HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

[superlite]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

I have just got off the phone with general enquiries and been told they are investigating the matter of how these payments were authorised. She mentioned because the payments don't go out at the time they are made then your account can go overdrawn because money still appears to be in the account.

She said if it was a banking error the fees will be refunded, and she agreed it looks to be a banking error. I have to email the customercare team who are looking into it for me and wait 5 working days for a response.

My phone call was as expected - I was a stumbling mess unable to put some of my points across properly and a couple of times forgetting what the point I was driving at was (poor short term memory) and struggled to finish sentences. Hopefully I will express my points better in email form and will seek the help of my guardian.

I made my point of me having a debit card not a credit card so I shouldn't be able to spend money not in the account but it didn't seem to help and she stuck to her reasoning that money was still in the account at time of requested payments. I then pointed out to her that £465 was paid out on the 21st december and only £130 was the most in the bank since yet two payments of £150 were authorised on the 27th which I believe should be declined given the type of account I own.

I also had her clarify I have a regular bank account with no overdraft facility. She said if I would like to avoid going overdrawn I have to pay £15 a month to not borrow money, but in my current account I get charged for being lent money against my will (which should not be authorised anyway). I guess my attempt to get money back will be drawn out and I will probably give up but I am hopeful for now anyway.

Tempted to go back into £150 debit so they don't have the payment of bank charges but I think that's probably a stupid idea.

[superlite]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

I asked her what kind of bank account I had and she said bank account.

I have not had any contact with the bank really but I have had an account with them before I was 18 so I guess it automatically went from a child's account to an adults? I have no idea as I can't remember anything let alone over 7 years ago and things to do regarding a bank.

[labman]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

I suspect you will have a normal current account with no agreed overdraft facility then. Which bank is it (sorry - you may have said)? We can look up their Terms and Conditions for you then to see what they say about this type of situation.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

II made my point of me having a debit card not a credit card so I shouldn't be able to spend money not in the account

You can still spend money that's not yours using a debit card if there is an overdraft facility, I have a debit card and also an O/D on my current account.

it didn't seem to help and she stuck to her reasoning that money was still in the account at time of requested payments. I then pointed out to her that £465 was paid out on the 21st december and only £130 was the most in the bank since yet two payments of £150 were authorised on the 27th which I believe should be declined given the type of account I own.

I also had her clarify I have a regular bank account with no overdraft facility. She said if I would like to avoid going overdrawn I have to pay £15 a month to not borrow money, but in my current account I get charged for being lent money against my will (which should not be authorised anyway). I guess my attempt to get money back will be drawn out and I will probably give up but I am hopeful for now anyway.

Tempted to go back into £150 debit so they don't have the payment of bank charges but I think that's probably a stupid idea.

SAY WHAT? :eek2: :eek2: :eek2:That's the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard, even as banks go! :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: WHY exactly are you supposed to PAY THEM not to borrow from them? :confused2: :eek2:

Is there a reason you have to keep your account with that bank? There are many basic accounts out there without O/D facility and you don't have to pay NOT to have it!

[FlamingParrot]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

I suspect you will have a normal current account with no agreed overdraft facility then. Which bank is it (sorry - you may have said)? We can look up their Terms and Conditions for you then to see what they say about this type of situation.

HSBC?

[superlite]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

haha labman it says in title of the thread but no worries HSBC

[superlite]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

Find out more about the HSBC Bank Account Pay Monthly – a bank account that helps you know where you stand and with no overdraft fees for just £15 a month.

I believe that is the account type she was proposing, easily found on the HSBC site. Crazy stuff I know.

[labman]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

haha labman it says in title of the thread but no worries HSBC

Oops!

[superlite]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

I am writing to you about my concern regarding the unarranged overdraft I have been receiving since November the 27th. I was under the impression that with a debit card, a normal bank account and no agreed overdraft that I could not go overdrawn as agreed.
Given the activity on my account £500 is a large sum which I cannot usually afford to return and I would like to know the circumstances surrounding the authorisation of these payments. As you will be aware, these payments were requested by a gambling site while for the past 6 years or so payments have been declined when insufficient funds were available.
Since the £500 debt was requested in 5 payments I believe you have charged £25 per transaction (despite them being made almost at the same time) and since then I have incurred more charges for not being able to pay off the amount in time and going overdrawn again.
Overall the charges (including 2 x £50 and £3.50 interest charges due on the 17th of February) are costing me upwards of £200 for which I feel I am not responsible for. I have only had 1 x £25 charge applied to my account before which I found excessive but did not challenge for being overdrawn by less than £10.
Around Christmas you declined payment for a DVD as a present but you authorised two £150 payments to the same gambling site when there hadn't been £150 in my bank for the previous 7 days. Please clarify this issue for me.

Kind regards,

Disgruntled HSBC victim

[labman]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

That is a copy of the letter you have sent, yes?

[superlite]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

Yes, sorry I haven't responded sooner but I was waiting for them to sort it out so I can post their response.

They emailed me with security requests and now said they are investigating the matter, which all seems to me like a delaying tactic so they can take the bank charges on the 17th but it could be me being skeptical. I think they will be returning some of the charges if not all, it will be interesting to hear what they think about this.

Fingers crossed, I don't want them having any of my money that they don't deserve.
I am trying to empty my bank account so there won't be £50 for them to take, I have started using my card for everything, vet bills/petrol/food etc...it's kind of handy but I still prefer cash as you know how much you are spending.

[superlite]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

Emailed the following to customer care team, been very busy recently so this was the soonest I could respond. Does anyone have any thoughts as to whether I have a point? I will be changing my bank account if I am not satisfied with their response.


I have received a letter dated 11 Feb 2013 which quotes the following and I would like some clarification on:

"I would like to make you aware of the HSBC Pay Monthly Account which comes with a number of benefits, one of which would mean any informal overdraft requests would be declined. The account does have a monthly fee of £15.00 a month."

Which benefits are the cause for a £15 monthly charge? From what I can understand HSBC is saying if I don't want to be lent money without my consent I have to pay per month, whereas an account with a debit card has up to 25% interest minimum for a 1 day loan without a warning you are going overdrawn or the ability to opt out from this extortionate service. I have only experienced this problem since the 28th of November and would like to know when this service began and why I have not received it before.

"It is the responsibility of our account holders to ensure sufficient funds are available to meet items which are due for payment. Where this is not achieved and items are presented for payment, this will be treated as an informal overdraft request. The bank has to decide whether to return the items unpaid, or agree the informal overdraft request."

If it is my responsibility to ensure I have sufficient funds then what is the difference between my account which uses a debit card compared to an account with a credit card? I have this account because I believed that I could not borrow money from the bank and end up in debt, and with no agreed overdraft limit I thought the bank would also share this view. This was confirmed in my mind by countless payments being refused when I did not have the funds to pay certain items since I opened the account for at least the past 6 years.
Does the bank have any responsibility to ensure customers can afford payments going out and if not, what service is being supplied to me via this bank account?

"The £100.00 charges applied on 27 December were as a result of informal overdraft requests on 28 November, 29 November, 3 December and 11 December.

With regard to our charging policy, I can confirm that our fees are clearly stated in our published price list, and the circumstances in which these will apply are set out in our Personal Banking Terms and Conditions"

This is the first time my account has been in debt and 3 subsequent payments sent from the bank despite no money being in the account. Can you tell me when the Personal Banking Terms and Conditions would have been supplied to me which outlines this is possible with a regular bank account? To me this action is more akin to a payday loan with similar rates of interest although a payday loan will definitely have the customers agreement regarding the loan and interest rates.

"In regards to why certain payments have been allowed to debit your account, whereas in the past you have confirmed payments have been declined, there are multiple checks that will be done to decide if the bank will pay a certain item or decline it. The way in which you manage your account will have changed over the years and this will be why the types of payments the bank agree to pay will have changed."

Please can you define what multiple checks will be done and what possible reasons a bank will decide to pay or decline requested payments, and confirm whether I have received this information prior to the charges. I have not been particularly involved in managing my account and so far am unaware this could happen.

"I would like to assure you that the provision of a high quality service is a key priority for us"

The service I expect from my bank account is purely to pay items on request and when funds are not available to refuse payments as they have been previously.
I was not made sufficiently aware of any change to the way my bank account operated and feel very cheated by these past few months.

On the 13th of November through to the 18th of December unnecessary payments were accepted putting my account into £500 worth of debt, peaking at £545 after a £50 charge. Which multiple checks would allow my account to be withdrawn in excess of any previous months income into the account when clearly there is no money coming in to cover it? By the 20th of December my account was +£627 but with some expensive nights and some more requested withdrawals the account ended up withdrawn to £246, and again on the 13th of February you allowed £88 of debt to be created.

A good example I would like clarification on:

Account balance 117.79
28 Dec - 150
28 Dec - 150

Why would two £150 payments be authorised when I only have £117 in the account?

I have never nor would I ever agree to borrowing money from HSBC, yet I have been charged:
18 Dec - £3.15
18 Dec - £50
17 Jan - £5.36
17 Jan - £100
17 Feb - £3.50
17 Feb - £50
Total - £212.01

Why are these payments being authorised without any agreement set in place, and why am I charged £200+ for less than £800 debt, some of which was caused by these charges...
I don't see how you can decide to authorise payments when I don't have the money, and charge money for doing so when I already can't afford the request.

Finally, is there no free account with HSBC which does what a bank account with a debit card should do: pay items requested with money from the account, and when the account is empty to decline all payments?

[labman]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

It is often an emotive issue whether or not a bank should allow an unauthorised overdraft. They have no obligation to do so, and it is certainly a great money spinner for them.

Against this, one also has to consider the fact you have a responsibility not to attempt to make payments from your account knowing there are insufficient funds to meet them.

While I can see your desire for an account where you simply cannot go overdrawn (as per Co-op, Nat West, Barclays, Nationwide (no debit card here) and others), you cannot totally delegate your responsibility to the bank.

[wales01man]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

I get the feeling the OP as well as others object to bank charges? if we took a poll 100% would feel the same but t is how banks make money they dont charge a fiver when it cost them a tenner to do something ans as stated in the email the charges are all set out in the small print,i am as guilty as most of not reading the terms and conditions but thats no excuse if anyone does not want to pay charges keep control of every transaction and keep in credit after years of charges i now do if i had done this before i would be quite well off

[FlamingParrot]

Re: HSBC informal overdraft irresponsible lending

It is often an emotive issue whether or not a bank should allow an unauthorised overdraft. They have no obligation to do so, and it is certainly a great money spinner for them.

Against this, one also has to consider the fact you have a responsibility not to attempt to make payments from your account knowing there are insufficient funds to meet them.

While I can see your desire for an account where you simply cannot go overdrawn (as per Co-op, Nat West, Barclays, Nationwide (no debit card here) and others), you cannot totally delegate your responsibility to the bank.

Usually such payments are direct debits or similar recurring payments. It can be difficult to keep track of all of them and the dates when they all go out, etc. Banks sometimes will honour those payments even when that means going into unauthorised O/D or over your agreed O/D limit and charge you for the privilege. Worse still, they may reject the payment and charge you £25 for the privilege! :mad2: :mad2: :mad2: And when there are insufficient funds on the date the DD is meant to go out, the payment can be retried a few days later. I wasn't aware of that, and it can result in more than one rejection charge! :rant: :rant: :rant:

Even without any O/D facility, the bank will always allow you to go overdrawn (or over the arranged limit) with their own charges. As an example, I have a business account with Barclays which I didn't use for a couple of years. It has no O/D, yet they started adding all sorts of charges, amounting to nearly £300, which caused the account to go overdrawn. I was in receipt of benefits for some of this time but couldn't reclaim the charges on the basis of hardship because it's a business (ltd co) account. When I had to use the account again, the overdrawn balance swallowed up some of the money which I'd never used to make any payments, it was just charges. The way banks behave amounts to daylight robbery! :mad2: :mad2: :mad2: