HSBC refused me switching bonus because I had an account 21 YEARS ago: CRANE ON THE CASE

Late last year, HSBC was offering a £205 cash bonus for new customers switching bank account.

I checked the small print and qualified for the offer, so I applied and got the account. But I realised later I never received the bonus cash.

When I called HSBC to ask why, it said I wasn’t eligible because it was only for new customers who had not had any HSBC accounts since at least 2018.

I once had an account with Midland Bank (now part of HSBC) but I closed it more than two decades ago. Can you help? D.W, Grimsby

Denied: Our reader was told he couldn’t get the £205 cash bonus for switching his account (stock image)

Helen Crane, This is Money’s consumer champion, replies: Until recently, swapping your current account to a different bank was a lucrative game. 

Today there is just one provider offering such an incentive – Lloyds, which earlier in the week launched its new £175 Club Lloyds switching offer.

But in 2023, high street banks were falling over themselves to reel in new customers with a bit of free cash – and a record number of us took them up on it.

November saw the highest total number of monthly current account switches since the Current Account Switch Service was launched over ten years ago, with more than 162,000 people taking the plunge.

HSBC’s offer in the autumn was particularly tasty, dangling a £125 carrot for opening an HSBC Advance or Premier current account, and then another £80 on top for opening a Global Money account for overseas spending. 

You went for it, but not before you duly checked all the small print to make sure you played by the rules to get your £205. 

Banks make switchers jump through hoops to get their free money, because their goal is to get people to use it as their main bank account rather than simply switch, pocket the cash and run. 

This can include setting up a certain number of direct debits on the account, depositing a specific amount of money in a set time-frame or making a particular number of transactions.

And to stop people getting too switch-happy, they usually restrict the accounts to new customers only, or those who have not banked with them for a certain number of years. 

In your case HSBC stipulated that to get the £205, customers were not allowed to have had an account with them since at least 2018. 

You didn’t think this was a problem, as your last HSBC account was a no more than a distant memory.

In fact, it wasn’t an HSBC account at all when you opened it, having done so in the 1980s with the now-defunct Midland Bank. HSBC acquired the business later in 1992, and you closed the account in 2003.

That was 21 years ago and the year The Da Vinci Code was published, England won the Rugby World Cup with a team featuring star player Jonny Wilkinson and Yugoslavia was renamed Serbia and Montenegro.

A long time ago: Our reader closed his HSBC account in 2003, when The Da Vinci Code was published and Jonny Wilkinson’s England won the Rugby World Cup 

So how could that stop you opening the account today?

When you didn’t receive the £205 bonus, you called HSBC to ask why. First, you were simply told you had had an account after the cut-off date of 1 October 2018.

That didn’t make sense, so you dug deeper and found out the account you had was closed on 6 September 2021.

You had asked for the account to be closed in 2003 by writing a letter to the Caerphilly branch of Midland Bank, as this was before you – and many people – had access to the internet.

But HSBC never took action on your request, and the account had in fact stayed open all these years.

It still refused to pay you the £205 after you explained what had happened, and that is when you contacted me.

You think HSBC should pay you as it was the bank’s error that account was never closed.

I can understand why, after going through the annoying rigmarole of switching a bank account, you would be frustrated to end up with no reward.

Most banks have a policy to freeze or close accounts if no transactions are made for a certain period, in order to prevent them getting into the hands of fraudsters.

Acquisition: HSBC bought out Midland Bank, with which D.W opened his account, in 1992

In HSBC’s case, an account is normally classed as inactive or dormant if it hasn’t been used for two years. However, it may take much longer for the bank to identify and close it – and in your case, it stayed open for 18 years.

I contacted HSBC and said I thought it should pay you the £205. It’s now impossible to work out what happened to that letter you wrote in 2003, but it is abundantly clear that the account has been inactive.

It checked its records for the last 10 years and found the account had not been used in that time, so it agreed to honour the cash bonus. 

An HSBC spokesman said: ‘We are sorry [the customer’s] request to close his account wasn’t actioned at the time.

‘We can see [he] did not use his account for 10 years prior to us closing it in 2021 and we have now credited his account with the £205 payment.’

However, HSBC did also say that it had sent you some letters over the years indicating that the account was still open.

You said you had either not received or not opened these, perhaps throwing them away assuming they were junk.

I am glad you got your cash bonus in the end.

Fan: Our reader was hoping for a signed copy of the new book from Les Miserables star Michael Ball (pictured on stage in 1988) – but she didn’t get one

Where’s my signed Michael Ball book? 

In December, my husband and I went to an evening in conversation with the West End star Michael Ball at a theatre in London, where he was talking about his new book.

I paid £106 in total, which included £73 for the two tickets, a booking fee and an extra £25 to get a signed copy of Michael’s new book. The evening was organised by the events company, Fane. 

The talk was wonderful, Michael Ball was his brilliant self and even sang at the end. But when I went to collect my book, it sadly wasn’t signed. 

There was a gentleman next to me who was waiting to pick up his wife’s book and he was also disappointed for the same reason, as were two other groups I spoke to. 

I paid £25 for a non-signed book that I could have bought for £10 on Amazon, so I would like my £15 back. 

I contacted Fane and it said there was no evidence that a signed copy of Michael’s book was promised. I looked back on my invoice and it just said ‘book’. But I am sure it was advertised as being a signed book.  

Why else would so many people say the same thing? Can you help? H.F 

Helen Crane replies: I’m glad to hear you still enjoyed the show, but sorry to hear it didn’t end on a high note as you headed home without a copy of the signed book. 

Michael Ball is known for his performances in Les Miserables, among other West End hits, and you were left feeling fairly miserable yourself as you didn’t think you got what you paid for.

Read more: Should my water bill DOUBLE if I pay monthly instead of twice a year? 

We recently received our latest bill from South East Water and are being charged £272.25 for six months.

But if I was to pay monthly, the bill says I would need to pay £83 per month. That would mean £498 for six months or £996 for a year. Can that be right?

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Often with book tours, the book is sold signed – or there is at least the option to stay around at the end and get your book signed by the author if you wish. 

While I can’t find any evidence that the book you pre-purchased was advertised as being signed, I do think it is possible that this was the case.

I found an advert for another date on the same book tour – not organised by Fane – which said the book came included in the ticket price of around £35 – so the fact you paid an extra £25 for an unsigned book on top of your £36 ticket does seem pricey. 

I wanted to ask Fane about this, and check that you weren’t being unfairly being done out of your autographed copy.  

But sadly, that was impossible. Fane doesn’t have a phone number, saying on its website that the phones are currently ‘not being monitored’ and and directing people to its online FAQs.

I found a contact form and have sent three detailed messages to this inbox over the last month, but have had no reply. 

It is really irritating when companies do this, instead of making it easy to pick up the phone or send an email to a real person.

Hilariously, the only response I did get was an automated email asking me to rate Fane’s customer service. That was not music to my ears. 

I take that to mean that the company will not be looking into this matter any further, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. 

But if anyone reading this has a contact for Michael Ball, and he might be willing to sign a book for a disappointed fan – do get in touch.