...Got rid of HSBC soon after that too.
Malc
And as of last month, I got rid of HSBC, too, Malc. Well, their First Direct "organisation". Long story:
I'd banked with FD for over a decade, making use of their telephone and internet services (they rely on HSBC branches if you need to see a real person). All was well.
A few years ago I met a wonderful woman, whom I later married, and in setting up a new home together, I ran up a number of charges on my account. Last year, with the furore over bank charges in the news, I claimed mine back for the preceding five years. It took half a dozen letters, several months, but finally I was credited with ...£2200. Result!
At this point I suspect FD highlighted my account as "something to keep a watch on".
Last Christmas, my wife's father, who lived in Belfast - we're in Scotland - fell ill, and to cover travel expenses and, as it sadly turned out, funeral costs/legal fees/house clearance/etc., I asked my bank for a temporary overdraft. They said "£2000, six months, no problem." And added "after six months, it'll revert to £750 and
watch it."
Come July, I got my additional overdraft paid off, anticipating the reduction in the amount, when - five days before my salary was due in - a DD payment for fifty quid went out, pushing me over my agreed £750.
I, naively, thought that the bank would be aware that my salary was about to turn up, would be delighted I was almost back on track, and dismissed it.
The following day a letter arrived. "Following our warning" - of six months ago - "we're closing your account." At this point I was wondering where my salary was going to go - would it be returned to my employer, or stuck in the banking-ether somewhere?
I rang the bank the day after, and - for forty minutes - calmly discussed the situation. It was decided that I could go to the HSBC in Glasgow and withdraw all my pay, and that the overdraft (plus a loan for which I was paying £270 per month) would be combined, and that FD would expect £100 a month to pay this off. (A figure one percent above the base rate, and much better than the repayment rate I was on.)
"Hang on", I said, "you're reducing the amount of my loan repayments by £170 per month, giving me all my salary back,
and simply want to stop me banking with you? Yes! Bring it on!!!"
That lunchtime, I went to HSBC in Glasgow, received a big bundle of twenty-pound notes, gladly handed over my chequebook and other FD bits and pieces for chopping up, and walked out.
Fifty yards away is the Co-op bank. I've always appreciated their ethical nature. I went in, said that my credit history "might look awful", but I needed an account. They said "it's fine", sorted me out, offered me an overdraft better than the one I was on, a credit card with a £3000 limit (which will cover us until my wife's estate liquidises) and I'm one very happy fella.
A long story like this needs a moral:
While interent & telephone banking has its advantages (especially so if you're permanently solvent!) there is no way they can develop a relationship with a customer beyond the basic statistics and account notes that they make about you. I've learned my lesson - a bit of humanity and understanding from dealing with real people does make all the difference.
FD closed my account without directly telling me, pointing back to a warning they'd made months before. They closed it at the very point where they had my money, so they held me at ransom. If I were elderly, or confused, or mentally less capable - the inhumanity of doing what they did could have had tragic consequences. They are <words not allowed>. I would urge anyone whose finances resemble a cross-section of the Rockies, as mine have over the last few months, to get a bank where you can be viewed as a human being, and not just some infinitesimal cog in a multi-billion pound profit machine.
Andy