Consumer complaint received 2020-01-03
Company: HSBC NORTH AMERICA HOLDINGS INC.
State: IL
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Problem with a purchase shown on your statement
Sub-issue: Card was charged for something you did not purchase with the card

Complaint:
I recently signed up for a new credit card with HSBC USA in XX/XX/XXXX. I received my approval for the card on XX/XX/XXXX. 

I'll breakdown what happened in greater detail, but essentially, HSBC has sent three credit cards to me. The first and the second one were stolen in the mail ( I'm assuming in transit ) and I never received them. The third one I had mailed to my parents house in another state, which I did receive and now have in my possession. 

The first card was mailed to me on XX/XX/XXXX. I then learned about fraudulent activity on that card because HSBC sent me a fraud email close to midnight on XX/XX/XXXX. I saw the fraud email ( for {$93.00} ) the next morning when I woke up and reported it right away on XX/XX/XXXX. While reporting the fraud, HSBC explained to me that a variety of other charges occurred, the most expensive ( over {$1000.00} ) at an XXXX XXXX. I can't break this down in greater detail because HSBC removed all of the unauthorized charges from my account. I can no longer view them. The total of all these charges ( {$1500.00} ) are shown on my statements as the XXXX purchase, but that isn't right. That total is actually the XXXX purchase plus other additional fraud purchases. I have no idea why all those charges would be combined and labeled as one. Furthermore, I don't really mind how this is shown, as long as the fees have been waived and marked as fraudulent, which from what I can tell and have been communicated, they have. HSBC 's fraud team did tell me recently that the investigation for that balance is still under investigation even though they've removed the charges from my account. 

With my total balance of {$1500.00} reversed, HSBC mailed me a new card to the same address on XX/XX/XXXX. This card was again stolen in the mail and used fraudulently. There are four fraudulent charges on this card totaling {$3500.00}. The breakdown of individual charges is {$3400.00}, {$52.00}, {$23.00}, and {$2.00}. HSBC is now holding me liable for these charges. They've denied my fraud claim on the total amount of {$3500.00}. I reported the fraud charges on the second card on XX/XX/XXXX. The HSBC representative I spoke to on the phone assured me these charges would be reversed, but they were not. HSBC is holding me liable for these fraudulent purchases. It is worth noting that this second card was mailed to an incorrect address. I'm not sure if this had anything to do with the second cards failure to reach me or not ( incorrect address shown on email as well as statement ). I'd also like to note that I asked HSBC to lower this second cards credit limit to {$100.00} and/or lock the card just in case this happened again. HSBC said they wouldn't be able to do that, but if they had, all this could have been avoided. 

After reporting the second cards fraud, myself and the HSBC representative I was speaking to at the time on the phone agreed that we should send the third card to a different address. I asked them to send the new card to my parents house in another state. The card was delivered successfully to my parents house and I now have that third card in my possession. However, HSBC has transferred the fraudulent balance of {$3500.00} to this third card, has denied the fraud claim I made on that full amount, and is holding me liable for these charges. 

HSBC has said there is nothing more they can do on the fraud claim until they can speak to a detective. I have filed a police report and have provided them with a case number. However, I live in a very large city and it's the holidays. The police have said that they may not even assign this case to a detective since they get 15,000 - 20,000 of these types of cases a year! The detective that I need to speak to who determines if this case will get investigated or not is on vacation until XX/XX/XXXX. The police did say that I will need to get the addresses that the fraudulent transactions were made at if the case is to have any chance of being investigated and I need to verify they were made in person, not online. HSBC has been reluctant to give me any details about the transactions, so this may prove difficult to get for the police. I will follow up again on my end with the police next week. 

I noticed various odd things happening throughout all of this. Such as getting text messages and emails about my HSBC account, almost if I was prompting them myself. I figured this was normal since I had just signed up for a new card with HSBC. However, looking back, I realize that these occurrences were most likely being initiated by someone trying to use my card. 

I can provide statements, emails, screenshots, etc. of all the documentation I have on this matter. However, Im choosing not to upload any at this time due to concerns about sensitive information being revealed. 

Ive also began making the minimum payments on this fraud balance.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation