HSBC

HSBC is horrible. You cannot get service from their offshore agents in the PI. Most have poor English skills, often put you on hold to "check your account" and never get back on the line. You stay on hold so long the call disconnects. Mostly likely due to not knowing what to do. Sucks. Wish there were stars with negative value like -*

Travelling overseas in America. Advised HSBC prior to travelling the dates I would be overseas. Received an acknowledgment of my travel plans. First day I arrived, my credit card didn’t work, I was unable to pay for the car hire and hotel. Had to get credit on my phone to deal Australia (HsBC UsA wouldn’t assist), finally sorted the issue out,…. Then a week later the card was blocked again due to a suspicious transaction,…. The transaction in question was at WALMART!,… id been to Walmart many times before the card was BLOCKED. Had to get more credit for my phone to call HsBC in Australia,…called HSBC and finally got the card unblocked and was told there is no setting to say I am travelling overseas on my account! ,…… a week later and my card is BLOCKED again. Had to get more phone credit,.. but this time the call centre is busy and I’ve been on hold for 15 minutes. Every time you purchase something in America you (as a foreigner) have to input your card pin! DO NOT TRAVEL OVERSEAS WITH A HSBC CREDIT CARD

I have dozens of credit cards, I keep a document to be sure I use them all at least twice monthly, to keep them active. I autopay so my payments are never late, and I usually pay the balances in full. I have an excellent credit score and no complaints about any of my cards except HSBC. With HSBC I have nothing but complaints. Just like others have written here and on other review sites, HSBC is awful. Every other time I made a purchase with my HSBC card, they flagged it as suspicious and asked me to call their customer service, literally even over a toothpaste purchase at a store I shopped at weekly. When I called, I always held for half an hour+, and then when I spoke to someone in their "fraud department" he’d ask me to prove my identity. With most cards, they can do this simply by asking you your PIN, or the answer to a secret question, etc. Not HSBC, they need you to answer a dozen questions, then they need you to fax them a copy of your drivers license, then a copy of your electric bill, then they'll insist that you go to their branch office to show these documents in person (and this is after having the account for a full year). It is insane. Their nearest branch is over an hour away, and they'll insist you drive there again, to show them documents, again. In the meantime they freeze your card, and won't even let you pay it off so you can close the godawful account. With me, I finally had to do a balance transfer to my Amex card just so I could be done with HSBC. Please, believe the negative reviews and never use HSBC. There are too many good creditors out there, you don't need the hassle.

I have credit cards with Citi, Chase, American Express, HSBC, U.S. Bank, and a credit union, and HSBC is hands down the worst one in all respects. It's not even close. I opened this card with a low credit limit to help a family member, who I added as authorized user. Every aspect of the experience has been horrible:

1) Opening the card was such a bad experience that I drafted a formal complaint letter about HSBC's approval review process, which required me to contact them by phone during very limited hours, all of which coincided with my work schedule. I finally spent part of my work day to resolve the issue.

2) HSBC bungled the process of issuing a card to the authorized user so badly that I had to spend hours on the phone across several days while on vacation to resolve. Multiple representatives gave me wrong information and/or made promises that were not fulfilled, resulting in the authorized party receiving their card late and having to cancel a planned move because they did not have the credit card with which to reserve the rental truck.

3) This is by far the least consequential example, but it just happened today and so happens to be the final straw that pushed me to write this review. HSBC leaves me a voicemail about possible fraud on my account. The voicemail includes detailed instructions on where to call, what prompts to select, and a reference code to provide. I follow the instructions exactly and am told I reached the customer service department, not the fraud department. The representative cold transfers me to someone else. After another 5 minutes, that representative says I am yet again in the wrong department and must transfer me. The third representative tells me the call was about a $3 charge that occurred 5 months ago. Huh? I am all for proactive fraud prevention, but they leave me 3 voicemails at 3 different phone numbers because of a $3 charge from 5 months ago? Unreal.

I will never open another account of any kind with this joke of a bank and will strongly urge anyone I know or who asks not to do business with this bank.

I have an HSBC card that sits in a drawer. It's not linked to any accounts, and only gets used for emergencies. It got compromised and used in two separate purchase on Amazon for a total of 200 dollars.

First, they never sent a statement. Not in email or paper. I didn't learn about it until I received a Late Payment email after it was 30 days past due. I logged into the account, saw the charges, and started one of the most irritating and unhelpful experiences I've had dealing with a bank.

The first agent couldn't help me, so they punted me to their fraud team. The agent there was aggressively unhelpful. Incapable of understanding what I was saying, not following the chain of events, and constantly wanting me to contact Amazon instead of them. Which is ridiculous, what with these purchases not existing in my Amazon account. I finally got irritated enough to get a manager. They weren't much better, but they at least accepted that they were on the hook to act on it and stopped trying to foist me off on Amazon. They said they would cancel the card, issue a new card, and start a 45 day fraud investigation. Which is just insane. Anytime this has happened the bank just took care of it right then and there. They didn't waste everyone's time over 200 lousy dollars.

I got the new card in the mail a few days later. Along with a letter from the fraud department. It included a form where they wanted me, in handwriting, to lay out all the information that I had already given them over the phone. And they not only wanted me to mail it back, they didn't even include a paid envelope. Which, again, ridiculous. This is over 200 bucks, not 20,000. AND they didn't even get it right. The manager only flagged one of the two purchases, not both. They rolled the other fraudulent charge onto my new card.

I called the number on the form, and got to listen to over a minute of "Special Offers" that I could accept before I got to a machine that literally told me to go away. Literally, it just gave me another number to call. At this point I called Customer Service again, which was probably a bad idea seeing as how bad they are at customer service. Once again I got an agent that had no clue what I was saying, what I was trying to do, or how to do anything remotely helpful. At this point I was done. I told them I would happily pay the 200 dollars just so I could cancel the account and never have to deal with them ever again. The only thing I wanted at this point was a guarantee that they would not report the 30 days late to the credit agencies, since they never sent me a notice or a statement until after it was late. This was like pulling teeth. They couldn't even grasp there was two charges and kept repeating back only the one. Once again I demanded a manager, and was told that they don't exist until 8:00AM EST...and it was 7:50 at the time. I was assured I would receive a call back immediately, right at 8:00.

At 8:45, having received no such call, I called back again. The agent told me that all the managers were busy...which not surprising, since they are all terrible at their jobs. But at least they understood what I was trying to say. I reiterated that all I wanted to do at this point was pay the money, close the account, and never do business with them again. They were able to accommodate the payment, and they SAID they canceled the account even though I'm expecting it to remain open because they're incompetent. I mean, no attempt to repair the situation or retain me as a customer. So no bonus points, just an annoying end to an annoying situation.

Literally any other bank in the world would have just waved off the 200 dollars to keep the customer happy. But not HSBC. I have no idea how they're still in business. I'd do zero stars if I could. I'm expecting that this will in fact hit my credit, making me have to jump through even more hoops. In that case I look forward to copy/pasting this review into a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Worst customer service. Placed multiple disputes on my credit report without notice or reason. No assistance or explanation provided when asked about. However, more disputes were placed with every call, again without reason. Glad I transferred all my funds out of this bank. Worth the minor credit ding to cancel all HSBC associated account. Use at your own risk.

The worst service ever. I have fraud on my account and no one is getting back to me or giving me a straight answer all they do is forward to different departments. I will be leaving HSBC as soon as possible

Easily the worst business banking experience we’ve ever had, because it’s not just poor service for small business - it’s consistently poor service. The app doesn’t provide access to basics (like statements), requesting help from representatives often takes days, and the password system doesn’t even allow special symbols which leads one to question the overall safety of the account. If you care about your business, you’ll take your business elsewhere.

HSBC Premier credit card is the worst credit card ever.
First it requires HSBC Premier account for the credit card to waive the yearly fee. Once the Premier account unqualified, you will need to close the credit card. The closing process is a nightmare for me as the agent can not close it anytime you want.
Second, the balance transfer offers are terrible catches which has monthly APR as high as 3%, though it would advertise as zero finance charge.
Third, the latency is way too high for transaction to be posted. I suspect the inefficiency is deliberate so that they can charge more interest.