HSBC On The Ball

[Deleted member 1258]

In Leicester this afternoon buying a car. Tried to pay with my bank card and was surprised to have it declined, the card is my main one and I used it to buy petrol an hour before. five minutes later whilst trying to find the bank number my phone rang, the woman identified herself as from the HSBC fraud department, after asking some prearranged questions she asked me "are you trying to buy a car on your card"? When I said "yes" she asked some more questions and reset the card so I could make the payment. Now whilst its annoying to have the card declined having the bank then phone to check it out is somehow reassuring.

 

[ColinJ]

Whereas ... when the Halifax declined repeated attempts that someone made abroad to use my card details to buy expensive tech kit, they neglected to tell me about it. They had already allowed several mobile phone top-ups to go through. I spotted those a week or two later when going through a statement. I phoned the Halifax fraud department and suggested that it might be an idea to let the customer know when things look dodgy!

 

[fossyant]

I was quite surprised you could put a big deposit down on a car, never mind buy one with your debit card.

 

[TVC]

I was quite surprised you could put a big deposit down on a car, never mind buy one with your debit card.

I'm allowed £10,000 a day on my debit card. I found this out when I tried to pay off my mortgage, I should have let them know before hand what I was doing to do and they would have OKed it, as it is once the established it was me they put it through.

I also bought a car on my card, but now knowing the limit I paid a larger deposit to make sure the main balance was under 10k.

 

[fossyant]

I'm allowed £10,000 a day on my debit card. I found this out when I tried to pay off my mortgage, I should have let them know before hand what I was doing to do and they would have OKed it, as it is once the established it was me they put it through.

Yikes !!!! We put about £3k down on the car and it went through ! OMG.

 

[chr15b]

Good to know, they are offering a £200 reward at the moment if you switch to them. I've been with the same bank since I was 16 (Bank of Scotland) and thinking that £200 would go lovely towards a drone that I don't need.

 

[Hill Wimp]

I'm with First Direct which are part of HSBC. They are fab and have picked up straight away on any odd payments I have tried to make.

Cannot fault their customer service ever and would recommend them in a heartbeat.

 

[fossyant]

I ended up with the Fraud Office of the bank onto one of our managers. We had to buy a significant number of apps for brand new ipads, and as our IT Department were useless, the easiest way was to open an apple account and get the apps in bulk on the managers credit card. After about 3 purchases in a short time, the bank was straight onto the boss whilst I still had his card !!

 

[chr15b]

I think for years First Direct have been rated the best bank for customer service, certainly on MoneySavingExpert.

 

[Oxo]

My wife bought a car early last year using a debit card. The garage wouldn't take cash in case it was money from some dodgy deal or other and, with a cheque, any number of days were needed for it to clear before she could have the car. The best and easiest option she decided was to use a debit card.
That's the last time I'm ever going to lend it to her.

 

[Glenn]

I've been with First Direct since shortly after they started trading, I have no intention of moving.

 

[screenman]

I used to business bank with HSBC and to be fair they were very good, changing to the Co-Op saved me about £500 a year for a good while. I must say up until now the Co-Op has been great.

 

[keithmac]

I rang First Direct and they said there would be no issue using my debit card to buy our car, said the dealer may have a "floor limit" though?.

She also said make sure everything is in order before entering the pin as there would be no going back after that and gave us some other helpful tips.

Car was 3 years old but still, £15,000 in one quick debit card transaction was surprisingly painless.. Incidentally it took 2 days after the transaction to leave my account, rubbing salt into the wounds!.

Honestly don't know what the upper limit on the debit card would be, might ask them out of curiosity..

 

[PeteXXX]

Santander bounced my £1,200 payment to Canyon even though I phoned the banks customer services up and told them what I was about to do.
Canyon said that they were used to it and reapplied the next day and got my/their money.

 

[oldwheels]

No problem buying a used motorhome from a dealer with my Bank of Scotland debit card. Well over £10,000 but I did tell them in advance and made sure there was enough credit in to cover it. Just spent a lot to a garage for repairs for an mot but again no problem with debit card. Seems they are used to what were in the fairly recent past regarded as sizeable sums of money casually changing hands by card and pin.