Recently in July, I closed my joint account and opened a new account at my local branch in Encino. I made sure to transfer across all my bill payments to the new account and changed all the direct debit instructions with the utility company, my credit card etc.
Everything seemed to be fine.
Then, my insurance agent called me on August 17th and told me that a check that I had requested to be sent to him had not arrived. I opened my account on the internet, but Bill Pay was unavailable. I called HSBC and they told me that there were problems with the website and I should try again later.
I checked 2 days later and was told that in fact my bill pay service had been suspended since the 6th of August. The agent could not tell me why and told me I must call another company to find out. She gave me the 1-800 to call.
I called the 1-800 number of the bill pay service and was told that HSBC had submitted a bill for payment to my old, closed account. The bill pay service had decided to freeze my account because of this.
I asked them why they had not contacted me and they said they had no email address for me. They said that HSBC had not supplied it, despite the fact that my email address was provided on my web account.
So they had frozen my bill payment without telling me.
They reinstated the bill payment, but were unable to tell me what payments had been refused. My bill pay screen was still not available on the HSBC website, so I spent another 25 minutes on the phone with the HSBC internet helpline getting access again.
No-one apologised.
I then checked with my credit card company, and it turns out that your bank rejected a payment request from them for the credit card balance on August 10, for $832. This carried a penalty of $39. And a subsequent late fee was aplied of $39. And of course, late payment of credit card will likely have an impact on my otherwise spotless credit record.
I am in Moscow on business so all these telephone calls to sort this mess out was very expensive.
I have had poor service from your on-line banking before, but nothing like this. I have lost $78 as a result of your incompetence. I would like to know what you will do to remedy this in the future.
Guy
West Hills, California
U.S.A.
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