I had applied for few house loan from few banks as I would like to compare which offers suit me better.

However, the first bank that approves does not allowed me to take the offer letter home to study & analyse the details of the offer letter. The bank officer insist that I read & sign the letter at the branch. Since I am waiting for another banks offer, I left and said I'll need time to consider before making decision. So, he kept the offer letter.

Can the bank officer do that? I thought I can bring the offer letter home and read line by line since I am a first time buyer.

You have the right to examine words by words on the offer letter. Such service provided by banker deserve a complaint. You can always call their customer service centre and express your issue.
Might as well consider other bank.

is that bank HSBC?

a lot customer actually bring the offer letter to other bank to be counter-offer hence they are skeptical in allowing the offer letter to be taken home.

Yes, you have the right to examine word-by-word & request for explanation for any item/clause/term you don't understand.

BUT, an offer letter is NOT just any letter. It's suppose to be P&C. Strictly speaking, it's also a legal document.

Reason for not letting you take home the letter:
1) Information might be leaked
2) Document might be misplaced/lost
3) Document might be damaged/dirtied
4) Page(s) might be missing
Any of the 4, would lead them to prepare a fresh set of papers. And this innocent bank officer would get 'smacked' left right & center by his/her superior.

Just go ask any lawyer office, see if they would allow you to take the S&P or Loan Agreement docs back home? They'd let you know that unless you're some VIP or super rich, else whatever you need, please come & do it at their office.

This is to avoid u hawking the LO to other banks....

if want copy of offer letter, oso cannot bring home?

you can always ask them to email/ fax u a "draft COPY" of the LO.

my case, they email me the application form, i print out signed blank only, reply them email with soft copy of form/ required doc and they sent the LO by email, not required to go bank until i decided to take their offer........so far didn't face any problem at all @ Pbb, MBB, UOB, citiB

as for the S&P, my lawyer also email me the "draft COPY" and i go tru. it line by line before go to their office to sign..

coz the rates r very competitive these days, no bank wanna lose any business...

for cust to bring there's risk that the customer will bring the LO to another bank to ask for counter offer...

anyway mind to share which bank u applied??

i think after you signed it, you can have the copy

It's our consumer right to make decisions and comparisons yes?

yes... but not by disclosing it to other bank as this is a PnC docs...

how the customer would like to use the letter offer is another story, it has nothing to do with the fact that the bank refuse to give the customer to take a copy of letter offer. that is against consumer rights. even if the customer intention is compare with other offers, the bank should only take action when they have evidence that the customer took the offer letter to other banks.

to TS, if you really want the letter offer, then you try to ask them nicely again, tell them you know your rights, if still no go then request to speak to branch manager / manager in charge.

if all failed, ask for a black and white or record the conversation and file a complain against them to bank negara and FMB.

Ur answers are simply amusing.

1) U're confused about consumer rights. CR doesn't grant you the right to take bank's P&C document home with you.

2) So what course of action can the bank take against the customer? And why would the bank want to waste precious resources when the whole thing can be prevented in the 1st place?

3) C'mon, Bank Negara has more important things on hand than to entertain a complaint against a norm practice in the industry.

if a bank offers you offer letter you can take a copy of it home, sit on, smoke it, take it to another bank or do whatever you d*mn well please. you can get it checked by an independant lawyer, discuss it with friends, advisors or check with a competing bank etc. it's your right to do so. it is afterall a letter from the bank to you. you do not need to just listen to the obviously biased bank. who in his right mind would enter a contract or an agreement to engage into a contract just like that? that's pretty insane.

i ran into an rhb bank officer who tried to refuse me the letter. a simple check with BNM complaints unit and i was told it's a letter addressed to me from the bank and i can take a copy anytime i want anywhere i want. i told RHB and got the letter immediately. BNM is extremely active on such complaints and i have filed a few against several banks in the past. just because banks feel they can act like they own the consumer doesnt mean its true. its the other way around. our interest charges are paying their salary - so they should treat the consumer better. they just dont, because people like be quiet and take it. personally i recommend to always make a lot of noise to let them know this behaviour doesnt work anymore. call the banks complaints department. they dont want to solve the issue at once (i.e. within say 1 hour or so) for you then call up BNM also. i found this course of action very very effective when handling banks and insurances.

well very said... had similar experience before

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Added on April 25, 2010, 11:58 am1. that is an offer letter to me, why can't i take it home? i am not asking to take somebody's else offer letter. its like payslip is P&C thing, but i can get MY payslip / copy of payslip anytime from HR i wan, same things go to EFP statement, bank statement, tax statement etc etc...
2. if things are to be prevented, i would say first thing is prevent borrowing money to people or issuing credit card so prevent people can not afford to pay back. in that case they might also wan to prevent from kena rob, so close the bank would be the best.
3. they do have a dedicated department to deal with this kind of issue, their action is faster and efficient than you tot.

all of above are said from real exp, i used to work in a IT department for a very large SG bank in MY.

This post has been edited by lamode: Apr 25 2010, 12:01 PM

For the benefit of the members here.

What kind of action can the bank take, if let say you take the offer letter, never return it or return it refusing the offer, head to another bank, got a slightly better offer & sign up there?


Oh, as for the phrases in bold. That's why they got Legal Dept, Panels of Lawyer, Recovery Dept, Security & Insurance.

This post has been edited by scorgio: Apr 25 2010, 12:46 PM

i am not obliged to take up an other letter simply because i take it along. it's merely an offer to engage into a financial relationship. i can freely choose to take it or not within the timeframe stipulated in the offer letter.

the rational is this - in a simplified form -: for a loan contract to materialise both parties have to agree on terms. bank basically states their offered terms in the offer letter, if you accept, then its mutual agreement on the loan and it can materialise. if i choose not to take it, then nothing comes out of the whole thing. its like a supermarket sticking a price tag on it. this means: you can have this item under condition of payment of X RM. i take it and pay and the contract of exchange of goods has been materialised. offer letter is essentially the same thing, just with expiry because financial environment changes constantly so while i can get BLR -2.4 today i might only be able to get BLR +1 in two weeks time.

i said that because you mention it would be waste of resource, hence they dun give the offer letter to customer. but since they have legal department and other manpower within the organization then they shouldn't avoid customer to take the offer letter.

to answer your bold part, u said OL is a bank's P&C doc, then the bank can sue customer for leaking bank's P&C document to other parties, but i don't think this is the case.

If you're using the supermarket analogy, you're still not allowed to bring the said goods to another supermarket B and say that supermarket A is selling this at RM x, what can you offer unless you purchase the goods first? Which is what scorgio is saying, the bank is disallowing the consumer to bring the LO home for the simple fact of not allowing the consumer to bring it to another bank for counter offer. But this isn't stopping the consumer from 'shopping' around other banks since the consumer already knows the rate that's being offered.

This post has been edited by xtr4: Apr 25 2010, 03:42 PM