• HSBC UK

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Overview

HSBC UK has a rating of 1.18 stars from 20 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about HSBC UK most frequently mention customer service problems. HSBC UK ranks 285th among Banking sites.

  • Service
    9
  • Value
    9
  • Quality
    8
Positive reviews (last 12 months): 0%
Positive
0
Neutral
0
Negative
4
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How would you rate HSBC UK?
Top Critical Review

“HSBC make it hard to access your own money”

Ralph T.
1/5/23

After numerous attempts to pay for things online using my HSBC card, and numerous attempts to resolve declined payments via their customer services, I've finally decided to switch banks as HSBC is just abysmal. Their customer service chat seems to be based in India, and staff have been absolutely awful in communications. Once you fight your way through the stupid AI chatbot and eventually get to a person, they don't respond to whatever you say - just leave you hanging whilst they do whatever. So the impression is that there is no-one on the end of your call. Customer service effectiveness is sorting problems is zero, as they usually end up giving you a phone number to call. It's good riddance to HSBC. Repeatedly having to enter security info just to login to the HSBC app is another reason to avoid this bank

Reviews (20)

Rating

Timeframe

Other

Thumbnail of user ralpht44
82 reviews
66 helpful votes
January 5th, 2023

After numerous attempts to pay for things online using my HSBC card, and numerous attempts to resolve declined payments via their customer services, I've finally decided to switch banks as HSBC is just abysmal. Their customer service chat seems to be based in India, and staff have been absolutely awful in communications. Once you fight your way through the stupid AI chatbot and eventually get to a person, they don't respond to whatever you say - just leave you hanging whilst they do whatever. So the impression is that there is no-one on the end of your call. Customer service effectiveness is sorting problems is zero, as they usually end up giving you a phone number to call. It's good riddance to HSBC.

Repeatedly having to enter security info just to login to the HSBC app is another reason to avoid this bank

Tip for consumers:
Use another bank

Products used:
HSBC current account

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user samanthab1392
1 review
0 helpful votes
April 11th, 2024

Spoke to David Pearson today supposedly is a complaints specialist. He was rude aggressive and made personal judgement on my situation. Advising me I should managed my finances better he had no idea of my personal situation. He showed no care or compassion no empathy nothing. He came across as very rude and aggressive and when i politely asked him not to shout at me he rudely ended the call. No procedures in place to help disabled and vulnerable people. AVOID AT ALL COST!

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user deanf129
1 review
4 helpful votes
April 29th, 2021

Froze my business account without warning and refuse to tell me why. Only a relationship manager get lift the hold but mine has apparently left (never spoke to me in 6 years). Now i have to wait for a new one to be assigned but until then my business must suffer and could go under. Absolute disgrace!

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user amyh2559
1 review
1 helpful vote
January 11th, 2024

Appalling customer service. I applied for an HSBC Advance current account on 30th October, HSBC acknowledged my application and confirmed that they would "need to do some important checks. This may take up to 10 days". I heard nothing so I raised a formal complaint which was acknowledged with a reference on 4th December. I've since continued to receive generic, seemingly automated e-mails telling me "We are taking your concerns seriously and again, I'm really sorry for the continued delay" though the reality is I don't believe they are taking my concerns seriously and I don't believe they're sorry. This is by far the worst customer service experience I've ever received from a bank or any financial institution. At time of writing in January 2024 its now been 73 days since I applied for this current account and 38 days since I raised a formal complaint and the account is still not open and the complaint has still not been appropriately responded to.

Tip for consumers:
None

Products used:
N/A

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user stee2
1 review
4 helpful votes
August 29th, 2020

Words just cannot describe just how bad this bank is! I would never recommend them to anyone! Not even my worst enemy!

Thumbnail of user peterj637
1 review
3 helpful votes
January 26th, 2021

48 days and counting... that is how long it has been since I last saw my $3200 I transfered from UK to my Australian bank. But it's not the loss of money that is the painful part, it's the process of communicating with HSBC to resolve the issue.
I gave up calling, the call centre rep in India would simply hang up once they realized the problem was too hard. Emails were ignored, so escalated to the complaint dept, Dave Anthony RIDGWAY to be precise. And here has been the single most arrogant, disinterested & unhelpful individual I've ever had dealings with. If there was ever someone stuck in the wrong job who despises customers, it's this guy.
Will I ever see my $3200 again? Who knows at this rate.

Service
Value
Thumbnail of user chrisa2032
1 review
3 helpful votes
July 17th, 2023

HSBC CHAT IS AWFUL. ITS JUST "FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS" PRETENDING TO BE HUMAN. WITH NO FLEXIBILITY IT GOES ROUND IN CIRCLES, SAYS ITS PLEASED TO HAVE HELPED AND CUTS YOU OFF WITHOUT OPTION OF SAYING "NO, YOU HAVN'T ANSWERED MY QUESTION". IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN TALKING TO INDIA OR PHILLIPINES. OLD STYLE FAQs ARE OK FOR SOME THINGS BUT, IF NOT LISTED, WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO TALK TO UK CALL CENTRE WHERE AGENTS UNDERSTAND ENGLISH

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user anoy2
1 review
3 helpful votes
January 4th, 2023

Spoke to MAYA earlier and she cut off the phone.
USELESS SERVICE, THEY LIED CONSTANTLY. BAD KARMA FOR THOSE WHO LIED.

Thumbnail of user williamd3687
1 review
1 helpful vote
September 29th, 2023

Been on the phone over 1 hour and 20 minutes on a call asked to speake with a manager and was refused

Products used:
$#*! customer service

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user gufrank1
1 review
3 helpful votes
November 17th, 2020

This HSBC bank and its app is such a poor that you become frustrate. Never go or recommend to anybody to open any account in HSBC bank. Customer support is also such a poor that you will be in waiting queue minimum half an hour.

Thumbnail of user fionabusiness2021
1 review
2 helpful votes
April 17th, 2023

We had a very bad experience for transfering money oversea in HSBC. One bank manager helped us to transfer the money by using three weeks then told us the amount was huge so we needed to wait for another week. We cant bare with another weeks then we went to the bank again and he did not explain what was happened, And ask us try another branch. The other bank manager told us he canceled the transferring on last Friday without our consent. We did not contact him until Saturday. He said he was mistaken. How dare you can access our bank account and canceled the payment without our agreed. Sigh. I thought transferring money in this international bank would be more safer and easier., I dun know what can we right now. They already wasted a month on this issue!

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user alexisj83
1 review
4 helpful votes
August 9th, 2020

I needed to speak to HSBC urgently having been made redundant to discuss mortgage options. I was placed in hold for a queue time reported as 25 minutes. 2 hours 25 minutes later still on hold the line went dead. This occurred 3 times over the next 5 days for times caring from 90-145 minutes. Eventually I e-nailed a complaint to my local MP (Who just happens to be head of the BBA) and someone at HSBC then called me being very helpful. I wrote a complaint to HSBC and the response was that if I chose to call HSBC then that was my issue as I could fill out the mortgage holiday form online and therefore like always they could not be held accountable. I wrote a further response to this highlighting I did not want a mortgage holiday and even if I did the call option was a service HSBC offer and therefore they are obligated to offer it in a transparent and fair way. At this point they gave the normal nonsense about them adding to statistics to improve customer service. As this is one of many issue with HSBC arrogant attitude to customers I pushed this no further and have now opened an account elsewhere while I shut down my HSBC accounts. I suggest everyone else do the same if you want any form of customer service and competent services at that too.

Thumbnail of user jamesh2651
61 reviews
85 helpful votes
March 12th, 2022

I've been a customer of HSBC for a while. Customer service has gone from okay, to bad, to non existent. When will they stop using covid as an excuse for bad service? Covid is gone, but wait times to contact customer service is just getting longer. I asked a simple question on the chat "service" in their phone app... 43 minutes and NO REPLY! I called them and waited on hold for 36 minutes... never spoke to anyone but a useless computer AI. I'm finished. No more HSBC. I'll find a bank that actually places a little more value on their customers. Don't waste your time with this bank. They want your money, but don't provide you with even the most rudimentary customer service. The stupid guides they provide online are absolutely NO substitute for a human being. Those who call customer service usually have a unique problem that requires human intervention. HSBC denies you that human contact.
Edit... I've since moved to a different bank. Most of the problems I had with HSBC have been solved. Avoid this scam bank at all costs... there are much better banks out there...

Tip for consumers:
Don't bother. HSBC is not worth the time or the problems.

Products used:
No, I didn't post a photo, because my banking details will NEVER be posted on the internet. I'm finished with HSBC. Other banks offer superior customer service where HSBC provides NONE!

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user lemonp9
7 reviews
9 helpful votes
December 12th, 2017

A high st bank in runcorn ches uk has just robbed a vunerable person out of 5 quid, she counted the money 5 mikes away and I witnessed her count it 29 x tens and a fiver 295 quid but the lady on the till was suppose to exchange the 300 in 20's for tens? I phoned the bank and got a load of crap off the nice malat woman,? Should I call the police, i mean hsbc are reknowned by media for funny goings on, ect ect but it could be a mistake? REFUNDED

Thumbnail of user sweeq
31 reviews
50 helpful votes
May 7th, 2018

If I could give zero stars to HSBC Premier, I most certainly would. My recent experience has been a catalogue of disasters. They initially claimed to have sent my credit cards at the end of last month but it still hadn't arrived after 3 weeks. I then contacted HSBC "Premier" service and was dealt with by an associate who obviously is pretty ignorant & poorly trained. She declared that they could not courier the cards to me, but subsequently another associate told me that that would be no problem. In any event, the original cards arrived after 3 1/2 weeks and I had them validated over the phone. Surprise, surprise, they were declined for ALL payment transactions because they had been cancelled by HSBC. How the associate managed to validate cancelled card is still beyond my comprehension. Many, many calls and long long waits later, my new credit cards finally arrived. However, I have just received HSBC SMSs to say that there have been fraud alerts and that the transactions on my cards have been declined. All these transactions were legitimate and there seemed no reason to suspect otherwise. It seems that HSBC is hellbent on giving as much grief as possible to their (even "Premier") customers. A more pathetic, Incompetent and unprofessional bank I have yet to come across. Absolutely appalling!

Tip for consumers:
Go to another bank! Metrobank has FAR better service!

Products used:
HSBS Premier credit card

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user alexisj55
1 review
4 helpful votes
August 3rd, 2019

Used HSBC for the mortgage on a new property. Simply put we were 'porting' our current HSBC mortgage from the old to the new house and taking out a second HSBC mortgage to cover the difference. The maths was Mortgage 1 + mortgage 2 = the price of the new house (minus what we put in in terms of equity on the old property)

HSBC applied the following maths. Mortgage 1 - mortgage 2 = £97,000 short of what we needed. I voiced concern this was wrong and this was ignored for 10 weeks straight, despite repeated e-mails and phone calls. 2 days before exchange our lawyers got involved and pointed this out. HSBC finally accepted the mistake as one of the advisors having messed up. I expressed dismay that the mistake wasn't picked up by underwriting and the fact theres a single point of failure that can go all the way through to exchange.

I wrote a letter asking HSBC to alter their procedures so no single mistake could go through to exchange without a second check to detect it, a relatively easy process to employ. HSBC refused stating it was 'too difficult' to implement this. From someone that works in a safety related industry where procedures change the whole time I know this not to be true. HSBC then suggested it was the lawyers that were to blame, ironic when it was the lawyers that THEY INSISTED i use. That cost me £1004 in cancelled legal fees from the original lawyers I instructed. Again HSBC denied any wrong doing as it's in their terms and conditions. I might also remind them 'learning from mistakes and putting things right is also in the T&Cs but they failed to do that by refusing to change very poor procedures. HSBC then went on to suggest I was the second line of defence on mistakes and I should have picked up the mistake. I pointed out I was not a financial adviser but I had highlighted a mistake and I had been ignored. Ironically then HSBC seemed to ignore me when I further pushed this point. I would summarise they actively encourage weak procedures so they can use plausible deniability. In the end I was offered £250 and the ombudsman agreed this was fair because the legal issue and the procedures issue they do not look into as it's not their area of responsibility. I contacted the FCA who seemed largely disinterested but 'added it to their statistics'.

Thumbnail of user anng74
5 reviews
3 helpful votes
September 19th, 2017

All within last 12 months:
Payments to airline direct booking site withheld BY HSBC twice in 24hr period when funds were available in account. Complaint to bank lead to a denial of any block in place but airline records confirmed that the bank had in fact withheld payment twice.
HSBC has an online Chat service that should permit speedy resolution of any difficulty using the bank's website. The Chat logo onscreen does not guarantee the service is in operation.
Setting up new payees is supported by the bank's mini security device generating a one-time code which has to be entered onscreen. The code may be rejected without explanation when you type it in onscreen and, if the Chat service happens to be 'resting', there is no way to set up the payee without a telephone call and multiple security questions. A long delay if one needs to make a fast payment.

Thumbnail of user rb147
1 review
5 helpful votes
March 9th, 2018

After being an HSBC UK customer for 8 years, they froze my account for being inactive/dormant after a few months (I hadn't used it in a while), and also froze my telephone banking for some reason. I don't currently live in the UK, so could not go into a branch in person to "verify my identity".

After calling for 6 months and repeatedly asking for a letter/code to unfreeze my telephone banking (in order to then re-open my dormant account), no letter came. When I called, the customer service agents could not confirm the address they were sending the letter to for "my security", because my telephone banking was frozen. I would later find out that they were sending the letter (WITH SECURE INFORMATION) to the wrong address. But they could not tell me this. If this sounds Kafka-esque and ridiculous and illogical, trust me, it was.

I went into an HSBC US branch and begged them to call the UK bank to get my account unfrozen. After an hour on the phone, we were able to get my telephone banking unfrozen, but not my dormant account reactivated, because they have bizarre address and ID confirmation policies (what they are trying to confirm, I don't understand, because all of the addresses are easily changeable either on their website or through my other banks).

No policies are consistent. None of their staff seem to know or understand their policies for basic things like unfreezing an account. I would absolutely NEVER recommend this bank to anyone. I will likely be closing my account after I get it unfrozen (it still isn't).

Thumbnail of user junaidm
3 reviews
4 helpful votes
Thumbnail of user matthewj398
2 reviews
1 helpful vote
November 14th, 2022

They had improved the login service, but today i tried to login and it said already logged in so tried to log off then loads of nonsense came up, so i gave up.

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