HSBC Reviews 160

HSBC blocked access to our account without warning. They claimed that information was missing despite the fact that we had supplied that information twice in the previous six month. We are still in the process of regaining access. Certainly not a safe place to keep our money as ex-pats.

Impossible to get hold of anyone other than customer service who are not qualified to help in any meaningful way. Has so far not been able to tell me what has happened to a large sum of money that has been missing for 2 weeks. RM in jersey will not answer email or request for call.

Took weeks longer to open account. Except cannot get into the account as there was a typo in our mobile number, so they cannot text you the phone banking PIN. Without that you cannot get into anything.
Going through alternative security asks for questions you don't know as you've never been into the account, e.g. what is your overdraft, what products do you have. You can only answer truthfully "I don't know", but then you fail the verification. The only advise is that you should go into branch --- riiiiight.
Chat and phone help are useless and stuck on their scripts. Email to head office goes un answered.
Was almost ready to send most of life's savings to this account. That cannot get in is perhaps a blessing now in hindsight.

Avoid like the plague.

Hours spent on the phone, unhelpful, they do not follow through. Horrible customer service. I've had a transaction reverted, they do not acknowledge it, say they need 6 weeks to resolve it and don't even send me the email to make the claim.

What a horrible bank! No one would help you. I tried to close a current account and it has been more than one month that the account is still open. Calling and messaging were useless. Staff have no knowledge to help whatsoever.

I have been trying to OPEN a "HSBC Expat Account online" for over 1 week. As supposedly ONLINE is the only way to open an ExPat HSBC A/C based in Jersey.
The website does not work correctly to allow a new customer to continue past page 2 OR sometimes page 3.
I call their "so called" phone service line I am kept waiting for over 40 minutes then I speak with a person whom does not speak the English language good enough to understand anything that I am advising. Eventually the "non understanding foreigner" advises they will send me an email to confirm our conversation..... NO email is ever received? Altogether a terrible experience, HSBC expat .com can fall into the depths of obscurity as that is where they belong to be!
NO CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE WHATSOVER, I advise STAY AWAY from this offshore Bank!!!

My recent experience is the same as most of the reviews below - terrible. I have been an expat customer for 30 years and it was not always this way. The main issue is communication with their help centre. Written correspondence is impossible. They have no email address. Secure messages via their platform go unanswered. Their agents are very pleasant but are incapable of solving even simple problems.

I have been 14 yers an HSBC Expat Customer.
My account has been closed in 2021 without notice and my founds have NOT been returned. Call center is useless and sais it cannot acess my information because I am NOT a CUSTOMER anymore.
This is a scam and all of us need to do something like a class action. I am missing 50KGBP to date. Happy to pay whoever wants to share the Lawyer expenses

Opened up an account here because threshold to be premier is lower than in other countries (those where I can be sure my deposits are safe anyway... looking at you Turkey). I essentially only use this to earn guaranteed fixed income so I can't review other investments or credit cards.

The process to open was painfully slow; partly my fault for not having the right documents but also theirs. A few days after application I think I got an email, saying that they need to interview me and the earliest slot was over two weeks away. The call itself was about 30 min long and was essentially all about me reciting my work history and how much I earned at each job. Unfortunately the call quality was subpar so I had to ask the staff to repeat themselves many times. Be aware that they call the number you specified in your application from Jersey and may incur international call charges. From application to receiving acceptance email it took a total of 6 weeks. Then an additional 3 weeks to receive the physical secure key to gain access to my account (no phone apps for me).

Once inside the system works well, I can purchase fixed term deposits with ease and earn passive income. Chat support is not bad, RM took a while to respond though.

Funding most of the time was fee-free (in USD) but seems like for larger deposits (>10k I guess) HSBC US intermediary takes a small cut, probably due to extra money laundering checks so be aware.

Overall not bad, just sign up takes forever due to all the regulation they have to deal with.

I am astonished at how bad HSBC EXPAT's customer service and support is. Emails and secure messages goes unanswered. On phone / call centre I am given the wrong info (MULTIPLE TIMES through 2021 and 2022). Lately I even get lied to on phone. "Customer relationship manager" has no authority nor ability to sort anything out...can simply connect me to "customer service". Other times Call centre advise me I should go to Relationship manager...while relationship manager referred me to call centre.... Unbelievable

I recently opened an expat account in Channel Islands with HSBC. I'm not sure I could be more disappointed with their customer service and systems on general. What a negative experience. I would definitely recommend looking elsewhere.

I have been with HSBC for over 30 years, and with Expat for about 5 years. As long as you do all your banking online, things are generally smooth. Try calling support or using the online support, be prepared to get the run-around from offshore support personnel who have no idea of what they are doing. Try contacting your relationship manager?, good luck, they do not respond to emails or answer calls unless you book an appointment. And if you receive an email requesting additional information, it’s from an unmonitored email address. Ding dong HSBC Expat, if you don’t need your customers, please let us know as we don’t want to waste your time.

DESPICABLE. HSBC has horrendous service. I opened the account, they asked for standard info address etc. I duly gave all info they requested. Then their "safeguard" team kept harassing me monthly for the same info i already provided. I resent all the info they requested, and yet they continue to harass.

Then I informed them I was moving countries. These cut my card in the middle of the move leaving me stranded in a foreign country with no access to my own money. Please, HSBC is a despicable institution, do yourself a favor and find a better bank and skip the heart ache.

One of the most pathetic banks ever dealt with customer service and team is pathetic honestly I heard so much good about them and now when actually I started dealing with them realized they pathetic holds money for no reason and states that it’s returned and funny thing is sender is also me and when I called my sending bank they showed proof that funds not been refunded but they claim it’s refunded and no evidence or proof or any document team is pathetic disrespectful hate to deal with them

Consistently dreadful.
Years of experience on multiple continents, repeat requests, around in circle KYC requirements, Kafka-esque bureaucracy, going nowhere box ticking, faceless email addresses which won't accept customer mails, the list is too long and arduous to bear recording and complaining. It's pushing a rock up a hill to deal with HSBC. In due course will take my seven figure account elsewhere. Dreadful.

HSBC expat offered an account opening bonus, didn't process my application, tried to claim I was too late to open. Later they admitted liability for the bonus, only thereafter to repeatedly claim I was inegligible. Still waiting to receive the money they claimed they would pay as a gesture of goodwill.

Generally extremely poor phone helpdesk - always claiming high call volumes, operators do not have functional audio, operators have no power and very slow, very easy to locked out.

There is one good thing about HSBC expat - the online banking platform. Even the competitors say it is good. As for the rest, just awful awful awful. My so called relationship manager doesn’t return calls and offers appointments with him in a week’s time, also needing 3 reminders to respond to enquiries over a period of weeks. They routinely lose applications. And if I ever speak to the expat team apart from the RM, they have a well worked avoidance of strategy of first claiming the person is not there, after a long hold, then that person saying they are not able or authorised to take action but they have marked the message for that person as urgent. Then nothing happens. As so the cycle continues, have been through multiple times. Even my attempt to talk to someone senior in the organisation was blocked. 3 times I asked the RM to be changed, 3 times it was ignored, 4th time lucky. For all the talk of being there when you need them, at a time of moving countries they were just unresponsive and unhelpful throughout. If your needs are simply for an online platform, they’ll do. Anything else, any human involvement, any kind of assistance…don’t be fooled by the PR.

The requirements to open this account…

The requirements to open this account are absurd!! 100K min pay??? Or 50K min maintained at all times!! Unobtainable for most except top VPs or CEO's of international banks, who probably don't even need this kind of account with such a top salary.

I am premier customer. I only ring a few times a year to sort out a couple of issues and waiting is always very long. When I do get through I asked simple questions such about transfer costs to other banks, timing of money transfer and takes very long time for operator to respond and question now how trained the staff are if cannot quickly answer relatively un complicated questions. I also explored expat mortgage and apparently did not fit criteria even after 10 years banking them, I had no problem when asked next provider. I have free banking in UK with another bank and their service is much better. I will probably close account down in next 12 months as very disappointed in so called top tier account.

I have been trying to deal with the bereavement of an account holder with HSBC Expat.
It has to be one of the most bizarre contact methods I have ever experienced. They send emails on an account which does not allow responses. So, if you reply to their questions, your email gets bounced back. This is not mentioned anywhere.I had to do some research and found an alternative email address. I'm still waiting for a reply to an email I sent over 5 months ago.When I telephone them, they appear concerned that I've had no reply but cannot put me through to the bereavement team. All they can do is tell the bereavement team that I will be sending an email!
The process is already distressing and complex. HSBC just magnify the problem. At the moment, there is no prospect of completing probate. I have to contrast their performance with that of Lloyds International. They immediately provided me with a contact name and number. They also provided clear instructions to complete the process. Forms were emailed straight to me. It took about 2 days to achieve what HSBC have still failed to complete in 6 months. Years later, I still have no resolution to this issue. HSBC are truly the worst.