More Headbanging Heartache With HSBC.....

HSBC designs every process and procedure that one has to do with the explicit intention of protecting their own asses in the event that something doesn't go right. This is why we have these stupid decoder thingies that "protect" the security of our accounts, but really its a way to save the bank valuable time and effort with the boneheads that give out their private data to phishers and other miscreants. So, all of the rest of us have to suffer while the handful of idiots get their money protected and HSBC can go back to sleep.

So, today, I had another lovely experience with HSBC. I have been busy the past couple of days with work and I just got to the bank minutes before it closed to get my subscription agreement for the LINK REIT. The subscription period ends tomorrow at noon, so I have to get it in quickly.

Of course, I picked up the wrong color form, the white one instead of the yellow one so I couldn't fill it out tonight. So, instead, I figured that I would do it online to save time and effort.

I was to prove ridiculously wrong that this would save time and effort by creating massive amounts of confusion in my sore little brain over the 2 hours that it took to straighten out the mess.

So, I went to the website and found that if I applied for a IPO loan, that I can get a 2% rebate. Great, so I applied for 150,000 shares that would cost a maximum of nearly HK$1.5 million. [Remember, that I only expect to get an allocation of less than 10% anyway so don't get all concerned with the large amount of money!] Of course I do not have that kind of liquidity available so we are allowed to borrow up to 90% of the subscription. So I poked around after filling out my online form looking for the loan application. It was nowhere to be found. Additionally, I forgot to write down my reference number from the application process and there was no resulting email from HSBC detailing what I had done. What a pain in the ass.

So, I called up several of the recorded lines and found that after about 6 times, I could get someone online that could answer my questions.

To my chagrin, I found out that joint accounts cannot apply online for an IPO loan. Of course I asked why not and she said that this was the rule. I asked her why this is a rule and she didn't know. Of course the reason why is that HSBC has figured that if a joint account holder can take out a loan without the consent of the other, that this may somehow open them up to liability or something and therefore punish us joint account holders by restricting our ability to do things. They figure that if someone takes out a loan and then absconds with the money, then joint account holder can claim that they never knew and try to weasel out of the liability. But with the IPO loan, the funds are only really a book entry and the go directly to the underwriters and gets paid back to the original account after the underwriting is completed. So there is no chance that a joint account holder can abscond with the loan.

Additionally, in usual Hong Kong fashion, the person at the other end of the line tried to explain to me that I was wrong and didn't read the section that explained that joint account holders cannot do this. She even claimed that there was a pop-up and I told her that if their was, I wouldn't be wasting my time on this call sweetie. Large Hong Kong companies always try to explain to the customer that they are wrong and didn;t do things correctly. Its the anti-matter service world of the "customer is always right" culture that I came from.

Its a problem that I have encountered over-and-over at this bank where they require blizzards of paperwork for the most mundane transactions in the name of protecting the joint account holder. Even if the transaction isn't as big. As my wife exclaimed to one of the automatons at the bank, I can take out all of themoney in the account if I so should desire right now, but you won't allow me to do these little types of transactions that have even less impact on my joint account holder!

This bank is just frustrating to deal with. I don't understand why I am still with them now. They are the most expensive one around and although they have legions are helpful young people diligently following the rules, things just take an extraordinary amount of time and troubles arise for reasons that I cannot comprehend.