Dear HSBC Direct

Dear HSBC Direct:

Thanks for the notice today telling me that you're lowering my savings account interest rate by about .55%.

It's nice that you did that the day before you were going to pay interest on my account.

Don't think I didn't notice that. Yeah, yeah, "Fed Cut the rate..." Whatever.

Now, I know the ten grand I have socked away in you isn't much to you, but it's sort of a lot to me, and that's my future furniture money... unemployment money... emergency money... whatever.

I don't touch that money - that's for a special occasion. And I left it in you, untouched, so that my interest would compound on itself and every month I'd make another dollar on my interest, and so-forth.

See... Now what you've gone and done, is lowered my rate below what I could get in a Washington Mutual account.

I've wanted to pull my money out of B of A forever, because, well, I hate them. But I haven't because all my checks and all my automatic bill pay stuff is linked to B of A, and I'm a lazy man.

Nevertheless I took a lot of money out of B of A, simply because I put it in YOU, HSBC, because YOU were giving me a much better interest rate!

You're still not giving me an AWFUL interest rate, but there was a time I looked at all those poor saps with an ING Direct account and thought, "SUCKERS! I'm making 5.05%!"

Now what do you give me? Like... .20% more than ING Direct?

What's the motivation to stay with you, huh? Especially because I could just consolidate all my accounts into a WaMu account, and get 1) Free Checking (Screw you, Bank of America.) and 2) a 4.89% interest rate on my savings account and 3) WaMu is just as close to my house as B of A (I think... maybe a little further, but it's worth it to get more interest.)

I'll tell ya what - there IS no motivation to stay with you. Screw you, HSBC Direct. Screw you in the eye.

Now, I know that .55% is a negligible amount of money, but it's really the principle of the thing. Cutting my interest rate the day before I was going to get paid out of it? Not nice.

I don' liiii dat.

But first I'm going to call you and threaten. Your customer service representatives are nice. Maybe I'll be able to get someone who can tell me why I should stay with you, as opposed to taking my money out and putting it in Washington Mutual. Of course, the only reason I'd think of staying is if you froze my interest rate at 5.05 percent, or at least matched Washington Mutual's rate.

But I doubt you'll do that, as 10K isn't much to you...

Still, as I said, I'm a lazy guy... But I'm willing to wake up early on Saturday, get out of bed, stretch, and go to your local branch location on 41st Street, and say, "Cut me a Check, Bitches, I'm outta here, and going to Washington Mutual."

And like, if I'm willing to do that, I imagine there are a ton of other people out there willing to do that as well.

And if you piss off enough of us little people with our little amounts in your bank... it may make a bit of a large difference in the end.

I'm just sayin'.

Regretfully,

Me.

_______________________________________

Update:

Apparently, I cannot walk into an HSBC and close my account... I have to write them a letter and then I get a check in 7-10 business days. I learned this from the friendly account rep in India, who called me "Sir" every other word, and royally pissed me off, even going so far as to offer to have someone from Internet Banking guide me through the steps to close my account.

Seriously? Even after I dropped that line about re-financing my car loan with HSBC you STILL made NO effor whatsoever to keep me?

At least my decision is made. Tomorrow I get a shot of interest, and then I'm pullin' my dinero out of you.

And I'm not going to lie. It's due in large part to the fact that you outsourced me to some idiot in India, with no authority to do anything except make excuses and tell me that there was nothing that would be done to keep me.

Enjoy being the "World's Local Bank," assholes.

Not my bank.