HSBC, What a lousy bank to deal with (rant)

[G-Man]

When we took out our home mortgage, we set it up so that we would pay our property taxes and get our own homeowners insurance.  Why should the bank make the interest and buy us overpriced insurance?  Without warning, our loan was sold to HSBC.  For years, everything was fine and, in fact, we were sending an additional $500 every month with our payment that was made automatically through our bank.

Then, without notification, HSBC paid our property taxes for us.  I had also paid the taxes, so the town got paid twice.  Now, as my loan payments were being made automatically, I very rarely looked at the statements.  Well, in order to cover the taxes, HSBC added an escrow account to the loan and was taking my monthly payments and applying it to the escrow, leaving the monthly mortgage payment unpaid.  So, when I received a letter from the bank (that did not look like a statement), I opened it to find that my account was delinquent.  I immediately pulled the statements and sure enough, there were no payments being applied to the account, just to the escrow account.

HOLY CRAP....this took over a year to fix.  Calling customer service (India) was getting me nowhere.  I would tell the story over and over again, get the same fax number to send the requests (fax, really?  This is the 21st century), then wait a month for a reply that would indicate that the loan was not changed and that the escrow account was always part of the loan.  Did this back and forth crap 3 times and then went to an HSBC branch for help.  Told the story again to the customer service rep and was told that the bank will not help me.  Went to another branch and another rep, same crap.

Called customer service again (India) and I finally reached someone who saw what had happened and truly felt my pain.  the call was finally transferred to someone who could do something.  I had asked for this initially, and every other time I called, my request to speak to a decision maker was continually denied.  So, finally the account was fixed.

Applied for credit the other day, DENIED due to the delinquencies.  Yup, HSBC reported everything to the credit agencies.  Call HSBC customer service (India), and guess what?  I got the same fax number to send my request to.  Here we go again!

[Oss]

well its just starting
Banking Department of the State of New York is no help

the attorney general office is also less than useless

Perhaps if you can show the loan never had an escrow and you put these claims in writing previously you can sue HSBC for theft damages loss of credit rating and intentional infliction of emotional harm

They suck but not as bad as Chase

Chase sued 2 of my clients almost a year after their mortgages were paid off at sale

I made good money off them   

[9Ball]

file a dispute with all 3 credit reporting agencies.  They may be able to erase the negative info from your credit report since you have all the documentation showing the unauthorized changes to your mortgage escrow account and faxes to attempt to fix the problem with the creditor.

[BF]

Are you a member of a credit union.......can you join one?  You may want to consider refinancing your mortgage with one if they offer mortgages.  

I don't know if it's applicable to every credit union or not, but with mine, they adminster the loan for the entire life of the loan......regardless if they sell (or bundle) the mortgage to someone else.  

I don't know how that works, but that's what they told me when I first got my mortgage with them....then when I refinanced....again they said the same thing.  A few years ago, I got yet another mortgage with them and again, they said the same thing.

Even if they do sell my mortgage, there is a person assigned to my loan at my credit union that I can call at any time.  I make my payments there and always will.  I also make an extra principle only payment each month, but I do it in person with my regular payment as there's no place on the mortgage stub to indicate if the extra payment is for principle.......just for an extra escrow payment.  I get a receipt saying what the payment has been applied to and keep for my records.  They do show the extra payments on my statements.  

My taxes and insurance are also paid via an escrow account there.....and if there's ever a problem with it (and there has been in the past), someone is there to handle the questions and problems get them resolved......locally.....right here, right now......not in freakin' India.  

Credit unions.....I wouldn't "bank" anywhere else.