We love France, we really do. But there are aspects that are, shall we say, less robust than in the U.S.
One of these is the quality of service personnel in non-retail contexts. (The service personnel in shops, stores, and restaurants, in contrast, are fabulous — almost always helpful and friendly and efficient.) The worst, in our experience, are banks, and we had yet another example the past two days.
While in Lyon I did a stupid thing: I tried to pay for lunch with my HSBC card, which required inputting a secret code into a small mobile machine that the waiter brings to the table. Three times I tried, three times I failed, and the machine would not let me continue — my card was blocked. I tried to use it again later in the day, to no effect. This was three-strikes-and-you’re-out à la francaise.
The day before yesterday we decided to remedy this situation, and visited the HSBC branch across the street from our favorite little cafe, Le Danton. We waited at the glass door to be allowed to enter, and were face to face with a rather sour-looking late middle-aged woman behind the counter. We explained the situation, and she told us to use the card at the ATM in the lobby. If the card were blocked, the ATM would swallow it up and we would automatically be sent another one. So I put the card in the ATM, typed in the code, asked for 100 euros and … received 100 euros! Problem solved.
Except that when I used the card to try to buy lunch, the machine didn’t even let me get to the “put-in-your-code” point in the transaction; it immediately flashed “Paiement Refusé.”
The next day we were in our old neighborhood around the Metro Alésia stop, saw another HSBC branch, and decided to try again. This time there were two people behind the counter, a very young woman and a man in his thirties. He was occupied so she asked us what we needed. We explained the situation (the card worked at the ATM but not at the restaurant), and her very funny response was to ask us if we understood why that had happened. No, we said, we have no clue, that’s why we’re here talking to you. Well she had no clue either, so she asked the man sitting next to her for help. Alas, he knew — three false codes in a store will block the card from being used in retail establishments, but not in ATMs. We found this bizarre (it’s apparently OK with HSBC for a code-thief to pay for merchandise with a customer’s cash, but not with a customer’s card). But we were happy that we had an answer and asked the man how we could get the card working again.
Alas, that was not possible in his branch; we had to go to the branch where we had opened our account to do that. We found this bizarre too — what good are bank branches if they can only serve customers who opened accounts in that particular branch? No use in arguing, though. We hopped on the Metro to Montparnasse, like salmon seeking our native HSBC-branch spawning grounds.
The Monparnasse branch is special. It is a “HSBC Premier” outpost, which exists (I think) specifically to help international customers. Another glass door, another man behind a counter, engaged with a customer. But immediately a woman came out of an adjoining office to ask us if she could help. We explained the situation again (this was now the fourth time), and a look of absolute perplexity came over her — she’d never heard of such a thing (although it seemed to us to be something that would happen quite commonly), and said we’d need to speak with the man behind the counter when he was free.
Eventually we did, explaining (for the fifth time) the problem with our card. He, at least, understood what the problem was, and had a solution: Leave the card with him and come back early next week to retrieve a new, working card. Not the best solution, really, since it was Wednesday and we were leaving on Saturday.
Well, he said, in that case we’ll have to send you a new card via international mail, which will, of course, involve a charge. OK, OK, whatever, at the point we were just happy to have the problem solved.
So the results of our interactions with HSBC: Explained the problem five different times at three different branches. Of the five people we spoke with, three had no clue what to do and, indeed, seemed never to have heard of such a thing. Of the two who did have a clue, only one could help us. And truth be told, I wouldn’t describe the HSBC staff as warm and fuzzy. I definitely got a “You’re an idiot for inputting a wrong code three times” vibe.
Oh well, live and learn. There’s this, too, which makes our little funny experience with HSBC worthwhile.
Categories: France, Travel -- France