Browsing Category: "Credit Card Companies"
Small Business Credit Card Company
Right now finding a good small business credit card company is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. To be honest with the credit card industry crumbling around us, settling on a small business credit card company is like taking a gamble.
Bad news is all around for Credit card companies, here are some of the latest credit card headlines.
J.P. Morgan Chase Acquires Wamu.
Advanta closes its doors on small business credit card holders. Advanta really put a hurt on small businesses as they lowered credit limits to the amount of the balance card holders carried. This credit lowering action by Advanta caused the lowering of credit scores of previous small business card holders. Small businesses were forced to try to find other solutions.
HSBC The fifth largest bank in the world- Begin raking its customers over the coals with shady business practices and obtaining well over 80,000 in consumer complaints online.
Credit card companies have been revoking earned airline miles, raising interest rates, and hitting consumers with unscrupulous charges to no avail lately.
Visa and Mastercard seamed to have the market cornered for quite some time being accepted in more places, as they used to advertise. However, American Express and Discover card have had less consumer complaints against them – so far.
It is obvious to me that the companies that our gouging credit card rates and charges are not worried about customer loyalty These Companies are either banking on having the market cornered (J.P.Morgan Chase) or clawing at the edges on their way down (HSBC Bank).
It is quite evident that most Americans will seek out other sources of credit and it seams possible that those alternatives just may be the long time underdogs American Express and Discover. The game is not over yet. So it is still a roll of the dice to try to determine which small business credit card company deserves your patronage.
HSBC Credit Card aka Orchard Bank Credit Cards from Hell
Being a Credit Card topic researcher, I noticed I high trend in searches related to “HSBC Credit Cards” and “Orchard Bank Credit Cards”. So I went to their website and checked out their credit card offers, nothing special there. I also checked google for news on the subjects at hand, nothing there. It was bugging me why all of sudden a 400% increase in searches for this semi Okay credit card. I finally figured it out people were searching for these credit cards to file complaints. Here is some of the stuff I found out about these Credit cards from Hell.
* Name variations Orchard Bank, HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), Household Bank. This bank is a worldwide corporation established in 86 countries.
Complaints encompass
* Collection notices to people whom never even applied for Credit Cards
* Jacking up interest rates without prior notifications
* Calling customers at home and work 10-12 times a day, about payments only a couple days late
* People mailing in payments 2 weeks in advance, and still getting late fees, on top of interest hikes, and damage to credit reports.
* It seams there is also a $61 fee to close an account paid in full
*Sending out statements 2 days before due date
* Sales calls from people with foreign accents for insurance policies, that you get charged for whether you want them or not, you wind up getting billed, without ever seeing documents or notices regarding the existence of such policies.
*This is the worst yet, lowering credit lines of people carrying balances making the balance over the limit, then accruing over the limit charges, jacking up interest rates, and finally sending bad reports to credit report agencies.
Most people will say this is due to the credit card reform bill coming up in 2010, but from I can tell reports like these about HSBC or whatever they want to call themselves, have been going on for years. I think that they recently have gone a little wackier due to the reform scare.
I would like to note that this not happening to a small amount of HSBC consumers but the majority.
Proof that I am not exaggerating about “HSBC Credit Cards aka Orchard Bank Credit Cards being straight from Hell”
Checkout some of these resources
This consumer was so urked about treatment from HSBC, he created a whole website about how they suck complete with a forum. There is also great information about where to complain.
There are currently 760 complaints filed under HSBC, 240 More Under Household Bank, another 280 complaints under Orchard Bank
A consumers account of a phone call with HSBC regarding rates jacked to 30%
There are yet another 1000 complaints about HSBC.
June 1st 2009 a couple more updates
Beneficial Bank is also owned by HSBC, Although their main Beneficial website is now closed. Consumer Affairs are getting recent complaints about Beneficial Bank / HSBC
