Thousands of homeowners who lost their homes or had their loans modified will receive a portion of a $470 million federal-state settlement with mortgage lender and servicer HSBC to settle allegations the bank engaged in origination, servicing, and foreclosure abuses. [More]
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Four Years After Reaching Deal With Regulators, Six Banks Still Haven’t Fixed Foreclosure Problems
By 6.17.15
Back in 2011, several of the nation’s largest banks entered into a settlement with federal regulators that required the institutions to correct widespread foreclosure abuses that helped to trigger the housing crisis. While the agreement was revised in 2013 to make things a bit easier for the offending banks, regulators today announced that six of the lenders – including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo – still haven’t met requirements and face new restrictions on their mortgage operations. [More]
HSBC Finance Says Some Mortgage Customers’ Information May Have Been Compromised
By 4.16.15
Customers of HSBC’s U.S.-based finance division are the latest victims of a data breach, the bank confirmed this week in a letter to the New Hampshire Attorney General. [More]
HSBC To Customers: Merry Christmas, Pay Your Mortgage Or We’ll Take Your House
By 12.10.14
Holiday greetings generally contain salutations of thanks and wishes for a happy season. A note from HSBC hits all of those points, but then tacks on a quick threat you’d expect from Scrooge: pay us, or we’ll take your home. [More]
Report: HSBC To Pay $1.9 Billion To Wash Away Money-Laundering Claims
By 12.10.12
Remember earlier this year when a Senate investigation found that HSBC had effectively turned its head while customers laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels and other illegal entities? Well, it looks like the bank will be hit with a record-setting settlement of $1.9 billion over the mess. [More]
Georgia Counties Sue HSBC, Say Bank’s Prejudiced Loans Cost Them Millions
By 10.19.12
Three counties in Georgia have filed suit against HSBC, claiming the bank pushed minority borrowers into expensive, subprime mortgages. But these banks aren’t suing on behalf of the wronged borrowers. Instead, they allege that the predatory practices ultimately resulted in lost tax revenue, decreased property values and other damages. [More]
HSBC Confuses, Angers Online Customers With Vague New Fees
By 8.21.12
UPDATE: A rep for HSBC has finally responded to our request for clarification on the fees. [More]
HSBC Really Wants Your Cellphone Number To Alert You To Suspicious Activity (Oh, And Also To Make Collections Calls)
By 8.7.12
According to this post from yesterday, the folks at HSBC’s collections dept. have such a trigger finger on the redial button that they made a list of most-blocked phone numbers. And now we have a pretty good idea where HSBC is getting permission to call up customers’ cellphones. [More]
HSBC Executive Apologizes For Lax Controls That Allowed Mexican Drug Cartels To Launder Money
By 7.17.12
Irene Dorner, president and CEO of the U.S. division of HSBC says she’s sorry that lax controls at the bank have allowed for what lawmakers say amount to many illicit transactions over the years, including the pretty serious claim that Mexican drug cartels have laundered billions of dollars through a U.S. operation. [More]
Report: HSBC Will Tell Senate How Super Sorry It Is For Money Laundering
By 7.12.12
HSBC is reportedly all set to air its dirty laundry to a Senate subcommittee next week and will apologize to authorities for allowing money laundering to go on under its own roof. Get it off your chest, HSBC. It’ll feel so much better after you do. [More]
This HSBC Customer Is Left Out Of The Changeover
By 5.18.12 — Updated: 5.21.14
Last year, HSBC unloaded its credit card division on Capital One, and most of its retail bank branches in the Northeast to upstate New York’s First Niagara Bank. They’ve also been selling off their retail banking operations in other countries. Regular people just aren’t as profitable as we used to be. The thing is, while those branches and all of their customers have been sold, not all of their customers are making the change. George, who lives near a branch but had opened his HSBC accounts online for the sake of convenience, didn’t know this. He’s not associated with a branch, so his account stays with HSBC. He just won’t have a branch to go to. [More]
HSBC's Credit Card Policies Feel Like 1994 All Over Again
By 4.19.12
Victor knows that shopping at Best Buy isn’t a popular choice around here, but he really likes getting 4% back in Reward Zone points to spend on even more stuff at Best Buy. That does sound pretty sweet. In this situation, his actual beef is with HSBC, the bank that runs Best Buy’s credit cards. He made some big purchases, then made an electronic payment from his bank account to pay off the balance. Now there’s a mysterious hold on the account, and he can’t use the card. Turns out that large electronic payments are “held” for eleven days to make sure everything clears. Longer than it would take with a paper check. Unable to make any more purchases with his card, Victor just went and bought his iPad 3 somewhere else. Darn. [More]
Why Does HSBC Need To Conduct A 15-Minute Interview To Add My Wife To My Savings Account?
By 2.1.12
Back in the wild and crazy mid-2000s, when we were all taking out adjustable-rate mortgages on vacation properties in Nunavut, Consumerist reader Matt decided to take advantage of the attractive interest rates on HSBC’s high-yield online savings accounts. [More]
Banks To Offer Foreclosure Reviews To More Than 4 Million People
By 11.1.11
Millions of Americans have lost their homes in the last few years and — as any reader of Consumerist knows — the banks who foreclosed on those properties have also made more than their fair share of errors. Thus, starting today, 14 of the country’s largest mortgage servicers are contacting millions of foreclosed-upon former homeowners to offer them the opportunity to have their cases independently reviewed. [More]
Got An HSBC Credit Card? It Will Soon Be A Capital One Card
By 8.10.11
Two months after upsetting ING Direct customers by agreeing to buy the online bank for $9 billion, the Capital One vikings/barbarians have announced a deal to purchase HSBC’s credit card division for $2.6 billion. [More]
Judge Orders HSBC CEO To Explain "Frivolous" Foreclosure Motion
By 7.6.11
When HSBC failed to prove it even owned the Brooklyn home it was attempting to foreclose on, the judge in the case not only dismissed the bank’s foreclosure motion but also ordered the CEO of its North American division to give an in-person explanation of why he shouldn’t penalize HSBC for what he calls a “waste of judicial resources.” [More]
Maine Supreme Court Reverses HSBC Foreclosure On "Untrustworthy" Paperwork
By 5.25.11
Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court has overturned a foreclosure brought by HSBC against a local homeowner, citing affidavits submitted by the bank as “inherently untrustworthy.” In vacating an earlier decision, the court declared that HSBC’s records “are not of the quality that would be admissible at trial.” [More]
Middlemen Blocking Mortgage Mods
By 4.1.11
Homeowners trying to get loan mods often run into resistance by banks who say they’re powerless because they need to protect the interests of investors. But ProPublica reports a recent lawsuit uncovered a document where, when HSBC polled investors, a majority of those responding say they favored letting the loans being modified. [More]
