Yesterday morning I was unfortunate enough to have to deal with HSBC. I’ve owned one of their credit cards for a few months now and I now find myself needing to repay some of the outstanding balance. I’m no stranger to the world of banks and credit cards, I’m quite adept at logging in to my online bank accounts and transferring money form one bank to another. I find that managing my finances that way is very convenient and a really good reason to get yourself online. Unless you bank with HSBC that is, when I first attempted to pay my outstanding balance using my Barclays debit card I found no facility on the HSBC web site to allow this. I looked and looked for a payment option of some description but could unearth nothing. Eventually I found a link that took me to a page that said that if I had a HSBC current account I could make a payment. That was absolutely no use to me whatsoever being a customer of another bank. There was a link that said that if I clicked it I would be sent a direct debit mandate form so I clicked on it. That was a week ago and I have not received it yet.
In light of my inability to pay I thought I would avail myself of a bit of personal one to one, face to face real human customer service. I popped into the branch of “the world’s local bank” thinking that someone there would be able to sort out my problem. That was not to be the case. Sure enough there were people there and they were willing to talk to me but as soon as I required anything other than a greeting and a smile I was directed towards a telephone where I could call customer services. Now I’m not being funny here but if I wanted to call customer services I wouldn’t have come into the branch. I can call them up on the phone from home, or from work. If I was feeling particularly frisky I could have called them up from my mobile on the bus. But there I was in the branch of “the world’s local bank” being redirected by my “local” member of staff to a call centre which from the sounds of things was in the U.S. After managing to lock out my account by using the wrong security code to log myself in to their voice menu system I got through to someone who basically told me the same thing that every other HSBC information source was telling me, that if I wanted to pay I would need a current account with HSBC. This was again completely no use as I wanted to pay some money, not open an account. I talked to the member of staff again whilst I was leaving, he said that if I wanted to pay by cheque I could use one of their fancy machines or open a bank account with them. I told him that I already dislike the bank, why would I want to open another account with them. As I told him this I thought I saw a glimpse of understanding in his eyes, that he was seemingly agreeing with me and that this sort of situation is probably quite a common one for him to deal with. I went home that evening after work with a mind to resolve my banking problem once and for all.
Well, almost. I planned to test the bank to see just how rubbish and absurd HSBC actually is. My test was simple, I was going to attempt to pay off my outstanding balance using money. That’s right, cold hard cash, bank notes, legal tender. The guy in the bank might have said that I could use a cheque but surely I should be able to use cash as well, right?
I walked out of the rain and in to the branch noticing the guy I was talking to yesterday standing with his colleagues. I strode over to the cash machines and drew out £30, it was money that was supplied to me by HSBC so there should be no reason why they wouldn’t accept it, or so my reasoning went. It was then that I noticed a paying in machine that could be used to deposit cash into accounts, I thought that I would give it a try and inserted my credit card. After a few seconds it was spat back out again, the monitor informing me that credit cards were not supported. I retrieved my card and headed for the person I spoke to yesterday.
“You seem to be spending a lot of time in here”, he said.
“Yes, unfortunately” I replied.
“Where can I stick this?” I asked, knowing that the answer could have been “Well bend over Sir and I’ll show you.” Fortunately he resisted the temptation and informed me that they couldn’t accept cash as they don’t have any tellers.
“Are you trying to tell me that you don’t take money? I thought this was a bank.”
“I’m sorry but if you go to the other branch on Churchill Way you can pay it in there, it’s a few doors down the Virgin Megastore”.
We exchanged pleasantries and then I left, I was going to point out that Virgin Megastore changed its name months ago but thought better of it.
So there you go, HSBC “the world’s local bank” can’t accept your local currency. At least not in all of its branches. I eventually managed to make my payment in the other branch, it was actually a quick and effortless process. I just handed the readies and the statement to the cashier and he paid it in. It took less than 20 seconds, didn’t involve talking to someone over the phone after being asked a raft of stupid questions and didn’t raise my blood pressure. Human beings one, cash machines nil.
