[Resolved]  HSBC Credit Card — Undue charges and malpractices by HSBC Credit Card Division

Respected Sir,
I would like to bring to your notice that I was offered a credit card by HSBC in June 2006. The credit card number is [protected]. Since the time I got my credit card, I was never getting any statements. I escalated it to HSBC saying that I would not be paying any late payment fees and statement balance until I recieve my statements and HSBC provided me the user id and password for internet banking. However, since Jan 2007 my internet id stopped working and I escalated it to HSBC to enable my user id or to send me the statements. HSBC never provided me any statements nor they enabled my internet id. I used to call up HSBC customer care and get the statement balance and used to pay it. For the statement month of 10th Feb 2007 to 09th March 2007th, I was levied a late payment charge of 1034.97 as my check was cashed by HSBC on March 10th. I had talked to HSBC customer care and they told me that the charges will be reverted back. However, HSBC never reverted back the chanrges and started late payment fee on the amount thath should have been revrted back. Since I was not getting any statements I was under the assumption that the charges had been reverted back and no payment was due on the credit card. I did not recieve any statements till
Sep 2007 and in Sep 2007 statement, there was a balance of 3207Rs on the card. When I enquire about the transaction details,HSBC never provided me the details. Later on HSBC posted this to CIBIL without informing me.
I would like to make following complaints for HSBC -

1. HSBC customer care officer committed on the phone that the late payment charges would be reverted back however
they never reverted back the charges, in stead they kept on charging the interest.

2. HSBC is not giving me the clarification on some of the statement transactions even after explicityly requesting them tp provide the same information,

3. I had given a request to HSBC to change the contact address, however this was never completed.

4. By not sending me any explicit reminder,HSBC did not comply with its MITC which says "In the event of default (if the minimum amount dues is not paid by the payment due date or breach of any clause of
cardholder agreement), the cardholder will be sent reminders from time to time for payment of any outstandings on
credit card account, by post, fax, telephone, email, SMS messaging and/or through third parties appointed for
collection purpose to remind."

5. As per RBI guidelines (http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=2627&Mode=0) , MITC should have toll free number for custmer care services. However, there is not toll free number provide by HSBC. It was very difficult and expensive for me to talk HSBC cusomter care representative owing to the lack of toll free number.

6. As per RBI guidelines "In case of providing information relating to credit history / repayment record of the card holder to a credit information company (specifically authorized by RBI), the bank/NBFC may explicitly bring to the notice of the customer that such information is being provided in terms of the Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act, 2005." , HSBC should have
contacted me before it escalated the information to CIBIL. However, it was never done.

7. I had raised many requets to HSBC to provide the transaction details , however HSBC clearly did not provide the information
so that it can levy further charges abd benefit illegally by exploiting the customer in the name of CIBIL.

8. As per RBI's guidelines-
"The card issuing bank/NBFC should not reveal any information relating to customers obtained at the time of opening the account or issuing the credit card to any other person or organization without obtaining their specific consent, as regards the purpose/s for which the information will be used and the organizations with whom the information will be shared."
However HSBC clearly sent all the statements to an unknown email id on Aug 12th 2009 without proper verfication process being followed.

9. HSBC had written off my account. I am not sure if there is any accounting method which allows to accumulate interest charges on the written off account. Clearly HSBC is not following proper accounting policies.


Based upon the above, I request you bring justice to this case as HSBC is not helping me in providing any clarification.
Please note that, I would also be looking for the compensation for all the mental harrassment that I have gone through because
of HSBC undue charges, not revering the charges that HSBC commited to revert back thereby misguiding the customer, not providing the statements on time. Please let me know what are the additional documents that I need to provide. I do believe that HSBC
is clearly playing with the week consumer protection laws and had the same thing happened in USA, HSBC would have reverted back the charges on their own and would have paid a compensation to RBI/customer for not complying with the policies.


Regards
Digant Vir Singh
Senior Analyst
Goldman Sachs