Retail Services (HSBC) For Costco Wholesale Unethical "Late Fee" practices; no customer service via 800 #; unable to reach PO Box 15521 Wilmington, Delaware City Of Industry California

I have been a Costco customer since JAN 1994, and post this as a WARNING to Costco members.

Costco Wholesale runs a tight ship, and quite frankly, my beef is not totally with them. Costco has arranged "HSBC" of City of Industry, CA to manage, or mismanage, the Costco credit card program.

Costco members receive bills from "Retail Services". Costco's Retail Services is managed by HSBC.

I have impeccable credit, and yet I have received multiple 'Late Fees' from HSBC over the last 3-4 years. I receive a bill, and pay it immediately. I can mail my bill out, and it will take as many as 17 days to travel from Washington state to California.

At first, I was mad; but I called them, and called, and called. Then I became pissed.

Why am I spending so much time trying to fix this? It gets to the point where you say screw it, I've got better things to do. That's what they want.

I persevered, and I finally got through after nearly an hour wait on the phone.

The individual on the phone was not sympathetic to the situation, and told me there was nothing I could do. I asked for an address to push my complaint up higher. My credit card, on one, and only one late charge was credited half the money back.

The funny thing is, I haven't had a late charge since.

These folks have either a scam going, or they are just incompetent.

I moved in September of this year, and changed my address through the US Post Office.

I attempted to change my address via a phone call in October of this year to HSBC, via the 1-800-220-8592 on my HSBC Costco bill. I spent 35 minutes on the phone and no one ever answered the phone call.

I received my October bill, and then attempted to change my address by simply updating the bill payment stub. I affixed the post office change of address label, and highlighted my new address.

My November bill came to the old address, and was forwarded to me. I repeated the process trying to update my address, but to no avail.

Yesterday I received my December bill, which was forwarded from the old address.

I called HSBC and waited for 25 minutes on hold listening to the same message, repeating in a loop.

Bottomline: Where is the customer service and why should I as a customer have to spend hours of my time calling to update an address? The system is broken.

So, what should a consumer do?

I wrote the CEO of Costco, James Sinegal, on 03DEC08 asking for help. His address is PO Box 34331, Seattle, WA 98124.

If he can't fix HSBC, then I'll be canceling my Costco account because I don't know how to get my bill in the future. You see, the US Post Office only forwards first class mail for about 45 days.

I am asking for help, that's it. I want no more, no less then to be treated fairly.

I'll upate this site on whether Mr. Sinegal was able to help me.

Good luck out there,

James
Seabeck, Washington
U.S.A.