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When will HSBC sort out their international withdrawal issues?

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  1. #1

    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Posts
    220

    When will HSBC sort out their international withdrawal issues?

    After reading several stories about people not being able to withdraw money from their accounts overseas, I made sure to have the bank issue me the new card for the eps/atm which I rarely ever use these days. I use mostly cash and my visa card when I travel so this is used mostly as a backup in case I lose money or go over my cash budget. I also made sure to activate the new card internationally and set the limit to 20k just in case I needed it.

    Still, I wasn't all that surprised when it didn't work overseas after trying several unionpay machines to rule out the possibility of a faulty atm, none of the machines in Vietnam or Cambodia worked with my card.

    Now that I'm back in Hong Kong the card still won't work and I just spent 30 minutes at a local branch standing around while they passed me around from one teller to a manager and eventually to another staff member trying to figure out why the card isn't working locally. To further compound this idiotic situation none of them were able to give me a straight answer or an explanation as to why the card was non functional , in fact one guy tried making excuses about tripping a safety measure because I probably tried to withdraw too much money (I tried taking 50usd) from the card.
    After ten more minutes of them making calls, one guy told me the card was deactivated but gave no explanation, he then tried to hand me back the deactivated card and asked me if I wanted another one sent through the mail. I don't know what purpose I would have with a deactivated card so I told him to go and f*** himself and walked out, I then tried calling the customer service myself directly in hopes of getting a bit more info - no such luck. Their suggestion was to report a stolen card so I could get another in the mail...

    The worst part of all this ins't in all the time I've wasted overseas and locally trying to figure it out, it's in not getting a proper explanation as to why they were unable to provide me the most basic service they are supposed to give to their customers, even after taking the appropriate measures to activate the card.

    TheBrit and 100LL like this.

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Posts
    4,574

    Did you test the card locally before you went overseas with it?


  3. #3

    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    4,821

    And did you activate it and set limits for overseas withdrawals?


  4. #4

    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    7,471

    I think yours might be a one off problem.

    I personally had no issue.

    Went to ATM, set withdrawal limit.

    Went to Thailand, withdrew money.

    On a side note, I did end up getting over 20,000 baht stolen from a card copying device installed in a Thai ATM. HSBC dealt with it smoothly, paying me back in full.

    Sent from my Nexus 7 using GeoClicks mobile app

    Last edited by justjoe86; 28-02-2014 at 05:51 PM.

  5. #5

    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Posts
    220
    Quote Originally Posted by justjoe86:
    I think yours might be a one off problem.


    Sent from my Nexus 7 using GeoClicks mobile app
    I genuinely hope so, I wouldn't want anyone else to go through this type of annoyance.

    @robert- I did a balance check at a local atm shortly before leaving and everything worked fine. Overseas, I got as far as inputting my pin and selecting one of the options before the machine printed out an error note. Today when I tried it locally I get an error message on screen as soon as I put the card in the machine.
    Last edited by -1983-; 28-02-2014 at 07:45 PM.

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Posts
    2,446
    Quote Originally Posted by -1983-:
    I genuinely hope so, I wouldn't want anyone else to go through this type of annoyance.

    @robert- I did a balance check at a local atm shortly before leaving and everything worked fine. Overseas, I got as far as inputting my pin and selecting one of the options before the machine printed out an error note. Today when I tried it locally I get an error message on screen as soon as I put the card in the machine.
    Your card is screwed. I've taken cash out in Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, France...all with no problems. The only time I had an issue was using the ATM under HSBC's Global HQ in London!!! I still don't know what the problem was (got no sense out of HSBC HK) but it works everywhere else so that's enough for me.