Damn! HSBC screws me good!

NICKG · 07:23 AM

sorry to rant, first off..
So my wife and i have a a few (a total of 3 HSBC credit cards) and we have relatively small balances on them (less than 2400) about 30% of the total available credit. I get an email alert last night about the balance being within 1000 of my limit on my card. Needless to say I am totally freaked because the card has like 1200 on it and the limit is 4000.
I call thinking that someone has fraudulently used the card or something and while on hold I log into the account on line...they lowered the limit so much that it took me to ove 90% use to available credit ratio! This is really bad because this will DRASTICALLY effect my fico and then all the other people will raid their rates on me...I am so pissed at this because I have NEVER been late, always paid over and have had this card for a long time (like 5 years) I spent 2+ hours on the phone and was basically blown off by non english speakers
The fico score will drop now because it will artificaly look like i am maxing my credut out, this was a deliberate malicious act i think and short of closing it, what can i do? (i won't close it till it is at a 0 balance)
I don't need lectures about how i should not carry balances...i used the cards to do work on my house that was wrecked by a builder who ripped me off. (we are slowly pulling all our debt from the house debacle down and have less than 8000 left)I have some $ saved up, but i am NOT gonna use that for this in case i have job loss...this just pisses me off

cmccuist · 02-20-2009, 07:25 AM

Nick, can you do a balance transfer to another card with a higher credit limit?

The credit card people are always looking for people who use the cards and have good scores.

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

HSBC services my mortgage and I hate them with a passion. I'm on their auto-dialer list somehow and it just hangs up as soon as I answer. This has been going on for years and I've called their Indian call centers about it plenty. Never gets fixed. When the post office sorting machine shredded my mortgage check and envelope, HSBC tried to deposit it anyway and then sent it back to me with an explanation from the post office, also telling me they were gonna report me to the credit reporting agencies. WTF? Oh, and this happened while I was in China, so I had a stack of their hate mail waiting for me when I returned. I guess they never noticed that I used their ATM's in China and figured out that's why I wasn't getting my mail in Virginia on those days. I think I'm gonna call in and request a mortgage payoff just to get their attention and maybe one of their native English speakers will call me.

NICKG · 02-20-2009, 07:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmccuist

Nick, can you do a balance transfer to another card with a higher credit limit?

The credit card people are always looking for people who use the cards and have good scores.

no, all of them are tight as a drum with balance transfers right now. that was the first thing i was gonna do, but even with mid 700's for credit they are not available

masraum · 02-20-2009, 07:28 AM

Wow, what a pain in the butt. You need to change banks. Maybe change to a credit union or something.

NICKG · 07:33 AM

the best part is that my wife's card limit was lowered SO much that it is within 35 of it's limit...so i paid $250 to it today but it was at like 99% use to abvailable ration (she had like 1100 and the limit was set 1125 or something, from 7500 prior limit)

I am now gonna ebay a bunch of crap and pay these idiots off
hello recession debt sell off at ebay.com!(i know i am not gonna be alone, look for a huge increase in that)

onewhippedpuppy · 02-20-2009, 08:38 AM

What does carrying a balance have to do with improving your credit score? I didn't have a credit card until I was married at 21, and have never carried a balance. My credit score is in the upper 700s. My wife has never carried a balance in her life and her score is over 800. I think there's a lot of false information our there regarding what will/won't help your credit score.

Just pay the damn things off, as quick as you can. You'll be better off.

exc911ence · exc911ence's Garage

I've had my bank raise my CC limit without my knowledge (or consent) but have never heard of a bank lowering a limit!

vash · vash's Garage

matt, his debt to credit ratio is now all skewed in the wrong direction. that sucks! back when all was hunky doory, the CC companies loved us riding the ragged edge. they would have bumped credit up, to get you more into debt.

what jackasses.

The Gaijin · 02-20-2009, 09:25 AM

This whole "credit score" nonsense based on the same math as they used to rate this mortgage backed securities?

Do these numbers have any basis in reality about your ability or willingness to pay back a debt?

SuperXRAY · 02-20-2009, 09:34 AM

HSBC is a screw job. They repeatedly lied to me on the phone about days that I made payments, with the confirmation number, but wouldn't apply them to my account, thus charging me a late fee...oh and because of the late fee being applied charged an over-balance fee. Again, my payments were on time, but I kept a $280-290 balance on a $300 card to get my weak score back on track from past problems. It is the only reason I had the card.

Their website would go down or links would sometimes work and other times not. Several times, they flagged my account for suspicious activity because I repeatedly had to login to make payments, etc. This resulted in the account being locked and the card unusable until I called them...very useful when I was on the road trying to pay for food.

There are no fluent English speaking employees that you can talk to. The last straw for me was when they locked my account, with a balance of $225. They said they sent me a confirmation letter to 'confirm my address'. Since they hadn't received the confirmation back, even though they didn't send it by certified mail, they locked it. Stupid thing is, they sent it to an address that wasn't even attached to my account...therefore I never got it.

They pride themselves on being able to get away with illegitimate late fees and know that their outsourced call centers can't help you. They charged me a late fee even though I paid 20 days before it was due...saying that they never received the payment. I emailed them the confirmation number, but they refused to apply it.

Don't forget, their RUSH PAYMENT uses the same ACH system as a regular payment, you only pay them $12.95 so that they actually acknowledge a payment is made. That's usually called extortion.

fingpilot · 02-20-2009, 09:40 AM

C'mon guys. The advance notice that this was coming is right there in front of you.

HongkongShanghaiBankCorp. HSBC.

BofA is next. Why not? It's all the same money now.

Next step? Same thing that 'protected' all of Latin America's banks.

Nationalization.

You heard it here first.

NICKG · 02-20-2009, 09:43 AM

the way the figure your score involves your available credit vs your balances. We have balances that are low in relation to our limits(fact of life that we have them, but truthfully we are WAY better off than 95% of the usa). Anything, alledgely, over a 35% ratio of balance to available is a negative towards your credit. Like many others here, we use the cards as we need to, but again i stress that MOST people don't use them responsibly..,.other have the oppositre view and are judgemental and condescnding if you have ANY balance..we are in the middle, our total debit is always coming down and was really the result of fixing our home after we were ripped off by a builder (he left our house completely torn aparts and it at one point had only a partial roof in the back)
Living with that debit is not that bad for me, I know we are still well within our means and we are paying them off. This just comes as a nice suprise that kinda screws us for other things at a time when it really didn't need to happen. (employers use credit scores to hire, other cards regularly view the scores and raise rates if a rapid up tick in useage occurs)
I have managed to save some $ (not alot but a month's salary) to have some emergency funds, but i am not really wanting to use them to pay these off in one chunk and leave me with no savings

to give you scale, we have a 90,000 house, we could have bought a 500,000 house and chose to be fiscally responsible. we then recast the note to bring it up to 130k...and toof the cash to remodel the house (built in the 1880's) the builder did in excess of 70k in damage, and we have in the past 3 years repaired almost all of it save the interior sheetrock that was damaged from weather. we then had a 130 foot 6 foot high retaining wall need replacing (the town mad eus do it) that cost 30k....(we took out a 30k loan for that) still in all our outlay is well less than other around us and we have plenty of room to live. not as good as I could hope, but we are plugging along, climbing out of the hole more and more every month

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

So how do the credit reporting bureaus know my income? I have way more available credit than I earn in a year, probably even goes for my wife's credit and income when all combined. How do they know? Is it based on buying habits or a sliding scale from the time you first applied for the card and listed your income?

SuperXRAY · 02-20-2009, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

So how do the credit reporting bureaus know my income? I have way more available credit than I earn in a year, probably even goes for my wife's credit and income when all combined. How do they know? Is it based on buying habits or a sliding scale from the time you first applied for the card and listed your income?

You'd be surprised at what companies know about you. It's almost scary what is actually reported to credit bureaus, without any real verification of the information.

Rick Lee · Rick Lee's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by SuperXRAY

You'd be surprised at what companies know about you. It's almost scary what is actually reported to credit bureaus, without any real verification of the information.

Unless they see all my W2's and 1099's, how do they know what information is real?

SuperXRAY · 02-20-2009, 10:28 AM

They don't. I have personal experience with that fact. It's a he said, she said business.

I really am sorry about the negativity towards them, but I have no faith or trust in the banking industry and credit bureaus.

therotman · 02-20-2009, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NICKG

the way the figure your score involves your available credit vs your balances. We have balances that are low in relation to our limits(fact of life that we have them, but truthfully we are WAY better off than 95% of the usa). Anything, alledgely, over a 35% ratio of balance to available is a negative towards your credit. Like many others here, we use the cards as we need to, but again i stress that MOST people don't use them responsibly..,.other have the oppositre view and are judgemental and condescnding if you have ANY balance..we are in the middle, our total debit is always coming down and was really the result of fixing our home after we were ripped off by a builder (he left our house completely torn aparts and it at one point had only a partial roof in the back)
Living with that debit is not that bad for me, I know we are still well within our means and we are paying them off. This just comes as a nice suprise that kinda screws us for other things at a time when it really didn't need to happen. (employers use credit scores to hire, other cards regularly view the scores and raise rates if a rapid up tick in useage occurs)
I have managed to save some $ (not alot but a month's salary) to have some emergency funds, but i am not really wanting to use them to pay these off in one chunk and leave me with no savings

It helps your credit score to have a -small balance at the time your credit is run- it shows you can handle debt. Actually carrying the balance and paying interest helps no more than just always using the card and paying it off each month.

Are you buying a house or a car right now?

If not then the lowered limits don't hurt you one bit if you really are going to pay off the balance. Nobody's going to not hire you because your credit score dropped 20 points.

If you are buying a house or car you should wait until this unsecured debt is paid off anyways.

NICKG · 02-20-2009, 01:21 PM

that's good to know, i was not even thinking of buying anything...I am more concerned that this might snow ball to other cards and casue rates to go up more than the fact that the limit is less

911Freak · 02-20-2009, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NICKG

no, all of them are tight as a drum with balance transfers right now. that was the first thing i was gonna do, but even with mid 700's for credit they are not available

Hmmmm...

We just got offers of 0% from BofA, Chase and Cap1, no balance transfer fees, no annual fees etc.

Go online and check it out through Banks websites directly.

Some credit unions are doing the same to bring over responsible consumers.

They are out there guys, we just did this day before yesterday.
Balances offered at 0%: $7000 - $20,000
Terms: 0% for 12 - 18 months

There out there....

We balance transfered the entire balance, paying off the cards entirely and then just left the accounts open to keep the tradeline history.

We had the same thing happen on a bunch of cards we had that carried 0 account balances, they just closed the account in fear we'd max 'em out...dumb move on their part as the more performing accounts they have the better their portfolios are...