I refer to my letter of the 25th February issue entitled "Does HSBC really care?" Two weeks have since passed and it seems that HSBC did not in fact care enough about the matter, as it failed to avail itself of its right of reply herein. A curt "response" was given in an article, which appeared on page 10 of It-Torca's 4th March issue entitled "Bieba tad-depoziti taqbad id klient u tikkawzalu griehi", by an unnamed HSBC spokesperson, in a weak attempt to defend the indefensible. S/he stated that "HSBC does not comment on its individual client relationships" but in the same breath paradoxically, contended that its deposit machine had worked perfectly when tested, thereby inferring that this same machine could not have caused me injury!

This same spokesperson, however, did not mention that such post event tests do not disprove that this particular deposit machine had caused me serious injury beforehand, as I have clearly demonstrated, and conveniently failed to mention that testing was not conducted by an impartial party. What really impressed me, however, was the fact that even though the bank admitted that it had seen my letter to The Times of 14th February regarding the same injury, it still did not publicly or privately, attempt to substantiate its mistaken theory that "I had injured myself" because I had misused its deposit machine, while simultaneously using its ATM! Common sense also dictated that this HSBC spokesperson, who preferred not to reveal his / her identity, would have at least informed readers why the bank has to date refused to show me the CCTV footage, preserved at my request, which had captured the event.

I therefore feel constrained to challenge HSBC by means of this letter, to declare within a week, through your newspaper, without the imposition of any conditions, that it will shortly be showing me, my wife, who was present when the accident occurred, and my legal representatives, the CCTV footage in question. This should not be problematic at all, if the bank has nothing to hide. After all, HSBC has just announced that it would be investing in "Customer Service" and following through on this promise is the least that customers expect.

 

Jean-Pierre Azzopardi

Swieqi