[uuyi]

HSBC are notorious bastards and I fired them ages ago.

They transferred £2000 out of my account randomly one day with no cause or explanation when there was £118 available in it. The next day they froze the account and a specific contact at HSBC forced me to make a repayment arrangement for the money. I refused and opened a dispute and it took me 14 months to get it back and all fees incurred for entering an unarranged overdraft. It ruined my credit rating for 3 years. Every contact I made with them was handled by someone utterly incompetent or disinterested in solving the problem even when I involved a solicitor.

Never an apology, never an explanation, never a true resolution.

NEVER work with HSBC. ALWAYS keep your finances distributed between multiple accounts.

With Santander mostly now who so far, touch wood, have succeeded in not fucking anything up. Halifax as a backup.

[dazc]

I went through a bad mental and financial episode 15 years ago and was really struggling to keep my account in good order. All the advice I heard was call your bank, explain your position and they will help you sort it out.

So I did that and the way HSBC helped me was to immediately cancel all my cards so I was left high and dry. Since my problems had only just begun I realised my credit record was still good and opened an account with Barclays the next day who were more than happy to issue me cards and a line of credit.

The moral of this story is that if you have financial problems do not tell your bank.

[PeterisP]

The core business of banks is trading money-right-now for future-money and vice versa.

So if you have the type of financial problems where you need money-right-now but have some good future-money to offer in exchange, they'll be glad to help you make a deal (and vice versa for investments), and you should absolutely talk with your bank about such problems.

However, if you have the type of financial problems where both money-right-now and future-money are lacking, then yes, no bank is going to be helpful there.

[jhugo]

They'll only help you if you qualify for a product they can sell you.

[sfriedr]

Diversifying your banking lowers your risk or being locked out of an account, but increases the risk of data and identity theft somewhat, as various digital copies of your IDs and other data now reside on even more servers, creating a larger attack surface in case of a breach of one of the banks.

[thfuran]

It's fine. The credit agencies already leaked all of everyone's info so we don't have to worry anymore.

[uuyi]

Working in the sector it’s everywhere already even if you have multiple bank accounts or not. The banks are by far the least of your worries.

[PaywallBuster]

> ALWAYS keep your finances distributed between multiple accounts.

always get biten in the hand, when the bank you trust with 90% of your savings decides to lock your account or wtv

never again, keep it distributed as much as possible