I’m very annoyed with HSBC Bank Malaysia at the moment. The following faxes which I had previously sent to HSBC will explain the problem.

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FAX DATED 22 MAY 2003
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Dear Sir/Madam,

It is with much disappointment that I find myself writing to you.

On 20 March 2003, I received a statement dated 16 March 2003 for my HSBC Mastercard. I discovered therein a discrepancy and promptly sent a fax on 21 March 2003 to your Card Security Officer, Ms Chow Choi Yoke, disputing the charge (a copy of this fax is attached).

On 22 April 2003, I received a statement dated 16 April 2003. To my disappointment, I discovered that the disputed charge had yet to be reversed in my account. I promptly called your Card Services help-line on the same evening to voice my concern. I was informed that the investigation process into my dispute could take some time and that I was not to be concerned. With the assurance of your Card Services agent, I left the matter at that.

Today, 22 May 2003, I received a statement dated 16 May 2003. Yet again, and to my deepest disappointment, I find that a reversal of the said disputed charge still has not found its way into my account. It has been exactly two months since I brought the matter up to the Bank. I believe two months is more than sufficient for the Bank to conclude its investigation and to provide me with an update, if not a resolution. Instead, I have in the last two months not heard a single word from the Bank as to the status of my dispute.

I expect your immediate attention in the matter. I also expect to be provided with an update, if not a resolution, from the Bank by close of business on the 30 May 2003. By then, it would have been exactly two months and one week since I raised the issue, which, in my view, is more than sufficient time for the Bank to have concluded no less than a detailed investigation and analysis of my dispute.

You may contact me at work (03 xxxx xxxx), on my mobile (012 xxx xxxx), or at home (03 xxxx xxxx). You will have the opportunity to leave a voice mail on each of these lines should I not be able to answer your call.

Thank you.

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FAX DATED 31 MAY 2003
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Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to state my utter dissatisfaction, disappointment and aggravation at the recent lack of service received from the credit card division in HSBC Bank Malaysia Berhad.

I draw your attention to the attached faxed communication between myself and the Bank. Despite my request in the fax dated 22 May 2003, the Bank remained silent as to the status of my complaint. Instead of the Bank initiating contact, it was I who had to call the bank on 30 May 2003 to enquire as to what, if anything, had been done about the disputed charge in my credit card statement dated 16 March 2003. After explaining the situation at length to the customer service staff, she informed me that she would have to investigate the matter but that she would call me later in the day. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, I did not hear from her ever again. It was not until Saturday morning, 31 May 2003, when I again contacted the Bank and spoke to Ms Fazmah, was the disputed charge finally resolved to my satisfaction. Unfortunately, by this time, it was a case of too little, too late.

I would like to state here that it is completely unacceptable that:

i. it had taken the bank two months and one week, in other words nine weeks, before finally being able to resolve the disputed charge. This is more time than I feel necessary to investigate the matter and yet was apparently still insufficient until I made it very clear to Ms Fazmah of my unhappiness and annoyance at the situation. It is incredulous to me that the Bank could not pronounce a resolution on the matter until I asserted myself and insisted on an outcome after this long wait.

ii. in all of nine weeks, the Bank could not make the effort or invest the time to make a phone call or to send me a letter in order to update me on the status of my complaint. I do not believe that this is at all an unreasonable expectation. In fact, I honestly feel that it is the least the Bank could do if it expected to take a long period in order to complete its investigation. Nine weeks would be construed as a long period by your average customer.

iii. the Bank let me down not once, not twice, but three times. The first being the absence of a response from Ms Chow Choi Yoke, the Bank’s Card Security Officer, to my initial fax dated 21 March 2003. The second was the failure of the Bank’s Customer Service Manager in following a clear and simple request stated in my fax dated 22 May 2003 to contact me by close-of-business on 30 May 2003. The third, and frankly quite unforgiving, was the failure of your customer service agent, with whom I spoke on 30 May 2003, in calling me after she had make the commitment, which she herself initiated, to do so. As I have indicated in my fax dated 22 May 2003, I could have been contacted on at least three different telephone numbers. There were opportunities to leave messages at each of these three numbers. This same information was communicated to each of the customer service agents with whom I spoke. The Bank’s failure to contact me is therefore completely inexplicable.

This has been an appalling experience. I would hesitate to call this “bad service” because frankly, there was a complete absence of service. If not for my own initiative in contacting the Bank and for my insistence and assertions, I would not be surprised, given what has now transpired, if I never heard from the Bank about the matter. In fact, I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation from anyone at the Bank as to why the matter was handled so shockingly or why it was so difficult to extract any information from the Bank.

In case, I yet again fail to make myself clear, I would like to now state it very simply that:
1. I expect a response from the Bank to this fax.
2. I expect a WRITTEN response from the Bank
3. I expect an explanation to the unpleasant sequence of events which I had to endure in order to elicit an outcome which should rightfully have been presented by the Bank in the first place.

Thank you.

  

Posted on May 31st, 2003 by jl
Filed under: lost blah blah