I’m no drug baron...I run a hair salon!

Ms R.P. writes: I had a letter from HSBC saying it had decided to close my beauty salon’s business account. I rang the bank and was asked to complete a lengthy online form, which I did as best I could – although some questions were not geared for such a small business. All seemed well, but then HSBC closed my account and sent me a cheque for the balance of £4,216. I was horrified. Now, HSBC has changed its mind and reinstated the account, but left me to deal with the fallout.

YOUR beauty salon business suffered hugely when HSBC closed your account. You were unable to pay rent, wages and other bills. Letters and demands flooded in from firms you had paid by direct debit. For a while you lost your telephone line. The stress was enormous.

HSBC told me all this happened as part of its fight to protect against fraud and financial crime, and to make sure crooks do not launder money from drugs and human trafficking, or as part of terrorist financing. The bank is making enquiries into all of its commercial customers. Closing an account is a last resort, I was told.

Bank staff told me they did write to you more than once and your online account would also have displayed a banner saying the bank wanted more information. But you have responded that you are ‘not great’ online and rely on your daughter’s help. You say: ‘The bank knew I was totally confused and the call centre had to help me complete the form.’

Apparently you missed one question about your business address. You were amazed that this was enough to close your account and cause chaos, when HSBC could easily have rung you and got the answer it wanted.

At this point, I ran into some chaos myself. HSBC denied telling you all was well and it sent you what it said was copy correspondence and a CD recording of your phone conversations. You told me there were letters you had never seen before. And the CD refused to play. So HSBC told you to take it to a branch where the manager tried – and failed – to make it play.

Weeks later, the bank managed to play your recordings, but they were all of calls made after HSBC had already closed your account. There were no earlier calls, when you had asked for help and been told all was well.

HSBC had told me it supplied recordings of all the calls, but then backtracked and said there were ‘further’ calls. But in any case, the bank said, you had only asked about calls made after the account was closed – which just does not make sense.

HSBC’s explanation was that earlier phone conversations had been with a different department, as if you understood the bank’s structure.

Finally, you have told me that after repeated calls from HSBC, going over old ground again and again, you have given up. ‘They have worn me down and were making me ill,’ you told me.

HSBC says it has awarded a small amount of compensation to reflect the problems in listening to the CD. And it now appears to accept that you are not a terrorist, human trafficker or a money launderer for drug barons. So that’s all right then.