ACR Press Release: Hundreds of thousands of accumulated points lost for HSBC Malta Loyalty Reward Programme for Premier and HSBC Advance Customers

The attention of the Association for Consumer Rights was drawn by customers of HSBC Bank Malta who felt they were treated unfairly when they saw that the accumulated points that they earned using their credit cards were suddenly deleted without a clear and reasonable warning. 

The following points should make it clear why this was an unfair treatment of the customers. 

• Many loyal HSBC Premier and Advance customers have lost hundreds of thousands of accumulated points earned through spending on their credit cards after bank decided to change the programme
• Many customer complaints have been received, however, HSBC is stating that it communicated the change to customers. It seems the latter was done in a way to ensure many customers would not see the communication and as a result lose their earned points
• HSBC stated it communicated to all HSBC customers by Personal Internet Banking (PIB), email or by letter where no PIB was held. Customers are not used to receiving important bank communication by PIB or email
• PIB is usually accessed to make account transfers, check balances and effect payments. Reading messages is not high on the list as these usually relate to systems maintenance and other technical matters. Hardy ever important communications
• No communication in the media (press release, Facebook post, LinkedIn) was done by the bank to communicate that points will be cancelled if not used. In contrast, when the bank communicated its recent €5 per month account fee it sent letters to clients and also issued a media release and fully explained the situation. It did not communicate via email/PIB
• The communication sent on 17 June 2020 stated that points had to be redeemed by not later than 4^thSeptember 2020. The communication was sent in summer when many customers are on holiday / shutdown and can easily miss an email/PIB message as they are not expecting the bank to communicate with them in this manner
• Furthermore, the communication was not just about the changes to the loyalty reward points but first mentioned the new card system, changes to credit card interest calculation, fees for ATM Cash Withdrawals and Foreign Currency Transactions made with HSBC Cards, and Cross Border Payments Regulations II.
• The communication regarding loyalty reward points was number 5 out of 7 messages.
• This message was bundled in a communication with many other messages, some very technical in nature. It is no wonder that the changes to the loyalty reward points was deemed not to have been received by so many as even those who saw the communication could have easily missed it
• Communication stated that any accumulated points below 4000 cannot be transferred and will be lost. Premier customers used to earn a point for every €1 spent and Advance customers one point for every €2 spent. Hence, customers were robbed of a lot of points and there was nothing they could do about it
• The bank managed to cancel even more points from customers who had more than 4000 as they did not see/read the communication. It is obvious this was done in a way to keep customers in the dark. It would be good to know how many points were cancelled. These are probably in the hundreds of thousands if not more
• Credit card statements up to August 2020 did not state anything about points going to expire / be demised and points were accumulating as usual.  When the September 2020 was received by a Premier customer it was already too late for customer to take action.

Taking everything into consideration HSBC did not act fairly with its customers as it did not properly communicate this change in the Loyalty Reward Programme and as a result benefitted from cancelling a lot of hard earned customer points. HSBC usually communicates in a more effective manner and also uses the media to get its message across. 

Credit card statements which are usually vetted by customers prior to payment never mentioned that points would be lost. In this case it made no use of media and used the personal internet banking (PIB) which is usually a secondary mode of communication. 

Furthermore, the message regarding changes to the reward points was bundled (hidden) with a number of other messages and definitely not given any prominence. This is to the detriment of the customers.

The Association for Consumer Rights, Malta feels that this situation was not justified