Yeah! I am a “proud” customer of HSBC. Yeah!! I also know you’ll laugh at me for my stupidy for keeping a HSBC Credit Card. But still, I want to share my “latest” experience with HSBC bill payment.
I paid my last credit card bill on the due date using HSBC EasyPay[1] machine at Moratuwa Branch. I got a receipt having the date (which is the due date), time, and the amount I paid. However when I got the next bill, I realized I was charged Late Fee and Interest. Altogether it was around Rs 5000/-. I called the customer “service” and the response was that I have to pay before 3pm to credit on the same day. Yeah, it is fair enough, only if it is mentioned somewhere clearly. But HSBC clearly wants the customer to be mislead!
Reason #1
If the machine says that I have paid it on a given day, why can’t HSBC accept the fact, even though they open those envelopes in the following day?
Reason #2
In tiny letters the machine carries the message “The payments received before 3pm will be credited after 7:30pm in the same day.”. Okay!, does this only mean, “payments received after 3pm will be credited in the following day”? Can’t I assume, the payments received between 3pm and 5pm will be credited after 10pm? My question is, why do they only just “imply” the message? They could have just said, “The payments received after 3pm will be credited in the next working day”
Even the EasyPay site[1] boasts about “24 X 7 availability”. Why can’t they say the above in a line or two?
They asked me to send a Fax. The rep “advised” me not to use the term “mislead”. Instead, asked me to “plea” for a refund. Then they’ll consider to refund atleast a fraction of it. My answer was “Go to hell!”.
+1.
I say you should have demanded the money back since there is no where it mentions a deadline for a day. And its completely disgusting the way they asked to “plea”. And its so illogical to put the transaction made after 3pm for the next day. Its like there is actually a person inside this machine who does the work and goes home after 3pm. 24×7 indeed. I’m going to discourage anyone who decides to get an HSBC credit card. Those ppl at HSBC are bunch of loosers. And I simply dont understand why you are still using one either. Why not just cancel that card.
Sadly it is the same case for late fees in US. The late fee is $40 irrespective of the amount you owe. However the payments rules are very clear. I do all my banking online (well there is no choice. I started with Bank of America in Georgia but Ohio has no BOA branches! All my money things happen electronically so I am still with BOA
) The customer service is commendable with respect to HSBC.
I also had similar screw up with a Seylan credit card, but after complaining they fixed the charges promptly and I started receiving statements on time. They asking you to “plea” is appalling.
At least in US, even though the fees are higher and your whole credit history gets screwed by missing just one payment, I can setup auto payments to all my cards. I wish the SL banks provide something similar in SL, but of course then they’ll loose another chance to rip off the customers. I also should give some credit to CapitalOne as they once promptly removed legitimate late fees, charges and credit report entry from my wife’s account (she forgot enroll in auto pay +to pay on time) just because it was the first time.. Wonder when the SL banks will understand the value of a customer..
HSBC did the same to me sometime back. The due date was on Sunday and I payed on Friday. Bang! the payments were considered as made on following Monday.
As you said HSBC just plays with implications