Consumer complaint received 2018-05-31
Product: Checking or savings account — Savings account
Issue: Managing an account — Banking errors
Company: HSBC NORTH AMERICA HOLDINGS INC. (NY)

Complaint:
This is the letter I wrote to the CEO of Retail banking for HSBC ( XXXX XXXX ) after not making progress with the customer service center. It explains the situation in detail. I have heard nothing back from the bank since and have been unable to recover my {$25000.00} that was lost to the bank 's error. 
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Dear XXXX XXXX, I am writing to you to inform of you a very distressing experience with HSBC US. I am a Premier Customer who is going through a very bitter divorce. I looked at my accounts on my mobile app Sunday   XX/XX/XXXX and discovered $ XXXX had been transferred out of my savings accounts into my ex-husbands XXXX account without my consent. I immediately raised a fraud concern. This conversation was horrendous, the rep continuously talked over me and was very unhelpful, I could not understand how this had happened and was deeply distressed. I kept asking how is it possible for my ex-husband to get access to my savings accounts? The rep assured me someone would call me back. No one did. I called back the following day to discuss further and got through to another rep ( who also talked over me! ). This rep informed me the savings account in questions was a joint account. This was a HUGE surprise to me. Back in XX/XX/XXXX I went into the XXXX XXXX branch of HSBC to open accounts in my own name to protect my assets from my soon to be ex-husband. I told whoever it was I spoke to what the situation was and that I needed help protecting my money from my ex as he pays nothing towards my XXXX daughters welfare. I was told I needed to open a new checking account and close the joint account which I did. I was also told I DID NOT need to open a savings account as I already had on IN MY NAME only. I categorically remember asking them to confirm this as I am sure you can appreciate how important it is for me to have protection of my assets. 

When I was told by one of your reps today that it is a joint account I nearly fainted. I ask why I would put all my money into the one place he can get access to. As far as I was informed by HSBC it was not a joint account, it was my account solely in my name. Because I was misinformed I am now $ XXXX less well off, money I need to cover the costs of raising XXXX children alone in XXXX. There is a clear paper trail to identify all of that money as my money earned as part of my bonus for the year of XX/XX/XXXX, a year I lived alone with my XXXX children with no financial support from their father. Money he has now been able to help himself to because HSBC made a BIG mistake. 

Once I realized HSBC has made this error instead of helping me I have been made to feel like I am on trial if you listen to your calls you will hear the countless reps I have been passed around too literally saying its your word against ours. No one has listened to me, no one has offered to help. I see this as a fundamental error of HSBC misinforming me when I categorically ask for help to protect my assets from my ex-husband. 

I have enclosed screens shots from your HSBC website of my savings account as well as listed contact information nowhere showing my exs name and hence no reason for me to not believe the rep in your XXXX XXXX branch that confirmed that my account was in my name only and safe. For contrast, I have also included screenshots of my still existing joint account in the XXXX that does show the name of me and my ex. 

I would like to kindly ask you to help me. What can HSBC do to help me retrieve that money money I have lost due to a HSBC error, money I can not afford to lose for the sake of my XXXX children? Money I had asked you as my primary bank to help me protect. This transaction is fraud and it is theft as it was taken from my sole account without my consent. It does not matter to me that technically it was a joint account as that technicality is the fault of HSBC.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation