It’s been six weeks since we completed the application for a business bank account with HSBC. When we were there, in London, our contact person made copies of our proofs of address and our passports. Afterwards, he wrote us an email saying all was well, our application was complete, and we just had to wait for the verdict of his colleagues. Wonderful! Finally!
Application incomplete
Ten days later, we received an email from the application service that there was still information missing, namely Christophe’s proof of address. Sigh… We wrote an email to our contact person asking him to fix it, and he wrote back that he had and now our application was complete and we just needed to wait for the decision of his colleagues whether or not we were granted the account.
Last Wednesday, we were through waiting and called our contact person. Or tried to anyway, because it turned out that the telephone number on his business card is a general number for contacting HSBC. We had to work our way through several computer driven menu’s, which took several minutes, before finally ending up with a live person at the other end of the line.
Don’t call us, we will (not) call you
We explained to her that we have applied for a business bank account and are waiting for an answer. She told us that HSBC is currently inundated with new account applications and that is the only reason why it is taking so long to get back to us. Then she looked up our application in the system (that worked, at least), and informed us that they have a few minor questions about our application, and that someone was going to call us the next day between 3 and 3:30.
That is 4 and 4:30 our time. We waited, but no call came. So at 4:45, we called HSBC again, went through all the menu’s again, and got a person on the line again. She told us the same thing as her colleague the day before. That they are really busy, but that one of her colleagues would call us the same day or the next. Which would have been yesterday. And you guessed it: no phone call came. No email either. Nothing.
HSBC customer service, or lack thereof
This doesn’t bode well. For what if we get the account and something goes wrong? How will we be able to contact them, and how long will it take them to fix it? What if our account is frozen and it takes them weeks to unfreeze it?
Of course it is bad form to let us wait this long. But okay, shit happens. But how hard would it have been to write us an email explaining the situation and giving us a timeline? Is that too much to ask for? Obviously it is. We’re through waiting for HSBC and are going to explore other options. For our first overall impression of HSBC is not good, to use an understatement.
2 responses to “Banking blues part 4: PLEASE don’t call us, we will (not) call you”
Sometimes, the absence of yes times time equals no. In Britain, that is often the case.
That said, when I moved to Britain, I also dealt with something that took aaaages and also included people telling me that they had sent me a letter when they hadn’t (as evidenced when I asked for a copy of the letter, which turned out to have that day’s date on it). But I kept pushing, and eventually, it all worked out.
But… do you really want to rely on a bank that isn’t particularly cooperative from the get-go?
Hi Angie,
Thanks for your response. It’s a good question. But the fact of the matter is: we need a bank account. So if it works out in the end with HSBC, we’ll be happy. For now, we wait for Triodos, who’s supposed to contact us next Monday (June 4th).