from the edge of the deep green sea

Ah, nothing like good ol’ HSBC hatred to get me started writing again on the blog. HSBC takes immense pride of being the “local bank of the world”, but that is not as good as it may sound – allow me to elaborate.

See, I live in Costa Rica, and HSBC bought the mess of the bank which was formerly know as Banex. Regardless of what name they have, they do an incredible job as being the worst bank in the world. Given that my local Costa Rican bank is as shitty as it gets, going to an HSBC branch anywhere in the world will be like going to my local Costa Rican bank, which always turns out to be a nightmare.

While on a trip to Brasil, I needed to get money out of an ATM to get to the airport. After I managed to explain this in Spanish to the Portuguese-speaking taxi driver, he took me to an HSBC ATM. I entered my PIN, opted to get $100 out and the ATM kindly replied: “Insufficient Funds”. I thought that was weird as I had barely used the card. I tried my Banco de San José (BAC) card and I was able to get my money. I immediately stopped using the HSBC card as I thought was messed up.

Today I logged in to my online account and I find that I have more than $5K available on the fucking card. So why, oh why, did the card refuse to get money out of my credit card? This is something I expect the bank representative to explain this for me. Here is the receipt from the bank and my statement as of today on the background (click for bigger image)

So there, that is why “the local bank of the world” might not be as good as it may sound.