Sort your act out First Direct

by John Fitzsimons on 18 June 2009  |  6 comments
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When I apply for a new current account, that’s all I want – don’t try to trick me into taking a credit card as well.

I have banked with HSBC for more than a decade. Back when I was at secondary school, we had a link up with Midland Bank (which of course is now part of HSBC) which saw me open my first bank account at the age of 13.

Over the years, I haven't had too many complaints. Yes, they made a hash of my student account when I went to university, which resulted in me getting charged for going £10 overdrawn when I should have had a £1500 overdraft.

And yes, they turned me down for my first credit card for absolutely no reason. But I got over that.

Anyway, after all this time I have decided to upgrade to another part of the HSBC stable, First Direct. I have friends who have sung their praises for goodness knows how long, and hell, as they give you £100 by switching to the 1st Account, what have I got to lose?

So I filled out the application online, all fine and good, and waited for them to send out the final part of the application.

Last weekend I got an exciting big package from First Direct, with all the relevant documents. But something stuck in my craw - included with all the info were two forms related to a credit card with First Direct.

Firstly, it's not a very good credit card.

But more importantly, it is not clear at all from the documents whether this card is simply a part of the package, or a separate entity.

Now thankfully for me, I know that the credit card is nothing to do with the account, and that's why it is sitting ignored in my recycling box.

Not everybody will have twigged that however, and will have signed up to this credit card, which is what has really annoyed me. I appreciate there is a certain amount of cross-selling that has to take place.

But there are ways of doing it, and for me this is completely underhand and unnecessary.

I'm not impressed First Direct. Not impressed at all.