HSBC

Living abroad it isn’t easy to open a bank account as an American citizen due to US taxing laws; this was the bank my university suggested/practically insisted we use to “facilitate” our transition to living in France as they told us horror stories about how we couldn’t do xyz without a French bank. I have later learned that this is not true and there are alternatives. Honestly, it has been the biggest regret of my life and I will never step foot in an HSBC branch again. The tellers at my particular branch on Saint Dominique are lovely but this bank has some very strange practices and has no issues locking, restricting, or cancelling your account for anything you do, all without telling you.

HSBC is truly the worst inefficient and crooked bank. HSBC should be sued. They will charge fees for everything and freeze your account if you do not use it within 9 months. The way to unfreeze your account is to make fund transfer transaction that will cost money. HSBC does everything to try to steal money from the customer. The online chat representatives cannot resolve anything and will drag the chat on for unnecessary time. Normally takes 1-2 hours on chat to get someone to try to help but in the end they do not help and they will tell you to call or visit the bank.

I WAS a client of HSBC for about eleven years. As an expat this was a great fit. HSBC being an international enterprise made life easy. (Wire transfers, cash machine, in-country branches, etc.) Smooth sailing with these guys, monthly wire transfers were flawless, customer service was professional....no complaints at all. Everything was rolling along fine until they decided to cut US operations and concentrate on higher-end clients. I qualified as one of these clients (75,000 min. balance) when I relocated, but real estate, vehicle, etc... purchases took care of that status. I don't blame them AT ALL. Much more profit to be had in Hong Kong and Mainland China than my minuscule deposits. Anyway.....my only regret is that my account got dumped to CITIZENS BANK. How did that go? Well I wrote a little piece about them last night, check it out if you will. Calling that bank a dumpster fire would be disrespectful to dumpster fires. (my opinion)

Don't Trust HSBC's Promotion! I've been their premier account customer for 20+ years and mostly in Asia. I moved back to BC Canada 8 years ago and the nightmare started. Most of their staff have an attitude that customers are there to serve them so they can have their salaries and job promotions. I thought things were improving last year when I was assigned a new account manager. She was very helpful and I started to move my cash to HSBC from another bank. After deposited a chunk of my saving there, they have a promotion to attract more deposit because people are moving money away due to some stupid act they did in Asia (freezing legit a/c because of political reason (sounds familiar?).

I opened an HSBC expat account due to relocating abroad, thinking that I was upgrading my bank and helping with my new international position. I can't tell you the time wasted and stress caused since we opened the account in July 2021 to now, Feb 2022. From start to finish, they have failed at even the most basic of banking services and my free, UK Co-operative bank was significantly better. I don't even want to waste more of my life detailing the issues, just take my advice, never open an HSBC account for anything. (I'm even on the chat function now as a $6k payment has gone missing and they don't know what's happened to it).

The Premier account is a scam. It charges 34.95 a month. The Waiver conditions are so high, it is only for rich guys. After 6 years being a Premier checking account, I wanted to remove and down grade to a normal checking account. It was a night mare to get through the right person. After several trials; online chat, phones, I can still not able to do this. waste lots of time, and frustrated. When you call the customer service, people either from India with heavy accent, and you will be asked to call another number which is not a right number either!

Made a CC enquiry 5 years ago, have emailed and called recently to have them remove the enquiry from my Credit Report. Every time I speak to someone they ask for my reference #, despite never being able to give me one. When I ask them to give me a reference # for my file or the enquiry they tell me the "other department" has that information and they do not have access to it. Every time I call to follow up, they tell me it is with another department, but cannot tell me which department and that I have to wait for this department to contact me. Will not give me contact details for the "other department" so I can follow up with them myself. I asked them who do I call and what reference # can I use the next time I call to follow up and they tell me to call (this) same number and I do not have a reference number, so every time I call to follow up the cycle is repeated.

After having a checking account with HSBC for over a year, I received an email informing me that they are closing my account. (Never had bad checks or overdrafts on my account). HSBC would never explain the reasoning. When they closed my account in Aug 2021, there was over $900 in the account. Still as of today 12/18/2021, they have yet to release my money back to me. Clearly unless you are just loaded with money and can spare $900, DON'T USE HSBC BANK.!!!

HSBC has a new Global Baking account that gives you market exchange rates less a 1.5% spread. However, for a transfer from a Pounds Sterling account in the UK into your own US$ account as a Premier customer, they take a huge spread of 3.25% which is more than many credit cards take on small amounts. I tried complaining but they won't discuss it due to "commercial sensitivity"!!!

HSBC advertises a $450 bonus with a $5000 direct deposit in 3 months. I walled to see if that was $5,000 total or each month because the ad was not clear. I was told that it was definitely cumulative, a total of $5,000 within 3 months. After 3 months I am told it was $5,000 EACH month.