[Resolved]  HDFC Bank Nri Home Loan — UnProfessional Service & Unacceptable Behaviour

Date: 18 JULY 2011

I am an NRI customer and had secured a home loan from HDFC bank thinking that they are a reputed bank and I would expect to receive an excellent customer service. But I am gutted with the Level of Customer service I have received till date. It all started when I had some queries regarding my account and had written to the customer service team in October 2010. Since they could not answer all my queries, I was requested to send my queries to the Branch Manager to Mr Sameer Sharma. So I wrote to him with all my queries in October 2010 & February 2011, but he did not have any courtesy to reply back to my emails.

This year again during my visit to India, on 28 May 2011 I personally visited the Branch. As Mr Sharma was busy attending new customers and least bothered for existing customers, so I met Ms Beena and she wasn’t that helpful as I thought. Below is the conversation I had with her:

My First question was regarding change of interest rate and to my surprise she asked me that If I am going to pay that difference money now? That was a ridiculous question to ask, did that mean that if I was not going to pay that money, then I have no right to ask her that question and was wasting her time?.

I did also ask here regarding Mr Sharma not replying to me for the past 6 months for my queries and she replied that we hardly get time to look into emails and we are very busy? I would request HDFC to please remove the entire email id’s from your website as your staff are to busy to look into it.

She said that since Mr Nimkar had handled my case she will try to send an email to the operations team and also brief Mr Nimkar when he returns back on Monday. Then she wrote an email to the operations team on an urgent basis and informed us that she should get an update by Tuesday i.e. 31 May 2011. I am not sure whether she really wrote that email or was she just trying to fob us off.

Then I requested her to call me back with an update on the outcome of the email and gave her my mobile number. To my surprise again she replied that I have 10 different things to remember and we have just 1 thing to remember, so call me on Tuesday to get an update. Now that was really shocking, how could she say such a thing? Isn’t it is her duty to follow-up on my queries and let me know the outcome of it. So basically she refused to call me back.

Then as soon as we finished our conversation she did something unexpected, she said “Puooh”. Now that was really rude of her. What was that for, is that how you treat your customers and she was happy that we left?

Not to my surprise, as expected I did not receive any call from Ms Beena, so I had called their office @ 3.15pm trying to get an update, but I was informed that she was on lunch, so I left my name, number and account number with the receptionist and requested for a call back on Urgent basis and I was waiting for a call from your the Office until my departure from Mumbai i.e. 5 June 2011.

I think that reputed banks maintain their Business ethics and standards, but looks like all of those standards and ethics are being overlooked and not being practically adhered. Mr Sharma also did not address all my concerns raised in my complain to him and conveniently ignored carelessness and behavioural issue in all his replies. He also ignored my request of 20 June 2011, to provide me the Head Office and Ombudsman complaints procedure, as I was not happy with the way my complaint was being dealt.

I am still await a reply to my email of 26 June 2011 for the above matter from Mr Sharma HDFC Virar Branch. I don’t think that I would be recommending HDFC bank to any of my NRI colleagues as my experience was good enough for others to learn.