HSBC Bank Sends Activated Debit Cards Through Mail

Knowzy writes "At least two divisions at HSBC Bank apparently failed card issuing 101 and are mailing out debit cards pre-activated. Because they are debit cards, fraudulent transactions come directly out of a victim's checking account. A similar report from 2004 suggests this issue is longstanding and widespread. When confronted with the evidence, HSBC would not commit to fixing this issue, preferring instead to offer vague statements like, 'Through our systems and analytics, we focus on the greatest and most active threats in an effort to avoid negatively impacting customer experience.'"

Comments

tell em how you feel...

[metalmaster]

HSBC Customer Service (1.800.975.4722) HSBC Bank USA, N.A. P.O. Box 2013 Buffalo, NY 14240 https://www.hsbctaxpayerfinancialservices.com/htax/Cust/inquiry If it were my bank I'd take my money and walk....

Re:tell em how you feel...

[Space cowboy]

I have an HSBC debit card. My credit score is in the high 800's. Since I only like to spend money I actually have, they make sense to me.

With a debit card, if someone ever steals your card or its number they can drain your entire checking account and that money is gone.

Not true. As it happens, just recently my debit card was used fraudulently online, and pretty much emptied the account to the tune of ~$4,500. The bank phoned me up, asked me which of the purchases were mine, I told them, and they ordered me a new (unactivated, for the record) debit card, refunded (immediately, as in, the money was there when I logged in while talking to the agent on the phone) all the cash, and asked me if there was anything else they could do. The new card arrived two days later by courier (and the courier company phoned me the night before to tell me I should expect a to-sign-for package).

All told, I'm pretty impressed with HSBC. It's the only bank I know of where you can see accounts in different countries and transfer money internationally in real-time. Since I'm a Brit living in the US, this helps me a lot. I can transfer money from my US account to my UK account, then immediately transfer funds from my UK account to pay bills/family members/whatever. Way better than my "toys" account at Wells Fargo, who don't actually let you transfer money out of your account to another bank via their online system.

HSBC on the other hand have an online form where you type in the details, and if it can't be done automatically, a human will do all the leg-work for you, so I can transfer money out of Wells Fargo using the HSBC website, which is pretty cool too.

Simon.

Re:Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation

[_merlin]

They aren't Chinese - they British. They were incorporated in London in 1990 and have been headquartered in London since 1993. Even the Wikipedia page will tell you that.

Pre-Activated Cards should not be mailed. Period.

[Psaakyrn]

The problem is not with mailing, it's with pre-activation. The customer has to be made to activate manually to confirm that they did receive the card anyway. Activating manually generally requires user credentials. This can be done online, saving the hassle of having to go to a bank personally. (required: key from issued card + key from user account)

Also, if "the fraudsters know branches are slack about correctly checking ID and obtaining a fake or doctored ID is trivial", I have more issues with the bank than just the mailing of cards. Switch banks ASAP.

Why to avoid debit with HSBC

[Robotron23]

An elderly relative of mine is with HSBC. Being quite savvy she liked to browse the Internet for bargains, and inevitably her search took her to eBay. Long story short a scammer sent a faulty item, lifting about £65/$100 from her debit card as payed through Paypal. Obviously the cardinal rule of debit card use is to avoid using one online as much as possible...never use one on eBay.

With what is certainly an anomaly in Paypal's so expertly rendered services that we now expect of a caring quasi-bank, she found herself delayed from getting her money back. Meanwhile our scammer had apparently left or been banned from Fleabay. So she called HSBC, citing the 'debit protection' they'd included with her current account.

Explaining the incident to the first man somewhere on the subcontinent was a nightmare. To his credit he seemed very pleased to help, but his listening skills and speaking style were out of touch with a native British English speaker. Simply put my relative couldn't understand half of what he was saying...and the calls degenerated into his profuse apologizing and her asking him to speak slower, politely.

This went on for a few more calls, two more foreign customer service people abroad went on - until eventually the lodged claim had enough clarity that it warranted getting a person who spoke better. Eventually an employee with English much closer to that of a typical Briton got on the phone, and despite being strenuously nagged over this seventy quid refused to pay because it was against the bank's policy to refund debit transactions.

But it all ended well as my relation had a cash ISA with the bank - it took a politely worded threat of changing accounts and ISA to a competitor before firmly requesting a superior a few times before an apparant manager reneged on HSBC's refusal and refunded the account in full. A whole lot of headaching for all concerned bar our scammer who apparently did a bunk with a nice chunk of change.

Moral of the story is to casually check with older/quite naive people who have the Internet but are not as experienced with the world of online shopping. Use credit cards not debit cards; if they are suspicious of credit explain it to them. Else they might have to talk to 'John or 'Richard' or 'Hannah' over at the other end of the commonwealth for hours chasing up. My family member was lucky judging by all the horror stories of 'debit protection' floating around.