So This Is What It Feels Like To Be Dumped After Nearly 20 Years
Our financial relationship had become toxic, but I wasn’t ready to let it go.
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It’s been more than 15 years since I last got the boot. I had just woken up from a 24-hour slumber after having my beer spiked in Rio. The first thing I read when I turned on my laptop was a “Dear Jeremy” email from Kevin, my boyfriend of several months who had stayed behind in New York City.
It took me a long time to get over his brutal rejection. It was the first time anyone had ever dumped me. Once I finally dropped Alison Moyet’s “Should I Feel That It’s Over” and “Say It” from repeat rotation on my iPod and emerged from shadowland, I got back on the horse and braced myself. I was bound to get tossed again at some point, that much I knew. But I didn’t expect it to go down like it did last week.
Luckily, I wasn’t unceremoniously dropped by a guy this time, so my heart remains intact — but my finances are temporarily broken. Damn you, HSBC! Why did you have to go out like that?
To be honest, HSBC Bank USA, National Association, may have done me the biggest favor ever by suddenly closing all of my accounts — though I’m still mad as hell about it. Come to think of it, in the past four and a half months, I’ve spent a lot of time being mad as hell at HSBC.
I’ve logged hours on the phone dealing with automated voice systems and costumer service representatives who seemed no more human.
“I understand your problem, but there’s nothing we can do on our end.”
If I had a dollar for every time an HSBC employee said that to me, I’d be so loaded, they never would have considered dumping me or my money.
I began my relationship with HSBC in New York City in the late ’90s, and for years, I considered it to be the best one I’d ever had. They were faithful and attentive. Not once did I flirt with the idea of ditching them for another financial institution. We even did the long-distance thing when I left the United States in 2006 and moved to, first, Buenos…
