Standard bloody Chartered

[Scrummy Mummy]

Sent a TT on 7th August which they have lost. It's only $330, but I have loads more to send (for house in Oz) and don't want to do that till I know they won't lose it.

Have been on the phone since Thursday trying to sort this out. Have been passed from fool to fool who are outdoing themselves in cluelessness and they keep promising to get a supervisor to call me back but it never happens. May have to go down to a branch and start shouting to get this fixed, but I have other things to be doing with my time (e.g. moaning on here).

To add insult to injury, when the fools call, they keep calling Scummy Daddy (joint account, his name first) who has no idea what they're on about since I'm sorting this out (and I've given them my HP number every time!). He was called on Saturday while playing tennis and they kept persisting in telling him things while he's saying "I'm playing tennis, call my wife".

Priority banking?

Tempted to go and close the account, but is there a bank in Singapore with GOOD service?

[Kooky]

Can't answer that question, SM, but it might be time to look at opening an Aussie account with a bank with whom you can also have accounts in Sg and maybe the UK, to make transfers easier. We did so with HSBC before we moved.

[Scrummy Mummy]

That is an excellent idea, except that it's not usually me I'm transferring money to, IYSWIM. Can you transfer to other people from HSBC via Internet baking? (Although I'm very into Internet shopping I've always been wary of INternet banking, too much to lose!)

[Snaffled]

We used HSBC when in Singapore for our international stuff & were happy with them. Internet banking was pretty decent and we never had a problem transferring.

[Kooky]

Yes, it's how we pay some of our bills.

[Scrummy Mummy]

Right will get down there next week.

Makes a lot of sense as we're getting quite a lot of Australian bills n stuff too.

(Have finally got hold of a manager who is looking into this but this will take a day!)

[Pinklepurr]

We use HSBC in HK, Sing and Oz. Pity they don't all seem to be the one company at times ( ), but it is easy to transfer, on line banking is great and also really easy to transfer to other banks and pay bills overseas etc.

[canuck]

standing orders however cost you $10 for every payment, and their cards only work in certain stores, and not as credit cards outside Singapore.

they are muppets too, we called about a bounced check, they said it was not bounced, it was bounced, it was credited, it was not credited, they would call back, they didn't ,, needless to say, 6 of one half dozen the other sadly.. as for asking for husband, it seems to be the norm

[Scrummy Mummy]

standing orders however cost you $10 for every payment, and their cards only work in certain stores, and not as credit cards outside Singapore.

That's OK. We have a DBS account as our main account, this is basically our spare money account.

they are muppets too, we called about a bounced check, they said it was not bounced, it was bounced, it was credited, it was not credited, they would call back, they didn't ,, needless to say, 6 of one half dozen the other sadly.. as for asking for husband, it seems to be the norm

Next time I'll put my name first to see if it makes a difference.

Heard a good story recently where HSBC staff in the UK didn't realise Belfast was UK. Tried to convert cheque from pounds to euros to pounds!

[Jedi]

I am having similar issues with international funds transfers. I investigated opening a DBS AUD account and was stunned to find that if you transfer AUD funds into the account, they charge an uncapped 2.5% on any AUD funds transferred in (in lieu of no curreny exchange rate being applied). That's an outrageous fee structure.

Just checked the HSBC multi currency savings account and they charge: 1% handling commission (min. S$10, max S$100) - so looks like a much better deal than DBS!!

[Pinklepurr]

Makes no difference which name is first, they always ask for Mr Purr..
One thing that bothered me is that you have to open the account in the country you are in, which is not easy when you aren't there, but then that happens with all banks.


Canuck, what do you mean the cards don't work in certain stores? Mine basically works anywhere. Works overseas as well.

[baloo]

I've used HSBC and Citibank in both Singapore and Aus. I've closed my HSBC accounts because they can be useless. From my experience, the best International banking experience, transferring funds back and forth in the quickest and most efficient way, has been with Citibank.

We have Citi account in japan, Singapore and Australia. In each country we have AUD$, SGD$, US$ & JPY currencay accounts all linked to each other so transferring money within an account is instant. transferring internationally takes less than 12 hours and the fees are very low.

I can't recommend Citibank enough if you need to move money around countries.

[Kooky]

Ok I wasn't recommending HSBC specifically - we haven't done enough inter-country transactions for me to give a fair assessment of them, probably won't do that many, and certainly won't be transferring our life savings at current exchange rates - just suggesting that opening A local bank account might make SM's life easier.

[canuck]

pinkle: their bank card (not the visa) is a mastercard 'electron',, not recognised in canada or the UK apparently (least no where we tried it without them having to phone someone, never did get it to work) ridiculous. remind me to ask for all my $8 charges back. FFS.

while standard's works like a visa overseas.. as for not accepted by shops here, in some of the more obscure shops that aren't set up electronically, they don't take visa/mastercard at all, aaaaand apparently not all citi bank ATMs recognise the HSBC card

as for citi, you have to keep a balance in it yeah of $10,000 don'tcha?

Scummers: tried that myself, they still put him on as the main account holder (feckin eejits)

[Fat Bob]

I've used HSBC and they have some good things (can use internet banking to transfer money overseas at reasonable rates, their ATM cards have cheap rates in foreign HSBC machines, cash back possible at Coldstorage, free cheques) and some bad things (having to make sure every year that your transfer can be done as they reduce your amount if you don't use it regularly, standard orders and local transfers are expensive, $3k average minimum balance). I have never tried to use my ATM card for anything other than the ATM, though supposedly I can.....I use credit cards everywhere

Have also opened up a Citibank account (they have a Tap & Save account) as I need a second one to build up money on a monthly basis. I may or maynot decide to swap over completely, only $2k average balance required or direct credit of salary otherwise charges, gives cheque book for free, increased number of ATMs now available. I'm sure there's some bad points about it though don't know what they are.

Citibank are te people who are doing wrong re: HSBC cards not being able to withdraw from Citibank ATMs. From what I can gather, only a limited numberof Citibank ATMs are part of the 5Network, and not most of the ones at MRT stations and the like.

[Kooky]

They've got the cashback thing sussed here. In over 3 months we have never used an HSBC ATM - well I think there are 4 in the whole of Sydney so it's not easy - but we can get cashback wherever we go, even at the Bottle Shop. So many bottles of wine purchased purely for the cashback.

Now if only they'd all take Amex.

[Burbage]

Hahahaha.

Amex is my business credit card. Works in Big W.

[daffodil]

Not had a problem using personal or corp Amex here - other than some merchants charging back a service fee for doing so.

[Scrummy Mummy]

Finally (after 3 calls!) got hold of the manager. They're now saying there doesn't seem to be a problem and it just takes a while to get there - what, 2 weeks?

I've told them to go back and re-investigate as (1) never taken this long before (2) if this is normal service I'l be closing my account.

Would have been quicker by pigeon!

[Fat Bob]

Just had money TT'd from NZ to me here via Standard Chartered. $25 fee was paid in NZ and the $35 fee here.

WTF?!?!?! Have asked for some clarity on why it costs so much to move money electronically.

[Pinklepurr]

They are banks FB, when do they ever do anything cheaply or efficiently or in the customers interest?