I thought I'd get all ambitious today and open an HSBC.com savings account to use for our emergency fund since they've been strongly outperforming ING.

I was merrily filling out my information, only to be declined for the account! The reason given was based on a CheckSys report and had something to do with my "personal banking history".

So I call HSBC, and all the guy can tell me is that they have the name NetBank and something about account abuse!!!

So I call this NetBank, and they have no record of me. I ordered my report form the CheckSys people, and until I get that there's really not much I can do.

My mind is swirling with all sorts of unsavory possibilties. Identity theft? Some kind of unholy clerical error that's going to take weeks and hours of phone calls to straigten out?

What a bummer...