Letter: Bank showed no loyalty
Friday 19th June 2009, 8:00AM BST.
LETTER: I visited a branch of HSBC in Wrexham on June 11, to request if I could have my agreed overdraft increased from £200 to £250.
I was refused point blank, despite the fact I have been with this bank for 25 years.
This obviously means absolutely nothing to HSBC.
It does not care one iota about my loyalty and I will be changing, as soon as possible, to a different bank.
I also asked if I could have a new debit card because the numbers on the front are worn out. The member of staff made the following sarcastic remark: “Is it because of the amount of times you have used it?” I replied that I am a shopaholic, which I am actually not, to defuse the situation.
Name and address supplied
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A number of banks are now stopping giving overdrafts and asking anyone who is overdrawn to payback the whole amount.
This is part of the way of clawing back real cash after recent losses.
Their loss, the customer looses out.
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The lady or gentlemen is doing the right thing, moving banks. I had problems with Lloyds bank, treated so offhanded it made me rearly angry, so moved to Abbey, a great bunch of people that helped me no end.
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Funny isn’t it – when people talk about the banks and how they’ve helped bring the country to its knees in their staggering greed, there is usually a distinction made between the bosses and shareholders of the banks, and the foot soldiers that actually work for them (ie the people working in branches). Then you read stories like this and you realise that – sometimes – there IS no difference.
Though they’d no doubt claim that they are just “following the rules” and “it’s more than their jobs worth….” etc etc, sometimes you can’t help but feel that *some* of these employees (not all) need to feel the chill wind of redundancy blowing round their rear ends too…
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Totally agreed, HBSC wouldn’t know a loyal customer if one hit them in the face. I had been a customer for over 30 years. Last year my husband and I spent hours on the phone with a view to a consolidation loan and they didn’t want to know or help. Everyone you spoke to was indian and had not a sympathetic bone in their body, just “you must pay this now can you pay by credit card now”. I would repeat we have no money, and the reply was “so you can make a payment today – you buy food”. We closed our account and were harassed for months having to have barred call facility on our phone line. The Natwest were a breath of fresh air.
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Nothing has changed with the banks, they have always offered you an umbrella if you don’t need one and taken your umbrella away when you need it most. The increase requested in the overdraft has to be refused as the money is probably reuired to go to a senior executives bonus
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Most banks are rubbish when you actually need them – you’ll be lucky to get a better one if you change. After all, it took 25 years of service before moving!
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I paid off my overdraft with Halifax then several months later needed a small overdraft to cover an issue with my work paying my expenses late – refused!
I walked out and straight to Nationwide who have been extremely supportive.
I have since switched my mortgage and insurance business to Nationwide so Halifax have lost more than my goodwill.
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The government have thrown loads of money at the banks whilst letting other business’s die. We are all tied into computers now and that is just more woe to us all and another tool for them to pass judgements when they want to.
I’ve found out that I owed for x 2 mobile phone bills that my children were using. I never got a bill address to me and the next thing I know I’ve got a bad credit rating. I’ve paid these bills off and still they have not been removed from my credit rating. What can you do, they make the rules up as they go along. If anyone has any idea of how to get them removed would be most grateful.
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Shrop Wolf – you will hve to write to the credit report companies, ie Experion, include proof of full payment and account closure and they will update your record. It will be done automatically but I think its only done once or twice a year at the most
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When will people stop thinking of Banks as institutions that care? There was a time, many years ago when the bank manager knew you and the staff were people that you could talk to. That was a very long time ago and no longer applies to modern society. Today even though one might have been a customer of the bank for twenty five years try opening a new or second bank account and see what the staff have to ask for before this is allowed. They demand identification even though they might well have dealt with you every day for twenty years. I had an experience where the bank woman lived next door to me.
To all those people out there who think that the bank has any humanity or human side left in their dealings with people I say that you need to grow up and realise that they work on compters and have stricty guidelines issued to them. The face might be human but the mind is the computer.
You owe no loyalty to a bank because their computer owes no loyalty to you. And more importantly it will give you no loyalty.
Grow up folks- this is the 21st century and those who have your money in their vaults ghave power over you. Perhaps if everyone in the country decided to remove their money from the banks at the same time it would teach them a lesson that it is they who must change to meet the needs of customers instead of them inflicting their power over the people who have trusted them historically. Now at least people are learning that one cannot trust banks.
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I too had troubles with with HSBC and moved my Bank. They are certainly one of the worse in the country – poor customer service. Saying that the others are not much better.
What a sad society we live in when we can’t just operate with cash. Talk about no freedom of choice. The banks have us by the !*lls.
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Banks play with our investments and when they lose, we are the one’s who suffer – not them. Whats the point of having a bank account anymore, might as well hide our savings under the bed!
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Yeah, take your overdraft somewhere else. That’ll show ‘em.
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My bank (Lloyds TSB) have done exactly the same. They refused to increase my overdraft by £100.00 despite the fact that since January I had decreased by £300.00 due to careful spending. In this last 6 months I have also reduced by overall debt by £2000+. They explained to me that they credit check customers on a monthly basis and that is were the decision lies. This is rubbish – how can your credit rating decrease by actually paying 25% of your debt in the last 6 months?
As a result I’ve now made purchases on my Lloyds TSB credit card and will transfer the balance of that to a 0% balaqnce tranfer interest card I have recently taken out at the end of the month.
Well, done Lloyds, you just lost any interest( and henceforth profit) you would have made out of me!
I have been a customer of Lloyds for 15 years and in September I needed a loan for a new car. At this time I only wanted £3000 but they were practically begging me to borrow substantially more! I will be using my 0% card to clear my overdraft and will then change bank accounts. Please note I do not advocate moving debts between creditors as a rule but it is working for me as now all my credit cards are on 0% transfer deals and the only interest I’m paying is on my bank loan!
The banks are running scared and out of money (again!)
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Jeff -
I Actually found the opposite, Abbey were governed by Telephone banking and i couldnt get any straight answers but Lloyds were great.
Maybe all Banks are great to new customers but not the old ones
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