HSBC's low home loan rate

These past two weekends we mostly spend on the road checking out houses from as far as Las Pinas to the south and Marikina to the north. I've also combed the net and actually found a house which seems to fit right into our budget and also right in the heart of the city of Makati.  So now that we have found a suitable place to purchase, we were already thinking of how to go about acquiring our dream home.  We don't have a stashful of cash hidden so bank financing is a must. 

First on our list is HSBC. Why, because according to leaflets they are inserting into my monthly credit card statements, they are offering a home loan rate at 5.99% for 1 year re-pricing! Also, i had high hopes that my inquiry would be met with enthusiasm after all, by my standards I have a pretty good credit rating, by way of paying on time even before due dates.  That's not limited to credit card debts by the way, I am also diligent with my other obligations in other financial institutions. So anyway, I called up their hotline and got entertain by a customer representative who initially told me that the 5.99% was monthly rate! Yup, i had to ask him again and again but he still firm on the 5.99% as monthly rate.  Regardless, he told me that a home loan specialist will contact me in 2-3 business days to answer about my particular concern.

The following day, friday I again called up their hotline and inquired about their home loan rate if it's really monthly or annual.  The CS this time told me that it's annual and that she told me that she put my request on express mode to signify the urgency so that whoever the home loan specialist they assigned to me will find ways to talk to me earlier. That was friday. Monday came, then tuesday and then wednesday still there was no call.  By the way, I also filled up their online request form to talk to a home loan specialist but nobody got back to me.  I suppose, they had bigger clients to attend to.  

But I've always thought of HSBC as really up there in customer service. Contrast that with Union Bank and UCPB. When i emailed UCPB for an inquiry about home loan rate, not even a minute after sending that email my phone was already ringing and a bank representative was already calling me ready to answer all my queries.  When I also called up Union Bank-Wackwack branch, I was also immediately entertained by their business manager.  But then again Union bank and UCPB offers 9.75% as against 5.99%.  So I am giving HSBC the benefit of the doubt here.  Maybe they are just swamped with home loan applications that they didn't bother getting back to me?

ucpb customer service

Yesterday, i went to ucpb-san miguel branch to checked whether my replacement atm card is already available. I didn't think of calling first because the last time i was there to apply, i was told that the card will be available 3 days after application. Since they already know that my main account is at Iligan, i assumed that the 3 days waiting period still applies. I applied march 3o, when i went there i was told that my card was not yet available. In addition, if i wanted to claim my card at ucpb-smc, i need to write address to ucpb-iligan requesting that the card be forwarded to ucpb-smc. They didn't tell me when i applied, only when i went there again to claim.

Since, i have bills to pay i needed to make an over-the-counter withdrawal. I filled-up a withdrawal slip, gave 120 pesos as bank charge for inter-branch withdrawals which by the way i didn't get any receipt and was made to wait for more than an hour. The first time that i made an over-the-counter withdrawal, i was also made to wait for the same amount of time except that i didn't sit it out at the bank because i have my two children with me and both are hungry and are starting to be restless. Anyway, i called up an officemate at Iligan if she could follow up ucpb-iligan. Not contented, i even called up ucpb-iligan myself to follow-up the faxed withdrawal slip. The reply i received was that they didn't received any fax from ucp-smc, only to be disputed by a bank officer at ucpb-smc by showing me a report of all fax messages sent.

I don't know where their bottlenecks are but i assume that the bank charge i paid for the interbranch transaction should have been enough payment for the telephone calls they are going to incur to follow up these transactions. If i had been a valued depositor, i probably will get a more prompt service. But i'm not so....

Geez...you think you only get lousy service from government offices.