HSBC have no scruples and are idiots
My father was a bank manager, his father too. As such I've grown up understanding the importance of a good banking relationship.

This is why personally I do NOT bank with HSBC.

However my ex and her family did/does. On frequent occasions I had to help out trying to sort out the mess HSBC made of things including but not limited to:

Allowing a middle aged lady with no employment history who was reliant on a small disability allowance to live and had no assets whatsoever to have and max out a credit card with an £8000 limit as well as a personal loan, the repayments for which were more than her total income!

Allowing a 19yr old with no assets and only a part-time job to have a £20k personal loan which got spent on rent etc so again no assets, then when she struggled to pay it instead of listening to offers to repay at a lower rate did nothing but threaten to take her to court (where there was no hope of recovering the debt anyway!?).

You're right the actions of those people (ex's family) were wrong in the first place, but lets face it you dangle the carrot and most people take it. So HSBC just shouldn't have allowed it to happen.

SO, banks in crisis etc etc? I'm not surprised. You lend money to people who can't repay it and that's gonna happen.

Ironically of all the debt "products" the banks offer when the crisis happened they withdrew mortgages, the only debt with real tangible collatoral in proportion to the debt. Yet they still offered credit cards and unsecured loans simply because they were more profitable.

It's not that I hate the banks, I'm just very dissappointed with them.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 16 Jul 2009, 15:17, 6 replies)

out of interest
which bank would you recommend?
( Kroney, Thu 16 Jul 2009, 15:24, closed)

Ha!
Well you're gonna laugh at this given the amount of bad press lately but personally I bank with RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland).

Yes they may well have run up massive debts and been bailed by the government (I still think they made a mistake buying Natwest as the double management costs millions), but in fairness they've never let me down as a customer and always been willing to listen and help with any request I've made with them.

I'm on their private banking system and it's like having a Rolls Royce of banks. You ask, they do. Simple.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 16 Jul 2009, 15:36, closed)

Having said that
I make my investments with Schroders as they're better at investments.

For the record I have in the past tried and abandoned banking with all the other main high street banks. RBS is the only one I've found to offer the quality of service I expect.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 16 Jul 2009, 15:38, closed)

whoever authorised that
should have there backside kicked.
I work for the named bank and there is no way the system would allow those figures to have been lent unless figures were fudged at the time of processing.
( Plomien is Polish for flame, Thu 16 Jul 2009, 16:48, closed)

I agree
It was just stupid but of course I only found out year or so down the line when they were struggling to pay.

Still I still don't know whether to blame the person for accepting the card/loan or the bank for offering it.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 16 Jul 2009, 17:02, closed)

Mortgages
The reason mortgages are harder to get than before is because house prices are falling, so the bank isn't guaranteed its money back if you fail to pay (whereas that was never the case with credit cards or unsecured loans...)
(stalinism, Sat 18 Jul 2009, 12:02, closed)