Reflections

Should HSBC Bank Be Allowed To Send Pre-Activated ATM/Debit Cards In The Mail?

Posted by on Jul 6, 2010 | 5 Comments

HSBC Bank Sends Pre-Activated ATM/Debit Cards In The Mail

HSBC bank has been sending out pre-activated ATM/Debit cards to its customers. The ATM/Debit cards can be used to withdraw funds from the customer’s checking account, placing them at risk. The question is, should the bank send out pre-activated cards that could be stolen in the mail and used by anyone?

A recent article stated these facts:

Since these debit cards draw money directly from your checking account, HSBC’s carelessness puts all of the money in your account at risk. Should fraud occur, you will not see your stolen funds again for weeks.

This is a long-standing practice at HSBC, according to one report. When Knowzy confronted HSBC, they wouldn’t commit to fixing the issue.

Kate Durham, HSBC’s VP of Public Affairs, listened carefully but didn’t address the issue directly for the record, saying only:

If a customer feels that their card information may have been compromised, they should immediately call the phone number on their monthly account statement or on the back of their credit or debit card and ask to speak with the Fraud Department.

That advice will be little comfort to a customer whose checking account was just cleaned out through no fault of his or her own.

There is a simple solution to stop this practice. Go to a different bank that is more concerned about the customers’ security than HSBC Bank seems to be.

What do you think? Should HSBC Bank be allowed to even send out pre-activated ATM/Debit cards?

Comments welcome.

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  • Mark Hilton

    being a hsbc customer from the UK (and a full time uni student) i find this extremely alarming, even though i have no interest in such cards i find it just plain crazy their not taking this seriously

  • Pizzor2000

    This is just scary. A few weeks ago, I had heard of a few postal workers who had been arrested for stealing credit cards that pass through the mail. This sounds like Jackpot for thieves like this! I rather like the extra layer of security of having to activate over the phone.

    Who wants to place a bet on how long it will be before other banks follow suit?

    • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

      ‘Who wants to place a bet on how long it will be before other banks follow suit?’

      Who knows, some banks may have already!

  • http://www.justenrobertson.com Justen

    Of course they should. It’s a horrible idea, but “not allowed” is just a euphemism for “I’ll send government thugs to point a gun at your head if you try it”. I’d say the guy who can only get *his* ideas implemented at gunpoint is the one with the problem.

    @Pizzor: Banks are generally not interested in letting people steal their customer’s money. It costs them a lot of time and trouble to deal with and damages their reputation and thus customer base. The only way they could possibly be motivated to do so is if the cost of providing support for customers to activate their cards outweighed the cost of dealing with all the fraud alerts and investigations – and considering the former consists of a fancy answering machine and a paragraph of text in the envelope describing what to do with it, I can’t imagine a scenario where that is true.

    Still, if other banks start doing it, don’t be stupid enough to bank with them. Any bank that casual about securing your account is not trustworthy. Go to a local bank or a credit union, their paranoia tends to border on aggravating (which means they’re doing a great job keeping your money safe, aggravation aside).