I am most definitely not amused and becoming increasingly frustrated, angry and feeling powerless. Why? I’ll tell you why. Because HSBC doesn’t do what they say they will do and it seems impossible to get through to them. Let me get you up to date since I last wrote about this:

Still no email from HSBC

Friday, no email came. So I called them. Explained the whole story again. That I chatted with Minna on the 9th of June, and that she had said that we would receive an email within 5 working days. Which we didn’t, hence my call. The man I spoke with told me he would track down Minna and ask her to send me an email ASAP.

Today is Monday, so I guess I should be patient, but I’m not. We’ve been waiting for HSBC for 4,5 months now and I am really fed up with this. WHY is it so hard to open a bank account? It’s their core business, isn’t it? And more importantly: why is it so hard to communicate with them? So far, they have called us once, in the very beginning. But that’s it. All other contact has been initiated by us. And has resulted in nothing so far.

Since I have lost all faith in them and their promises, I contacted them again today, by chat.

Transcript of chat with HSBC:

Amy:
Hi, welcome to HSBC’s Business Live Chat Service. We are here to assist you with your query. Please note, we cannot accept your account details on this service for security reasons.

Amy:
How can I help you?

Karen:
We were supposed to receive an email last Friday with details to activate a business bank account. That email didn’t come. Can you please look into that? Our details are: Application code: 959832522551902, Business name: Just Go Pink! LLP, Post code: WC1N 3AX

Amy:
I will just be a moment bringing up your details. It may take me a few minutes to look into this for you. I’ll be as quick as possible.

Karen:
OK, I’ll be here.

Amy:
Thank you for waiting I am sorry to keep you there.

I would advise you to contact the business account opening team on 0800 633 5610 or 0044 1470 697 032 for more information on this. As we are based on live chat and not the account opening team we are only able to read the folders we do not have any control over the application or its progress I’m sorry Karen.

Karen:
O… I’ve been in touch by chat twice already (5 June: Danielle, and 9 June: Minna), and they never told me this. Sigh… I’ll start calling now. Thank you for the information.

So I called the number she gave me. Went through a menu and then waited while listening to some music. And some more music… And even more music. There was no feedback as to how long I would have to wait. After 10 minutes, I hung up.

This is so frustrating! I am at my wits end. What on earth can we do to get through to HSBC, and to get them to open a bank account for us? Any and all ideas are much appreciated. Please post them in the comments below.

We’re losing money

The worst thing for us in all of this is: we’re losing money. We have started contacting prospects and the first positive responses are in. People wish to subscribe to Ananda and use the application. Ananda is (and has been for a while now) ready to launch, but we cannot launch as long as we do not have a bank account with an English brick-and-mortar bank. This is so frustrating!