Hello Everyone I would like to share my terrible experience with you all... HSBC and then the Ombudsman.... My concern started in October 2009... personally I am a Financial Analyst and decided to invest some money in a HSBC Invest Direct (share dealing) account, which is DD to my HSBC Plus account, which means I have got 2 different contract with HSBC. I made quite few thousands in couple of years... In October 2009 unfortunately I was diagnoised with swine flu and could not manage to get out of the bed, in the meanwhile few days before couple of my orders were executed and which made me overdrawn £5,750 in my HSBC Plus current account but considering I have got £1,500 authorised overdraft limit and appx £15,000 worth shares in my Invest Direct account.... HSBC started to charge me around £398 in 2 months and then decided to sell my shares and suspend my account... The contract says: HSBC Invest Direct: If you do not have sufficient funds in your account, HSBC has got rights to sell your shares.... HSBC Plus account says: I have got an authorised overdraft limit of £1500 and excessive use of this limit will be penalised with daily interest + fees (which does not state any kind of how much unauthorised you can go up to) Wait for this... I was overdrawn around £5,750 from which I have got an authorised overdraft limit of £1,500 and they sold a total of £6,145 worth shares in 2009... and also they suspended my share dealing account for around 10 days in which I had around another £9K worth shares.... I tried to contact HSBC and proceed my complaint and of course dont be naive... NO result.... when has anyone seen to get a result with their complaints in the first step... I tried to contact the person who authorised to sell my shares, and asked him why he sold more than even the overdraft? his answer was: "We left you a budget for your daily expenditures" I asked him if he has ever seen me paying any bills from my account? he said "No" I took this case to the Ombudsman.... Great big Ombudsman... only 500-600meters away from HSBC headquarter.... 3 adjudicator amazingly found HSBC within their terms and conditions.... I appealed and requested a "Final Decision".... in August 2010.... Mr Ombudsman took my case as the adjudicators are not allowed to give the final decision.... He took his time and in February 2011... he gave a "Provisional Decision" of fair compensation for me his words were: "A = Total amount sold B = Unauthorised overdraft (which means - £1,500 of authorised overdraft) C = A - B So I was supposed to be getting C amount of shares in todays value as compensation .... When I proved that my C amount of shares are worth £6,750 in todays value (current BBC prices), I think they did not like that... Then what happened.... Final Decision came in October 2011... NO COMPENSATION given and HSBC has rights to do so??? I took it further and went to the Independent Asssessor.... No result..... upppss sorry, I should not say like that... here is the result I got: The Great Big Ombudsman sent me a cheque of £100 as an appology as it took 21 months to come to this conclusion (if you consider average handling time for each case is 6 months) ... I call it as "Consolation Prize" Keep quite son! we give you £100 go and have a glass of wine, which will cool you down What I dont understand is; if I used my credit card and bought lots of stuff and gone overdrawn, what would have happened? I dont expect HSBC would come and cease my clothes or the stuff I bought? Even if they were right (which they are not) why did they charge me £398 for an unauthorised overdraft fee + Interest + daily charges? It is a service that I have not received and why did they sell my shares? I dont really know what happened between Feb and October 2011 but it is not really surprising especially if you consider HSBC HeadQuarter and Financial Ombudsman is only 2-3 street far away each other.... May be a nice lunch break in an expensive restaurant or a small coffee shop will be a great place to negotiate??? What do you think???? Anyway I really dont know what to do??? I tried to contact the media sources, tried everything... Sky, BBC, ITV Daily Mail, FT, etc... even Daybreak and Lorraine no response.... I would really appreciate if anyone can help me as I ran out of my options... Btw European Ombudsman is not even bothered about it, they are more interested in Euro then GBP Kind regards