HSBC ‘Safeguarding’ calls

[Blue One]

So we are going to have to go through an HSBC ‘Safeguarding’ call for our HSBC business accounts.

Has anyone been through there or know what they entail.

The lady who left a voicemail was from India and her English didn’t sound great which doesn’t instil we with confidence this will be a easy call.

How deep do they go, what are the implications etc?

Any insights appreciated.

Thanks

[StevieBee]

Assuming it's the same thing.......we had this a few years back.

The first approach we ignored because the request was a letter that looked liked it'd been photocopied from a photocopy and full of spelling and grammatical errors. Just assumed it was a scam.

Follow up letter looked more legit so went into a branch and they confirmed the need to call.

From memory, took about 30 mins. They asked for details of certain payments on certain dates, checked that the director info was still current and stuff like that.

Bit of a PIA really but nothing to worry about.

[Blue One]

Thanks

[Rufus Stone]

Do it or they will freeze your account.

And it safeguards you from nothing, it's all about their internal compliance.

[oddball1313]

HSBC are an utter scumbag of a bank.

I can't think of better reason to change bank - any business that relocates its primary connection for it's customers to an Indian call centre staffed by people on £4.00 a day who a:don't care and b: aren't authorised to assist in any problem anyway apart from saying sorry ad nauseum don't deserve to be in business.

Edited by oddball1313 on Monday 19th September 18:57

[FatboyKim]

Had this last week from HSBC. It took some time for them to confirm that they actually were from HSBC and provide some legitimate information, but it was just to confirm shareholders, directors etc.

They called it a 'compliance and security check', and I did question why such checks weren't conducted when the business accounts were opened.

[Autopilot]

Well, you'd think that HSBC would follow the rules but lets not forget they did get pay a $1.9 billion 'fine' for not doing this, a quick search for the bank name and 1.9billion will show you all you need to know.

A word of caution, I was an HSBC customer and went through the Safeguard checks all ok...and they still managed to accidentally close my account! When I opened a new account elsewhere, they said I wasn't the only new customer for this reason.

The painful part is that it took months and I mean MONTHS to get my money back!! I couldn't pay my mortgage, go in to work, nothing, I had no access to money. I phoned them every day and got the usual statement that when they close an account, the cheque for the balance is in the post. That never happened and I can honestly say I was a nervous wreck!