Ordinary Gweilo

Spike has noticed the same thing I just noticed, namely that HSBC have decided to “improve” their PowerVantage account from the start of next year.

The catch being, of course, that these improvements are accompanied by a substantial increase in the monthly fee if you don’t meet their minimum balance requirement – oh, and that minimum balance has been increased from HK$100k to HK$200k.  

If you have less than HK$200,000 in your account, the monthly fee will now be HK$120 (a six-fold increase). 

I remember when HSBC stopped offering Bonus Points on tax payments, and they did the same trick – they made a big thing of a lucky draw and only mentioned the real change in the small print.

My all-time favourite is a company of my acquaintance, which issued an internal announcement saying that due to the great success of product X, two staff were being transferred to the London office.  Only in the second paragraph did they get round to mentioning the fact that the rest of the staff were being made redundant and the office would close down.