HSBC called me the other day to let me know that I was ?100 into overdraft. I didn’t even know what the guy was talking about until he explained what it meant.
“So my account balance is negative? Riiiight..”
I transfered money from my online-only account to rememdy the negative balance. Done, sweet, thanks mate. Bye.
Tonight I find a bank statement in the post that shows I’m to be charged a ?75 fee for going into overdraft! Seventy Five Fscking United Kingdom Pounds!!! That’s like $14,000,000AUD!!!
How the hell do these fools justify such a huge fee? Why don’t they just debit my other account, you know the one with money in it?! Why don’t they hit up my credit card? Why do they even have an overdraft “feature”, other than to sting you? I certainly never asked for overdraft – it must be a default option. This is the same idiot bank that couldn’t explain why my O2 bill payment was declined, cutting off my phone for a day.
“We don’t keep transaction records that far back, sir”
“You don’t keep records for transactions that occured three weeks ago?”
“No sir, sorry sir.”
You know what the fun part will be? Going to bed at 4am tonight after watching the late Tour coverage and then arguing with these idiots tomorrow. Because the fee hasn’t yet been taken out (thanks for the warning HSBC!), what’s stopping me withdrawing all my money and telling them to stick the ?75 fees up their ATM slots?!
On a happier note, the GT made it home. 2hr 12min it took to walk my bike the 12.5k home.
Apparently, if you don’t know your pin number, even if you have a card and a driving license and a passport proving your identity you cannot take out more than 50 quid per day in Central London. Of course, I closed the account so they had to hand over 6 grand. I didn’t want to carry the cash or close the account but they were annoying me so much I wanted to give them nice ‘fuck you’ to show how stupid their policy was.
They asked the mandatory ‘Why Are You Closing Your Account?’ question. Of course, I said ‘Cos I wanted to take 120 quid out of my account but you dickheads wouldn’t let me.’
i reckon the govt banking watchdogs (whoever they are) would be real keen to hear bout your fine. not that the bank can’t do it..but the watchdog has been going on and on about excessive and opportunistic banking fees for ages and this seems like a real nice case in point for them.
RA: I knew you’d be drawn to this post being all "finanshull" and stuff.
I rang today and spent 20min arguing about this with HSBC. Turns out they _would’ve_ waived the charge but I’ve been overdrawn before (Dec ’05). Only trouble is, I didn’t notice the little "D" next to the transaction in that instance. So, she wouldn’t waive it this time because I’m a repeat offender, even though they never notified me about the first case (save for the ‘D’). Cnuts!!
She knocked ?25 off the charge but I think I’ll have another go at them tomorrow. Why the fsck they don’t stop debiting when account balance = 0 I don’t fscking know. She gave some spiel about being "for emergency use" but I said I have a credit card for that, oh and what about the money in the other account eh? Fsckers! I’ll get ’em yet..
Take the bastards down stu!!! Im with ya all the way buddy!!! Same thing happened to me (was only 33 quid though) but then they charged the same fee again the next month when there was a positive balance in there for 6 weeks!!! Rang them and they said sorry and dropped the 2nd charge(after much debate), but wouldnt have if I hadnt of rang(they blamed a computer error, frigging great!!) I have been very tempted since leaving the UK to draw the 2K from my uk credit card and 1000quid in overdraft ability on my other accounts, then see how long it takes them to get thier money back 🙂
Luckily my morality kicks in, for now!