[Resolved]  Federal Bank, Kalluvathukkal Branch — Students loan

Address:

Kollam, Kerala

Dear Sir,

I'm Somya Dev who took education loan (Special Vidya Loan) in the year 2005 from Federal Bank, Kalluvathukkal branch. The amount taken was Rs 375000/- in total.for an interest rate of 9%. As per the loan terms, simple interest will be calculated until moratorium period and penal interest there after. We started repayment of the loan from the first year itself even though the terms specified clearly that we have to start repayment only after the moratorium period which was actually supposed to be after June 2011. By June 2011 we repaid around Rs 177000/-. On month of July 2011, the bank manager started to call us and asked to pay Rs 50000/- urgently and started harassing. As a result we inquired about the things happened and found that the bank updated our loan as Vidya loan with different terms when they computerized and all the interest calculated so far was penal interest instead of the simple interest. So we complained mentioning this to the grievance and after fighting for months, they agreed it as clerical mistake and assured us to reschedule the loan.

By August 2012, we got information from the bank as the loan rescheduled and asked us to come with Rs 100 Stamp Duty Paper to sign the agreement. So we took the statement from the bank and found that they have charged an interest rate of 17% while the sanctioned rate of interest was 9%. Also, they have charged the 15 months (the period they took to reschedule realizing their clerical mistake) due as arrears and deducted from what we repaid so far. Also, as per the manager, we have to pay an amount of around Rs 20000/- per month and have to wind up the loan in 38 months from now. When we mentioned all these to the manager, he behaved very rudely and threaten like filing suite against me and my parents.

Also, we found that government of Kerala is considering to subsidize the simple interest upto moratorium period of education loans sanctioned in the period of[protected] and also instructed banks not to charge penal interest there after. Also, government have ordered not to take any recovery actions from the bank until a final decision is made.

So we filed a complaint to the chief minister mentioning all these issues. Also,a committee is formed by the government for the final decision reg this recently.

My husband got an email from the branch manager to inform me and my parents to reach the bank and agree the terms to reschedule and in reply he mentioned all these and informed him that we are waiting for a reply. But the very next day he sent a vakil notice to me and my parents separately threatening like land or asset recovery.

Please could you take necessary actions to stop this kind of behavior from the bank manager until a final decision is made by the government or please could you advice what we should do?

Kind regards,

Soumya Dev