near impossible to get through to hsbc these days.. 30mins of music and call centres all in India.

Recommend a good bank where a UK person picks up the phone fairly quickly.. thsnkd

Co-op and RBS work fine for me.

30mins of music and call centres all in India.

So are you complaining about the amount of time spent on hold, or having to talk to someone in India, or both?

Cheers will have a look at co-op

Complaining about both.

I worked for HSBC (car ordering….) when the call centers moved to India. Some came over for training and were great people so so issues there. The fact that they have to give themselves British names is a joke though. If HSBC were proud of their penny pinching then they should at least allow staff to use their own names and not try and con people into thinking that the call centers are still local.

I’ve been setting my mortgage up with them. The times I’ve had a call them I’ve got through wihtin minutes to the UK.

Drac – I had that too with my mortgage but normal banking where they make little to no profit and your getting the music treatment.

Always got through to them in a few mins, but their new internet banking site is driving me up the wall.

I still remember getting charged for using one of their cash points while in Australia. We purposefully went out of our way to find an HSBC one as I (naively) assumed I wouldn’t be charged because I was an HSBC customer.
At the time, they were calling themselves The World’s Local Bank. I called to complain upon my return & the call centre chap couldn’t see why I might be annoyed that I got charged for using an HSBC cash machine abroad seeing as they billed themselves as The World’s Local Bank. He just kept saying “But HSBC Australia is nothing to do with HSBC in the UK”……

Thinking of jumping ship to Barclays. We’ve got our Mortgage with them (well, Woolwich) and ING got bought by Barclays so all my accounts got moved over…..not had any issues so far and the website it a joy to use. Last time I had a query about our mortgage, the bloke dealt with it all really well & sorted it out with the minimum of fuss.

Barclays online and mobile app banking is great.

HSBC internet is crap but I like the terminals in the branches, although they are closing a lot of branches.

gobuchul – Member

Barclays online and mobile app banking is great.

HSBC internet is crap but I like the terminals in the branches, although they are closing a lot of branches.

Oh, that’s another reason. There used to be an HSBC & Barclays down the road – the HSBC closed down, so we’re down to a Barclays now. I know that’s no guarantee that the Barclays won’t close, but it’s another reason to swap.

HMRC… 70 minutes on the phone to them yesterday trying to sort out my self assessment. Four departments, two giving the same answer for one thing, one giving the opposite and the last just after money.

Banks though, Lloyds are no worse than the rest and their call centres are in the UK.

I call the Welsh language line and go through without any problem. Hopefully, they will keep this service seeing as they are cutting costs at the moment again.

they should at least allow staff to use their own names and not try and con people into thinking that the call centers are still local.

I think the idea is to make it easier for you to talk to them with a familiar sounding name, I don’t think anyone’s really going to be conned when they hear the accent!

It’s the same with the Chinese people I deal with in my work, a lot of them take western names apparently to make it easier for us to work with them. TBH I find it a bit patronising, I’m sure I could manage a half decent effort at most Chinese names.

For the full ‘right on’ bank then Nationwide tick the boxes, mutual etc. (Co-Op bank got part sold to venture capital companies)

The FlexPlus account costs £10 a month but you get lots of insurance guff for it and Money Saving Expert rate it.

The £10 includes worldwide travel, car breakdown and mobiles +others.

First Direct seem to have sorted themselves out after a blip in their call answering times. Given that they are HSBC in another guise, you may just be able to shuffle over to them instead.

I still remember getting charged for using one of their cash points while in Australia. We purposefully went out of our way to find an HSBC one as I (naively) assumed I wouldn’t be charged because I was an HSBC customer.
At the time, they were calling themselves The World’s Local Bank. I called to complain upon my return & the call centre chap couldn’t see why I might be annoyed that I got charged for using an HSBC cash machine abroad seeing as they billed themselves as The World’s Local Bank. He just kept saying “But HSBC Australia is nothing to do with HSBC in the UK”……

Sounds familiar. I set up an account in Canada off the back of that advert, and it cost more to wire money from HSBC in Canada to HSBC in the UK than it did from a Canadian bank. Barstads.

I think the idea is to make it easier for you to talk to them with a familiar sounding name, I don’t think anyone’s really going to be conned when they hear the accent!

You must live in a very ‘white’ part of the UK.

You must live in a very ‘white’ part of the UK.

The accent of an Indian living and working in India is completely different from a immigrant who has been living in the UK for a good few years.

It’s perfectly obvious that the call centre is in India.

I’m with First Direct and have been for about 15 years now, and even though I’ve been looking for an excuse to leave them, every time I interact with them I decide to stay. Always speak to a nice Scottish person somewhere in Scotland, always offer me great rates, the internet service and app seems to work fine for me and every time I over spend and break my overdraft limit they automatically extend it and call me up and sort me out avoiding any additional overdraft charges. So even though I don’t get much from them in terms of free stuff or interest (no significant savings anyway) the customer service in my experience is pretty much the best I get from any service provider I use.

The wife is with HSBC. They’re OK too in her experience, but she’s not had to call them for a while.

Always got through to them in a few mins, but their new internet banking site is driving me up the wall.

Agreed – it is utterly dreadful. I can’t believe they launched that abomination without doing any UX/UI research.

I thought you were meaning this

https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/content/hsbc-petition-share-donate

Recommend a good bank where a UK person picks up the phone fairly quickly.. thsnkd

First Direct who, ironically, are part of HSBC.

Until recently the Co-op bank were excellent, with their call centre in Manchester, very friendly staff and no waiting, at all! The waiting times are now a tad longer but the new website is a joke. I’ve had to reset all my security details 3 times since they implemented the new system as it sometimes forgets to ask me to use the silly little card reader thing. Their fraud department doesn’t find it strange to send customers Emails from “Fraud-dep.com” asking you to phone them on a special number, “not your normal number, as we need to speak to you urgently!”
I’ve moved to Lloyds. No issues so far.
Thinking about Handelsbanken, a Swedish bank growing rapidly in the UK, with proper old fashioned bank managers who make all the decisions about their customers and branch.

Another shout for firstdirect, they are sufficiently arm’s length from HSBC to not get drawn into their outsourcing approach. Good online, app and in person service. There is normally a wedge of cash on offer for transferring to them as well.

Dunno if this works for HSBC, but it does for first direct when they’re particularly busy – call them on the number they give you for calling them from abroad, it jumps the queue. Bonus if you’re in Leeds as it’s a Leeds phone number so still a local call..

hsbc just announced theyre shuting another 55 branches. so even more crap service.

HSBC internet is crap but I like the terminals in the branches, although they are closing a lot of branches.

Barclays, Natwest and Santander are going through a rationalisation of their branch network too. HSBC have been the first to announce it as the major players have signed an agreement to try not to leave communities with no banking facilities, it’ll be a race to close as many small branches as possible before being the last one standing makes it harder to justify. In the Cardiff area in the last 12 months 3 HSBC’s, 4 Santander’s and 5 Natwest’s have closed in the last 6 months with more to be announced around April. Barclays culled a lot in 2015 and are looking at more. If your local branch of any Bank hasn’t received the ‘new look’ treatment (ie the new self-serve machines and open air cashiers desks) then it’s most likely up for closure consideration.

I’ve had enough with HSBC, been using them for 20 years, but their internet banking and mobile app is just terrible now, fed up with it and will be looking to move when I move to my new house in 2 months (hsbc not local)
options are Barclays, Nationwide, Natwest and Halifax

hsbc just announced theyre shuting another 55 branches. so even more crap service.

Is it though? Lloyds have similarly said they’re intending to shut 200 branches or so, but apparently many have less than 20 customers per week. My local branch was closed a few years back. 50 years ago it might have been busy but I never once saw anyone in there aside from the two cashiers. It was certainly handy but must have cost Lloyds a small fortune.

Nationwide is not a bank. It’s a Building Society. An aggressive operator but in theory a Building Society.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Looks like first direct are the best for customer service and a £125 switching offer on.

first direct are owned by hsbc

Brexit won’t bring the jobs back.. 🙄

CRM has been in India for 15+ years, it’ll stay there until another country offers up cheap labour.

The infrastructure for the telephony works on hamsters wheels and a 12 year old yoof on 1roupee a day diverts your complaints.