I have been an HSBC customer in three countries and I've never seen anything like this.
Everything we do with HSBC UK seems to have a negative affect on our credit rating.
I've never defaulted on a payment, and was planning to buy our place in a few months time.
It's way beyond illogical, it's just plain ridiculous.
I opened an HSBC Advance package a few months ago, as I was told that getting a credit card would help my credit rating, and help me secure a mortgage.
I was offered a credit card limit for a few thousand pounds, but as I was not planning on using this that much, I opted to limit this to £1k.
Recently, after checking my credit report, I noted that this "lower" limit is hindering my credit rating,
so I tried to increase this, but now HSBC won't do it, as it's not yet passed 6 months since they did the credit check.
I was never told that this lower limit would affect my credit score initially,
so now I have to wait a few months to raise this.
P.S. I was only told this after calling 3 times, and trying to do this twice on Internet Banking.
my wife arrived in the UK (from being a loyal HSBC customer in Malta) in January.
Upon arriving she opened a basic bank account with HSBC UK.
Having waited the full 6 months to get upgraded to a standard bank account,
she was told that she's not good enough to merit this.
This is a professional earning over £30k per year (for the past 5 months), having a good credit history elsewhere within HSBC.
This might be because as we got married a couple of months ago, she changed her surname earlier in the day (with the same person),
thereby erasing any history HSBC had of her, and told her to wait for another... (wait for it) ...6 months. These people are beyond simply ridiculous.
In the meantime, we were discussing how much of a mortgage we would be able to take.
So obviously they told her that they wouldn't give her anything, even though we have over a 15% deposit, thus limiting severely our options.
Furthermore, it seems that every HSBC person we speak to gives us advice which actually hinders our credit score
and chance of getting a mortgage.
Apart from that, we have been waiting for over a month for this bloody appointment, as they're always too busy...
Please note that every time we speak with them, they do credit checks on us, affecting negatively our credit score,
and any way I try to improve this score, I'm blocked off by my bank.
This is a bank, I worked with in the UK (even though I wasn't here all the time) for almost 8 years,
and who to this day treat me like I never existed and have to introduce myself like a new client every time I speak with them.
They don't recognize my holdings elsewhere (including another HSBC Home Loan - yep, another mortgage, that's right...).
Furthermore, my wife is in a position that she can't build a credit history with them,
even though she already has one which they clearly trust elsewhere...
My impression is clearly that these people won't help us buy a place, but actually hinder us in the process
, by lowering our rating through useless checks which they do not proceed upon,
even though we'd be very good clients (we're a couple of professionals,
with over £60k of proven annual income).
For that reason, we have no option but to look elsewhere where to bank.
Clearly, we're not good enough as we're neither Mexican drug lords nor tax dodgers for HSBC Switzerland!
