since I tried to get a USD merchant account & had to jump through hoops to get it & was made to feel like I was a terrorist, my feelings towards US business has become more & more tainted.
Then I thought maybe she means only for this one merchant, so I ask her, do you mean just for this one merchant & she says “no”, in general. I said there is no way in hell that every Canadian knows they have to put “FC” & zeros to replace the postal code. That’s just nuts.
She starts interrupting me telling me she doesn’t appreciate the vulgar language. I said I’m not swearing, “hell” is a place, not believing she’s getting all pissed off because I used the word “hell”. She probably would have gotten upset if I used the words “pissed off”.
You know what she does people???? She fucking hangs up the phone on me LOL, & they have these types of people working in the President’s office? Maybe they work for Bush & are god fearing Christians who cringe at someone saying hell. Oh no, the world is going to come to an end, I used the word “hell” & her virgin ears couldn’t take it.
I didn’t use any other questionable (I don’t consider that questionable) language other than the word “hell” & I wasn’t swearing at her, I was talking in generalities & yes I was getting upset, who wouldn’t be after how the conversation stated & now she’s making me jump through hoops & she’s telling me “I’m just trying to help you”. Help me my ass.
This prude, who has MAJOR insecurity issues & was in some major mood when I first called her hangs up the phone on me.
I call her back & like a little baby, she refuses to pick up the phone. I leave a message telling her to have her manager call me & we’ll see if that happens.
Well, end of rant 🙂 & I would like to know if anyone else has had such terrible experiences with HSBC in the US, or is it just HSBC in general?
While I don’t think Scotia bank is all that great, they are like honey compared to HSBC & ING gives great customer service. I’ve only ever had one asshole CSR at ING Direct, but the rest of the time they are down to earth, friendly, etc.
Just an update since I moved this post from my personal blog to this blog…
About 8 months ago the logging in problem was FINALLY solved.
You will never ever guess what the problem was.
Not one person knew (except for this smart cookie, wish I had her name) why I was having so many problems logging in.
Their system didn’t allow for 2 of the same characters one right after the other in your password.
Not one person knew this no matter how many times I called up.
So, once I changed my password to be unique characters, I’ve never had a problem since.
As for the Canadian address on the US bank account, I vaguely remember speaking to a person higher up than this Norma person, but I really can’t remember now. All I know is that once something was changed on their end, the card never declined again.
I’ve since moved & once again I had a problem with my card being declined at one of my vendors.
In fact I’ve been using this company for almost 2 years now & all of a sudden the card is declining.
I hope to god it goes through next month.
I do NOT want to go through this nightmare again.
Michelle
I think most people can agree that HSBC is one of the WORST banks around. Especially because they use their overseas Filipinos who can’t understand English, make me repeat things I already said & they are soooo slow, you can be on the phone with them forever.
Back in December out of the blue HSBC decided they were going to close down my accounts & give me NO reason at all. They claim (they are correct) that the government doesn’t require them to give us a reason. So they can just pull your bank accounts so you have NO WAY to get money, pay for the necessities in life, etc. & you lose your money until they decide to send you the balance.
I even spoke to the Executive Office & was crying on the phone & they were cold & heartless & wouldn’t tell me a thing.
I had seen suspicious behavior in my account a week or two earlier & had called to find out what was going on, but they wouldn’t address that either. They were moving my money around all over the place.
In the end they didn’t close the accounts, only one of them.
So the question was, were they too stupid to tell me they were only going to close ONE checking account, or did someone figure out they made a mistake & decided to close only that one account?
During the 2 weeks this went on, I was distraught. I had no way to get money to me & every day I was waiting for the hammer to fall.
I heard from someone else that he too was told his accounts were going to be closed down & someone told me that there were rumors that employees of HSBC were stealing money. I never could verify if this was true, all I know is that I never once got an apology for what they did to me & as you can see, I’ve had my HSBC account since 2003 or 2004.
Today I have lost an hour of my time trying to find out where my debit cards are.
I was told they could be FedExed to me as I’m in a different country now, but I’ve been waiting over a week now & they haven’t shown up AND HSBC is soooo disorganized, that they don’t even have access to tracking numbers from FedEx.
First I had issues with HSBC’s lost & stolen department then I like I always, I had to start looking around for help within the US to get someone with a brain.
I spoke to Gerilynn Warnike in the Premiere office of HSBC in Buffalo & she arranged to have the 2 different debit cards sent out again.
She told me 100% she would call me on Monday & on Tuesday. I even said that most people lie & never do call; she told me she’s not like that, she WILL call me.
Both days passed & NO call from Gerilynn which shocked me as we had a nice conversation & I thought she was a nice honest person. So I called on Tuesday & left her a message. STILL no call back.
Then I call & speak to someone else in Buffalo, he calls & miraculously gets her right away & she says she STILL doesn’t have the tracking number, she’s going to e-mail them again.
Wednesday comes & I figure she will call me, NOPE!
I leave a message on her voice mail again & then call to speak to a manager. They won’t let me saying I have to speak to Lost & Found. I get transferred to the HSBC’s terrible Filipino call center. I immediately ask speak to a manager. There they give me the 3rd degree about WHY I want to speak to a manager. I HATE that as I hate repeating myself over & over again.
I tell her quickly. Then she wants to verify me even though I had already punched in my PIN code. She asks me what kinds of accounts I have at HSBC, I tell her. Then she asks me what e-mail address I have & I start fuming. I told her it’s one of two & I give her the two & then I demand to speak to the manager again.
She puts me on hold & twice comes back to me to tell me the manager is still busy with other customers & there’s only ONE manager there today. GREAT & in the meantime I have an important errand to run & can’t leave until I know what’s going on with my debit cards.
A 3rd time she comes back tells me she is going to transfer me & that takes another 5 minutes.
The manager Karen comes on & even knows who I am (I vaguely remember her) & tells me she will have to screen me. Then when she starts asking me the SAME questions I already answered I get more upset.
Then she tells me that I refused to be screened by Hazel. I said that’s NOT true, she asked me 2 questions which I answered & that should be enough.
I told you they are terrible, they lie or are just soooo stupid, that they consider answering 2 questions NOT being screened.
Then she starts sticking it to me by asking me SIX more questions & makes me go look up information on my computer (more time wasted). I was screaming my head off.
I have NEVER EVER had to answer 6 security questions before & this fucking BITCH knew who I was to begin with.
She tried to make it seem like I should know that I have to answer 6 questions because I’ve called them before & I told her YES, I’ve called you before & I’ve NEVER had to answer so many questions, I’ve even talked to you. She ignores my obvious logic.
Then after ALL THAT TIME WASTED, it took her less than 5 minutes to tell me that there was no tracking number (as if this solved the problem). In true Filipino fashion, she doesn’t say how she’s going to solve the problem, just states “there is no tracking number”, as if that is supposed to end the conversation.
Now I was fuming again, having to tell her how to do her job. Finally she said someone will call me tomorrow (Thursday) to tell me what the tracking number is because somehow HSBC doesn’t get the tracking numbers the minute the envelopes go out.
So EVERY OTHER company in the world gets a tracking number except for FedEx.
And of course because she kept me waiting for soooo long AND then had to ask way too many security questions, she said FedEx was now closed because it was after 5 pm.
Guess what, it’s 8:25 pm CST & I’m about to go on the phone with them. I should have thought that she didn’t know what she was talking about, but I was too upset & wasn’t thinking clearly. All she was doing was trying to make things difficult for me.
And do you want to know how stupid these Filipinos are in HSBC’s call center?
Last week & the week before, when I was reading off the address they had to send the debit card to, I would say things like XYZ (new word) or Ave (colon) & they would spell out the words “new word” & ask me how to spell colon.
Once I realized how stupid they were, I started freaking out & by the way, this happened with 3 of them.
AND whenever I complain about how their call center doesn’t know English, HSBC & Amazon defend their call centers. If these people KNEW English & could think for themselves & be proactive, I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you.
HSBC had an Indian call center & while I didn’t like them either, they seem to be much smarter than the Filipinos.
FedEx can’t find the transactions. I have a feeling HSBC NEVER EVEN sent out the debit cards.
Just got off the phone with that lost & found department AGAIN, this time with an Indian guy who kept interrupting me & wouldn’t let me talk. He was very arrogant & was pissing me OFF!
More confusion & time wasted.
1. Still no tracking numbers.
2. He said the cards were sent out on the 6th & on the 8th, then he changed the date to the 9th. They don’t know what is going on over there!
3. While I was on hold while he called FedEx to try & get the tracking numbers, I opened up my scanned me and WHALLA, there’s 2 different debit cards.
So they sent them to the WRONG address.
Then I found out that they deactivated the current debit card because I realized that the one they had sent me back in 2011 never arrived.
So instead of deactivating THAT card, they deactivated the card they JUST sent me.
BRAINS PEOPLE!!!!
And NOW it’s going to cost me more money to forward the one good card to me where I am AND who even knows if the 2nd set of cards will go to the right address & I needed those cards ASAP. And here I was thinking HSBC was doing me a favor sending them directly to me. Instead all they’ve done is caused me a TON of stress.
The guy told me to call back tomorrow, so now I have to waste MORE of my time calling back tomorrow.
See how utterly disorganized & moronic their staff is at HSBC?
More updates with HSBC.
I call & get the Philippines. I speak to Margie & she’s rude to me because I refuse to tell her why I want the lost & found department.
Why I can’t just be transferred to a department without having to repeat myself to several different people is beyond me.
After she argues with me I ask to speak to a manager. She keeps me on hold for 20 minutes, FINALLY comes back & says there’s only ONE manager AGAIN, & she’s still busy.
I said just SEND ME over to the lost & found department. This time I tell her why I need them because she is still REFUSING to transfer me otherwise.
I then get Val on the phone who is sweet, but a bit clueless (dahhh). He STILL can’t find the tracking numbers & now he has to cancel ALL THE FUCKING CARDS just to make sure they don’t end up in the wrong hands.
I told him just send them to Miami & I’ll have them transferred.
I remember when the CSR in the US initially offered to send me the cards to where I am now & I remember being shocked they would send them to me here. I was so happy I wouldn’t have to go through all this mail forwarding, but look at how much trouble I am going through because of their incompetence.
I’m beyond stressed & I’ve wasted at least 5-7 hours of my time calling since June 28, 2012. Just this one conversation cost me an hour & I couldn’t go to bed.
In total I’ve been put on hold, waited for managers, argued with staff, people trying to figure out what the FUCK is going on & being clueless, not to mention being ignored by Gerilynn who STILL never called me back.
Oh & Val just told me that the person from yesterday who told me they would call me with the tracking numbers today didn’t know what they were talking about, they only have outbound phone lines.
I also found out from Val that I was supposed to be given an activation code because the cards were being shipped outside the US, but NO ONE gave me any such number.
SCREAM!!!!
I won’t even get the cards now for over 2 weeks & I had this ALL set up so I could get them right away.
After Val I had to be sent to the customer service department so I could ask why a transaction wasn’t sent back to the merchant.
I got another Filipino named Leonard on the phone.
He didn’t understand what I said & I could tell he was clueless so repeating myself wouldn’t have helped, it would have only pissed me off even more & wasted my time. I asked to speak to a manager.
He hymned & hawed & finally put me on hold.
He came back like 10 minutes later & said his manager was still busy. Put me on hold AGAIN, THEN he comes back & wants to know why I need the manager because he doesn’t know WHICH manager to send me to.
So I asked him point blank, “You PUT ME ON HOLD knowing full well you didn’t know which manager to send me to, you wasted my time & then SUDDENLY the light bulb went off in your pea brain that said, “which manager should I send her to.”
This complete moron has the intelligence level of a 4 year old & this is who HSBC hires to deal with your money.
I just hung up the phone on him. I was never going to end up speaking to a manager, or he would make me repeat what I had already told him so they could waste MORE of my time & even though it was very clear what the issue was, he still couldn’t figure it out.
I HATE HSBC!
I got ANOTHER debit card going to the wrong address, so this is THREE debit cards that went to the wrong address & has now wasted all of my time so in just 2 weeks I will have NO WAY to pay a bill, get cash in my hands etc.
HSBC can’t even get addresses right even though I’ve called 3-4 times & spelled out the address for them. And this is after the last guy I spoke to in the Lost & Found department told me that he can see that they were shipped to the right address.
AND every time they send it to the wrong address it costs me money.
How stupid can one bank be????