Hsbc Reviews 410

The worst banking experience of my life. From aggressively unhelpful staff to sky high charges and zero customer service. This bank beggars belief.

Terrible service in HSBC France! I have been unsuccessfully trying to get the most simple service done for more than a year, which in any other normal bank can be finished in 5 minutes.
Staff is totally unprofessional and clueless about their job.
Never open an account in this bank cause you will sign up for torture and frustration.

I'm going to make this execution of HSBC France as scything and brutally quick as the guillotine itself.
For the time I worked in France I banked with the HSBC. Why not? I mean i had done so on numerous occasions: HSBC Hong Kong, HSBC SABB, HSBC UAE, HSBC Jersey, and HSBC UK. Once I quit the country, I left the account open on the proviso that one day i might return to enjoy the cassis fruits of French living. On reflection, i wish I hadn't. Trying to obtain something as simple as a secure key for remote control of what funds are in there has been attempted from all angles and to no avail. Whether it be by phone, email or letter, it matters not. They give you a cursory reply before seceding from any other correspondence. Is this down to incompetence, the Gallic shrug, or something more insidious, i.e. trying my patience until finally i give up and bequeath the money in there to them? Short of holding up the damn thing to claim what's rightfully mine, how do you reason with a bank that seems to do just fine in other countries of the world? Clearly, I'm left to deduce that it's not the bank, per se, rather it's the folks that run it (into the ground) and the practices they routinely employ. In the true tradition of French absurdism, herein we have a bank that eschews the customer as if it was the debt-laden customer and the customer were the bank trying to chase it for what is owed. Persistence does not always pay dividends. In this case, it pays nothing.

I would give HSBC France zero stars if possible. I have lived in multiple countries due to my job, have opened bank accounts in these countries, yet have never experienced a lack of customer service like at HSBC France. The people who work there are completely indifferent about your business. They really do not care. They make promises about benefits that you'll receive by being an HSBC client to get your business, then not deliver on those promises. When you call customer service, they will tell you that they'll work on the issue and call you back at a specific time - however this is ploy to get you off the phone. They will not ever call you back as promised. If you manage to see your branch focal point to discuss issues, they will suggest several solutions then promise to call you at a specific time to give you an update, however the solutions will never materialize, and neither will the phone call. In fact, the branch focal-point will then avoid you like the plague for a follow-up meeting. In short, it appears that HSBC France staff say whatever it takes to make you go away in that moment, then avoid you completely. I have never encountered laziness and apathy like this...ever. I'm now looking for another bank.

Nice personnel, good online banking services, small fees.

I have just moved into to France for work and I already had an HSBC account in Egypt (my home) so I thought it would be easier to transfer money between the two accounts.

I opened their website and I found "become a customer in 48 hours" by applying online. So I submitted my documents online but for my surprise it took them 5 working days to validate them. I said okay I am a foreigner and it should be normal. Then they told me to transfer 200 euros to activate the account and the account will be activated in 48 hours (yup now it is 7 working days in total).

I did the transfer and I thought that was it and the account will be opened. To my surprise again they told me that we will a few days (they did not specify how many days" to actually have the account and the account number.

Now I am in a difficult situation because I might not be able to get my august's salary because of the lie they told about the 48 hours

I have been banking with HSBC Hong Kong for 20 years and found their service to be generally excellent. My experience with HSBC France over the last four years, though, has revealed the operation to be consistently inept, absurdly bureaucratic and indifferent at best. My last Premier Counselor/Relationship manager was actually rude to me in an email -- I was astonished.

They seem to have a universal policy of ignoring messages across all departments and branches as a strategy to avoid dealing with clients in any capacity, including their useless complaints department. When you do finally get a response they claim they simply pass you on indefinitely to another department until you give up.

I have limited my interaction with the bank as much as possible to avoid frustration and stress and will be switching to another bank as soon as it is convenient.

Avoid HSBC France like the plague.

So this is a review about the Assurance Vie side of their business - I've already left abysmal rating for the private banking side. So if you are non-resident, and want to make your kids' lives absolute hell when you die, make sure you invest with these people. I had half a lung taken out last year and that was a doddle in comparison with dealing with these people. Over 5 MONTHS and we are no further forward - everyday I check whether they have responded to our solicitor's letter and everyday I check whether they have transferred funds - oh yes, and everyday that is a big, fat "No". They ignore communications you send them and when you actually speak to an individual they always say they will do something about the issue but none of them ever do. They pass it on to someone else and then as far as they are concerned they have done their bit and it is nothing to do with them any more. They make it as complicated and as difficult as they can to deal with them. They give you telephone numbers where either someone never answers at all, or when you get through you are kept waiting an age before you even get through to a person - on one occasion they even kept me waiting on an international call while they called a branch! It doesn't take 5 months to sort this issue out - I've been through it once before with another member of my family but luckily HSBC were not involved then. And basically it is 5 MONTH SO FAR - there's more to come I'm sure of it. So again I've woken up today - so 2 questions: Where is the answer to our solicitor's letter? Where is our money?
09/06/17: I was so incensed after they finally sent me an email on the 6th claiming to have sent us a letter when we have still received nothing that I've started an A-Z on HSBC France and every day I do another letter or the alphabet telling the whole sorry tale of our experiences with them and naming the people within their organisation who have wasted our time. It is on the unofficial HSBC France page on Facebook.
10/06/17: Next stop - the CLCV - the AMF hasn't responded so let's try them.
11/06/17: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY HSBC FRANCE. Exactly 5 calendar months since our letter of the 11th January and.... STILL NOTHING!
14/06/17: What total incompetence we are dealing with here and they just tell you bare-faced lies. They had the nerve to send our solicitor a reminder when they have never sent anything in the first place, and how do they know that? Because we've been telling them for the last 5 months. It's a lettre de mise en demeure now to their CEO Jean Beunardeau - I'm not holding my breath though when a member of their executive committee has already ignored one of my communications.
Like I said above, giving them 1 star is 1 star too many - there should be one for a ZERO rating when it comes to HSBC France.

Have been HSBC client during my expat time in Paris and encountered negative experiences on a steady basis. Processes (e.g. online banking) are the most complicated I ever experienced with any bank.
Emails are answered on a random basis.
My relationship manager cannot be contacted, since I don't get any email address / phone number (due to 'confidentiality reasons' - Do I need a relationship manager, if it's not possible to contact him / her).

Have accounts with a couple of banks, but this is the worst experience I ever made.

If you need client support as an expat, I strongly recommend to not use HSBC.

The most unbelievable amount of senseless red tape you will have ever come across it took us three weeks 19 phone calls and 8 re faxed faxes they lost, to transfer our money to an English bank account after house sale, not one of the people within the bank spoke to another person in the bank or had any form of connected communication system,they use any excuse not to work, finish early on a Friday don't do transfers after 12 o'clock any day,lunch which is still 2 hours....break. Someone in the bank, holiday, bank holiday bank holiday. Their attitude was.... couldn't give a damn. That was 2 months ago.we closed the account...today we received a pin code so that we can talk on the phone....hahahahahahahah

I had to call them twice to make an appointment. They didn't even call me back.
The customer service is very bad. They say they have the right to choose their clients just like, clients have the right to choose there banks but the discrimination I received was not acceptable.
So it was a good thing that I didn't tell them about my inheritance money. :p
Adieu it's your loss, not mine.