bastard bastard bastard bank. HSBC. refrained from using the C word - just.

[ThatVikRinA22]

i have an adult son with autism who recently took my bank card and pin and withdrew large sums of money, which has sent us into an unauthorised overdraft.

The HSBC have charged us over £200 in bank charges for this privilege.

It is going to cost over £800 to apply through the court of protection to take control of DS finances as he has no capacity with money, and as well as taking money from us he has got into masses of debt with pay day loan companies etc.

Tonight i rang the HSBC and explained the situation, and explained that the money was taken from our account without our knowledge or consent by our adult autistic son, that we have taken steps to prevent it happening again, and i asked if they could waive any of the charges given the circumstances.

they kept me on hold for ages. really. ages.
then said no.
tough.
pay up

I feel like taking out a bloody loan with another bank, just so i can pay the overdraft off and tell them to fuck off to the far side of fuck, the money grabbing, grasping, bastards.

why, do people just insist on piling on the misery? i dont know whether to laugh or cry to be honest.

Go into your local branch and appeal directly to an actual human being.

I bank with 1st direct and some years ago ds1 was rushed to hospital...i was a wreck and due to making loads of calls on my mobile ended up with a £200 mob phone bill which sent me overdrawn whislt we were in hospital.

I rang them, explained, asked for time to pay up and they waived the charges.

So sorry you are having such a crap time x

I had some fees waived at HSBC. I went in and had a chat at a desk with someone about it all. And they removed them from my account. I would try and pop in. They said that I wouldn't have had any luck having them removed if I'd have rung the call centre.

D'you want me to link to this thread on twitter and tag HSBC into it OP?

Badvoc It is likely that £200 charges is more than the manager can authorise now, esp as there have been all of the PPI/unfair charges issues recently. CEO will have his own complaints team who manage his complaints and will have a much higher level of authority. I've worked for one of the other major banks for 12 years in this field.

However I agree that they are bastards. We left them a couple of years ago after years of problems. No problems at all with new bank.

HSBC are the pits. Their whole bank seems to be run by automatons and software algorithms rather than actual human beings with common sense.

For all the naysayers who claim that the bank are technically right - yes, HSBC don't have to refund the charges but they could at least be nice about it and show some humanity. If you're not familiar with the bank, if you ever ring them up about anything at all, you just get an Indian call center, where people parrot lines at you and never have an explanation for anything and never apologize either, even when they are at fault.

I sympathize OP: I hate dealing with those HSBC %£$!?ers (as they're known in our house) at the best of times so it must be a nightmare with everything else you have going on.

ben I got over £200 of charges waived, but as I say, it wasnt with HSBC.

They may be protected by the letter of the law, but the law is an ass and what they are doing is morally reprehensible.

Banks, no morals??? Quelle surprise! [anger]

OP I really recommend contacting the bank again either in person at a branch or on the telephone. In person, just cause a queue and talk loudly....they will rather waive the charges quickly than miss out on trying to add on sales for other customers, alternatively on the phone insist on speaking to a supervisor.

They always try to sell you something as every employee has sales targets and if they don't meet their targets they can end up on a personal development plan and if that doesn't increase sales they get put on disciplinary.

If this still doesn't work I agree with the other poster who said to write to the CEO!

for you Vicar.

Shouldn't this debt be his though? However long it takes, he should be paying it back to you IMO. If he doesn't 'get' what he's done is wrong, then surely he should still face up to the consequences?

As others have said, I would put your complaint in writing. Write to the complaints department and fully explain the situation. Hopefully you will get more success.

There is a way of getting the actual money withdrawn back and the fees. You can dispute the entire amount as ATM fraud. However, you would have to report it to the police. I know this sounds awful. But you may be able to come to an agreement with the police that no action would be taken (in view of your sons condition). But they would give you a crime number for the bank to enable them to deal with it as a fraud.

Sorry to read this vicar.

We are with HSBC and got fees refunded by complaining. As others have said the call.centre cant do it so take it further.

I hope you get it sorted ASAP.

And good luck with the driving test today

Vicarinatutu sorry to read of your upset. Reading other posts of yours i kno you are strong and have been very kimd to people on MN going tjrough a crisis. You go girl re driving test! We're rooting for you.

Hope you feel better vicar

Good luck with the driving test x

Also rooting for a lovely poster and her driving test....

You sound like you are having a tough time of parenthood

I had to comment & I'm so sorry!

My brother has special needs not autism & someone emptied his bank account hundreds of miles away whilst he was in bed & my bro dosnt have access to his card anyway. Logistically impossible, anyway would natwest listen?

Would they balls!

Badvoc

First Direct although part of the same group are a whole different breed of bank. They respect their customers. I have lost track of the thousands of pounds of charges we paid to HSBC

HSBC are bloody awful. My poor auntie had Parkinson's and was living in a care home. At the time she went into the home she wrote to them to change her address and to inform them that she had Parkinson's and that her handwriting (and therefore signature) were rapidly deteriorating. Every month they bounced the cheque to pay her care home fees because her signature didn't match the one on file. Horrid inhumane people - they made the last few months of her life miserable.

I do hope you are able to fight this thing OP. You are one brave lady. Good luck in your driving test. You are one of life's good people.

I got some fees refunded from HSBC. I went back to uni to do a masters, and was put onto year 4 of the student account. No one told me that the interest free overdraft was reduced after 2 years instead of 3. Once I twigged I rang them, eventually got through to a complaints centre, and after a month or so they reimbursed the charges as a goodwill gesture and gave me a bit more time to pay back the overdraft.

My brother is autistic too so I can totally sympathise.

But how did your DS guess the PIN?

I agree with those who say complain and I think if you go high enough and threaten bad publicity then you would get it back.

That said I can also understand why you don't have the fight within you. Like you said earlier OP, you've been fighting for so long now, there's just nothing left.

Vicar I don't think I've ever heard you sound so down before. Good luck with your test today, then revisit this thread and look at what Puggy said on page 1. I know sometimes it feels like it's too hard to fight another fight, but it's a lot of money in charges that they really could and should waive. I smiled too at the suggestion of calling the Police

This sounds awful.

I hope you do take it further and get the money back (though I can see why you don't have energy for it). Best of luck.

hi again

thank you for the lovely messages - i do at least have good news - i passed the driving test, so at least thats out of the way and i can do the nee naws now.

so.
its doubtful i would get chance to get to the actual bank but perhaps i could sent a letter - would that be to the actual branch or elsewhere?

i had really sort of resigned myself to paying. They took £60 out already but are to apply another £150 on the 30/5/12 - which is 2 weeks before i get paid.

i know that technically they are right, but a tiny bit of compassion wouldnt have gone amiss, and it really took ages for them to come back with a "no" i was on hold for ages, paying the phone bank charges.

congratulations Vicar!

Congrats Vicar. :)

Email your letter to the CEO using the details in my post above. One other thing to know is that the HSBC contact centre can be called using a non-geographic number 01226 261010 so you can use your free minutes.

BTW we did take out a loan in order to pay off the OD and get away from them and start afresh with Lloyds. Best thing we ever did.