nunoncastors

We join the story mid-way through. I’ve asked questions, I want answers. The bank, being the bank, is being vague or simply not bothering to answer them, behold the tedious repetition involved in finding out simple things from HSBC customer support.

Dear Mr Whyley

Thank you for your e-message dated 28 August 2007.

I regret to inform that it is not possible for us to provide a list on charges applied to your Bank Account. However, you can view charges that have been applied to your Bank Account via historic statements.

I confirm that you can view all transactions and charges on the last statement plus any made since, with the most recent first, up to 90.

Currently you can view historic statements up to six years old through the Historic Statements facility in Personal Internet Banking. You can do so by following the instructions below :

1. From ‘My Accounts’, select the account for which you wish to view your statement.

2. Next, click on the ‘My Statements’ icon located on the left-hand navigation panel.

3. Select the statement you wish to view.

The screen will display the first 100 transactions and charges. You can scroll the list to view more transactions and charges from the selected statement. You can sort the transactions from My Accounts in the following way :

o Date (ascending/descending)
o Type (alphabetical)
o Description (alphabetical)
o Amount paid in/out (descending)

You can click on the twistie next to the required column heading. The running balance will not show on any sort option other than date.

Should you require copy statements, please confirm your request via this e-messaging system and I will action it accordingly.

Further to your e-message, please be advised that I have passed your case on to the relevant department who will deal with it as soon as possible.

The reference number for this case is a number.

They will be in touch shortly.

Yours sincerely

Heidi Daniels
Manager Customer Credit Services

I’d like to point out that this is actually the best reply I’ve received from a bank’s customer support for a long time, she answered one of the questions I posed previously and therefore I like Heidi.

All is not well however.

Dear Heidi,

Thank you for your response, I must admit to being pleasantly surprised that you actually answered one of my questions. It’s nothing personal. But on previous occasions it’s taken much more badgering before this has happened. So thank you for that.

However, I’m less pleased with the department you’ve passed the rest of my queries to as all they’ve done is rephrase the original response I received and repeated things I already know in the hope that this’ll be sufficient. Unsurprisingly, it isn’t.

So, back to square one and addressing a few notes in their letter which, by the way, I don’t see the point in if you’ve got an online messaging system that does the job just as well. I mean, I’ve really no interest in spending money on postage and phone calls when I can contact you for free via the internet. And contact you I will, over and over again, until my questions are answered in a direct and non-dissembling fashion. I realise you’re only doing your job, and I hope you don’t take it personally, but I also hope you can see my point of view on this and understand my willingness to keep asking and asking and asking again until I’m happy.

Anyway, just to clarify, I don’t really consider it a complaint when all I want is questions answered in a straightforward fashion. I realise banks are prone to prevarication and vague responses in the hope that people get bored of asking questions, but that really isn’t the point. Being inquisitive isn’t the same as complaining, surely?

Right, on to the letter that you didn’t send but are having to deal with because, well, you’re a free point of contact and so far much more helpful than the people in my local branch and cheaper to speak to than the chap in Bangalore.

Firstly, I’m going to concede that payments into the loan account have indeed been erratic. Congratulations are in order for your colleague’s repetition of something I’ve already said and happily concede. I’ll also concede the arrears, courtesy of the copy statements I received, and I’ll be rectifying this shortly

Secondly, what I asked was, if the payments are in arrears (which I’m happy that they are now), why take £150 instead of either a) the minimum payment or b) the full amount of the arrears. £150 still appears to be an arbitrary sum in light of no one bothering to answer this question, it’s not a particularly difficult one, I’d be much obliged if you would.

Thirdly, I enquired if internet banking is governed by normal banking hours. Is it, yes or no. If it is, ok, late payment conceded, if not, then what the hell?

Fourthly, and this isn’t really a question but a demand, but deactivate the standing order from my bank account into the loan account. Do it now, do not reactivate it. Don’t vacillate, don’t tell fibs about being unable to, just do it. I went through god knows how much crap to get that thing turned off in order to allow me to pay my loan from another bank account which, as of October, is what I will be doing once again. I really don’t want to have to go through the palaver of asking for a copy of the terms and conditions with the section stating I have to pay my loan from a HSBC current account highlighted again. I didn’t get it last time, I doubt I’ll get it this time, it was annoying then; it’ll be annoying now. We both know it’s just a retention mechanism to keep people tied into their current account so please save us both the effort and turn it off. Cheers.

However, feel free to read through the correspondence that issue generated. It’ll give you an idea of just how many times I’m willing to repeat myself in the same irritating fashion for something that you probably see as a trivial matter. I wouldn’t ordinarily be so churlish, but it’s just so much hard work getting straight answers.

And finally, and I realise this will appear to be somewhat facetious, but what is it about banks that precludes straightforward replies? Seriously, why not just say yes, no, this is why, instead of all the claptrap you’re probably obliged to feed back? I swear, I’ll pay off the whole loan in one go if you manage to respond directly to the above with bullet points and answers that actually fit the questions.

Yours with a sense of having been here before,

James

PS. How come the bank can afford to pay itself £25 for a bounced direct debit but not the actual direct debit? I’d have thought with all the furore over illegal bank charges they’d have stopped all that sort of thing for the time being. Also, and this is being picky, if they hadn’t have taken that arbitrary £150, there’d have been enough cash to pay that direct debit in the account, wouldn’t there?

The next exciting instalment will be up as soon as I receive a response. Will Heidi go for broke and bluff her way into another diatribe from myself? Will I get the honest answers I so desire? Only time will tell.