First of all, hi everybody! I'm very happy to have found these forums, I'm learning a lot!
After reading some of your issues, I would like to share something that happened to me in January as I find it really weird and maybe useful for some members.
I'm Spanish. I arrived over a year ago to work, and I was lucky enough to start an undergraduate course at uni. Of course I couldn't ask for any student loan because I haven't been living here for three years yet (which I find unfair, but that's a different topic) so I just opened a passport account with HSBC, which I've been using for over a year. My only overdraft were 3GBP and I always tried to be a good customer. When I started the Uni, I asked for a student account and they refuse regarding the 3 previous years condition.
On my way home I went to a branch of the Bank of Scotland to ask about this, and the guy at the branch said that HSBC was very picky, and that I could open my student account with them and have a free overdraft of 150GBP. I already had the letter from my University and all the documentation, so he opened the account and asked me to come back with 100GBP in order to start using it. I did that two days after.
Last week (a month after I opened my "student account") I finally got the info to register for the online banking, and I found out that I had no student account at all, just a regular one. I went to the branch and the person in there said that I couldn't qualify for that type of account as I had no credit history in the UK, and that my account was exactly like a student one but without the free overdraft. I said that the problem there was that her colleague lied to me, and she wasn't even apologising, so I decided to leave and place a complaint over the phone.
Today I got a call from someone from the bank, saying that he contacted the person who opened the account, and apparently I had never brought a letter from my uni. That was such a lie! So I explained everything again, and the person on the phone said that he could not find proofs about lies from my side or from the other guy's side. We both had a different version, and he could offer me a student account from tomorrow in order to fix the situation.
I accepted, and now I'm waiting to see if this is true.
I just found amazing that a person could lie in such a way, I've never been in a situation like this before and I don't have a lot of experience with banks here in Scotland so everything was a little bomb for me all of a sudden.
Sorry for the loooong post and for any grammar mistakes, I hope you will be a bit luckier with your banks! Do you have any similar experiences?
Thanks!
After reading some of your issues, I would like to share something that happened to me in January as I find it really weird and maybe useful for some members.
I'm Spanish. I arrived over a year ago to work, and I was lucky enough to start an undergraduate course at uni. Of course I couldn't ask for any student loan because I haven't been living here for three years yet (which I find unfair, but that's a different topic) so I just opened a passport account with HSBC, which I've been using for over a year. My only overdraft were 3GBP and I always tried to be a good customer. When I started the Uni, I asked for a student account and they refuse regarding the 3 previous years condition.
On my way home I went to a branch of the Bank of Scotland to ask about this, and the guy at the branch said that HSBC was very picky, and that I could open my student account with them and have a free overdraft of 150GBP. I already had the letter from my University and all the documentation, so he opened the account and asked me to come back with 100GBP in order to start using it. I did that two days after.
Last week (a month after I opened my "student account") I finally got the info to register for the online banking, and I found out that I had no student account at all, just a regular one. I went to the branch and the person in there said that I couldn't qualify for that type of account as I had no credit history in the UK, and that my account was exactly like a student one but without the free overdraft. I said that the problem there was that her colleague lied to me, and she wasn't even apologising, so I decided to leave and place a complaint over the phone.
Today I got a call from someone from the bank, saying that he contacted the person who opened the account, and apparently I had never brought a letter from my uni. That was such a lie! So I explained everything again, and the person on the phone said that he could not find proofs about lies from my side or from the other guy's side. We both had a different version, and he could offer me a student account from tomorrow in order to fix the situation.
I accepted, and now I'm waiting to see if this is true.
I just found amazing that a person could lie in such a way, I've never been in a situation like this before and I don't have a lot of experience with banks here in Scotland so everything was a little bomb for me all of a sudden.
Sorry for the loooong post and for any grammar mistakes, I hope you will be a bit luckier with your banks! Do you have any similar experiences?
Thanks!