[Resolved]  Standard Chartered Bank — Controversial clause of SC bank to charge Rs. 50 for making phone call to them by its credit card customers from 3rd call onwards

Address:

Mumbai City, Maharashtra

Respected Sir, I have a Standard Chartered Super value Titanium Credit card bearing No. XXXX 8711. However, when I was reading Important Information Document today, I noticed a strange clause which I have not come across till date with any of the other banks. Although I have signed on the important information Document, I do not accept one clause mentioned in it about chargeable phone calls. It has been mentioned that Non-IVR calls attended by phone banking officers – 3rd call onwards in a calendar month – Rs. 50 per call. I have following objection on this controversial clause – 1) Wrong / Incorrect e-mail ID provided by them – When I received the card, there was important information mentioned on the backside of the paper where credit card was attached. Please go thru the attachment sent along with this mail. The last section on the backside is Contact information – It says – Write to Us: Card.[protected]@sc.com Also, there were no details of the billing cycle such as – Bill generation date, due date etc. mentioned anywhere on the documents / papers received along with the newly received credit card. So obviously I wanted to know about it so that I can plan my swipes as per the funds availability. For the above reasons, when I sent e mail to Card.[protected]@sc.com, within 5 minutes, I got a failure delivery mail saying it’s a inexistent e mail address. I tried resending the mail by mentioning all small letters on card.[protected]@sc.com But even it bounced back. It clearly indicated that the e-mail address mentioned in the contact Information section was wrong. When mail sent bounces back as failure delivery due to wrong e mail address provided by them, what is my mistake? That’s why I had to make a phone call. So for their mistake, I was making phone calls. If the e mail address was correct, I would have not made any phone calls. On enquiring with their customer service executive, I was told that the correct e mail address is card.[protected]@sc.com It was the printing mistake on the part of bank which was the cause of my mails being bounced back as failure delivery. Also, they had wrongly updated my mobile number without country code +91. Therefore I wasn’t able to register my card for online usage. Since the e mail ID mentioned was wrong, I had to make phone call. My quota of 2 free phone calls was thus therefore exhausted on the first day itself after receiving the card, for no fault of mine. 2) T-PIN generation – It has been mentioned that complaints & card blockages requests for lost card wont be included in this charge. However, nothing has been mentioned about T-PIN generation request. When I receive a new credit card, I have to generate a new T-PIN for IVR usage. This is also included in the monthly quota of 2 free calls. No where it is mentioned that phone call made for T-PIN generation will be excluded from this charge. 3) Mobile network connectivity – When I am making phone call to SC bank s helpline from my registered mobile number, there could be connectivity & network issue & while speaking my phone call may get dropped / disconnected. So I would need to make another phone call. Suppose this call also gets disconnected, then I ve exhausted my monthly quota of 2 free phone calls & the third call that I make would be charged on my card at Rs. 50 per call. If the phone call gets disconnected while talking to ur customer service executive due to service provider’s network connectivity issue, is it my fault? Why should they punish me by charging Rs 50 per call just because my phone call was dropped / disconnected? So practically speaking, I have to bear the brunt for Vodafone’s poor mobile signal & pay them for Vodafone s fault. 4) Not a Toll Free number - Unlike other banks e.g. Kotak bank which offers Toll free number for its customers, Standard Chartered bank does not have one. When I am making a phone call from my registered mobile number to the bank, Vodafone is already charging me for the outgoing phone call. It must be noted here that in last six months mobile to landline phone calls have become expensive. As such when a phone call is made to SC bank helpline number [protected] / 39404444, it takes minimum 4 to 5 minutes to get thru the IVR. If your customer service executive is busy talking to other customers or if he has some query which he wants to clarify from his senior floor manager, our call is kept on hold. If the average hold time is approx 10 minutes & the actual speaking time is 10 min, this call would cost me Rs. 24 for total 20 min duration. Over & above this, the bank would charge me Rs 50 per call if its 3rd call onwards. That means I would be paying Rs. 74 for a single phone call made to the bank. This would take away all the benefit that I m receiving by way of 5% cash back the bank is offering me. So what s the use of getting the cash back if the bank is backstabbing its customers by charging for such non-sense reason & the offer / benefit is getting nullified? 5) Calling for a reason – When I am making a phone call to SC bank on its helpline number, it is obviously for a reason. I won t be calling the bank to discuss about today s weather conditions or to flirt with their female call centre employee. Since I am paying from my pocket for the outgoing phone call, I would obviously never make unnecessary phone calls to the bank. 6) Not a free credit card – Super value titanium credit card is not a free credit card. I m paying joining Fees of Rs.560.68 (Incl of 12.5% service tax) & Annual fees of Rs. 843.75 from 2nd year onwards. So they are charging me for issuing & maintaining the credit card. 7) Clause exclusive only to SC bank – Over last 10 years, I have been using credit cards of ICICI bank, Citibank, Kotak bank, Axis bank, HDFC bank, SBI etc. They do not have any such clause & whenever I have any query, I can call them freely without being worried about the extra charges being levied on my card for calling them. I have never come across with such a controversial clause of charging Rs 50 per call from 3rd call onwards in a calendar month. Except SC bank, no other bank has such a clause. 8) New customer – A new customer of SC bank who is eager to use the card won’t be well versed with their internet banking platform. He would have queries – - while registering the credit card for the first time for online usage. - about billing cycle. -while trying to register the billers / utility bills for Autopay facility. - about payment of outstanding dues on the credit card. So he would be making phone calls in the initial few months till everything falls in place. But the bank wants to punish him for making phone calls to them. 9) Customer of SC bank who is not Tech savvy – There is this credit card customer of Standard Chartered bank who doesn’t use computer / internet. He is not computer / tech savvy. Does nt have a computer / laptop at home & uses a simple mobile phone, not a smart phone. But he does use a credit card regularly. He has few queries about usage of the card at different times as per the scenario. A query is a doubt, its not a complaint. Since he s not computer / internet savvy, he can t send a e-mail to them, the only way he can clarify on the doubt is to make a phone call to SC bank helpline & ask. But as per their policy, the customer can have only 2 doubts in a month & his phone call should never get disconnected / dropped because of the network connectivity issue. If he has more than 2 queries or his phone call drops while talking to ur customer executive, they will punish him by charging Rs. 50 in the next credit card bill. Its not a crime not to be computer savvy. But the bank wants to punish their clients for not being tech savvy. That’s unfair. 10) Spam Calls from SC bank - Inspite of my mobile number in DND, I receive lot o[censored]n necessary spam calls from SC bank for personal / professional secured or unsecured loan / credit cards which I am not interested in. What about that? How do I punish them for making unnecessary calls when I am busy with my patient in operation theatre? There is no limit of 2 calls per month when they call me. 11) Call centre employees with Fixed salary - Any call centre employee has fixed duty hours & gets a fixed salary inspite of no of phone calls he or she attends. Its not that the bank needs to pay the call centre employee additional amount for attending more phone calls. He is going to get the same salary whether he attends 4 phone calls or 40 phone calls in his duty of 8 hrs. Also, as mentioned earlier, helpline number of SC bank is not a toll free number. So the customer making a phone call to them is paying from his pocket without any extra additional cost to the bank. So irrespective of whether the customer calls them twice in a month or 5 times in a month, its not going to be a penny extra cost to the bank. Then why do they want to charge Rs 50 per call from 3rd call onwards in a month to the customer? 12) Impossible to count & remember no of previous calls made to the bank in that month before making next phone call - It is impossible for any customer to count & remember phone calls made to the bank in that particular month & then decide whether to make next call to avoid being charged Rs 50 from 3rd call onwards during that month. We are busy professionals with my own hectic schedule. I cant keep a track of all these small small petty things in life. It s no ones priority to remember & count such non-sense things like counting phone calls made to the bank in that month. Even if I wish to count, it is impossible to remember & keep a note of it. The bank officers think that we don’t have any other work & the only work we have left in our lives is to count number of phone calls made to them in that calendar month. The bank wants to take advantage of it & wants to make money out of it 13) Sending sms to [protected] is not an alternative to phone call for a urgent issue or when I m standing in shop to buy something on ur card - As an alternative, I was told by call centre employee to send a sms to [protected] & wait for the call centre employee to call me back in next 24 hrs. But who has time to wait these days for 24 hrs? I would like to speak to their call centre employee when I am free to talk. What is the use if the call centre employee calls me back when I am busy in my work? If I have a query just before swiping my SC credit card at merchant establishment, I would prefer to call at that point in time only. When I am standing in the shop to purchase something, why should I send a sms & wait for their employee to call me back after few hours? I want a instant solution to my query & for that I need to call their call centre. 14) Increasing the psychological distance - I know that bank like Axis, ICICI, Citi, HDFC are just a phone call away when I am in trouble or when I have any doubt or query. Whereas, Standard chartered bank credit card customer would always have the fear in his mind that this might be his third call & the bank might charge him for calling them. 15) One day offer by a merchant – Also, e mail sent would take time for receiving reply, on an average 3 to 5 working days. If there is any one day offer by a merchant & I have any query, I would need to make a phone call to the bank to clarify my doubt. If I send e mail & wait for them to reply, the offer would get over by the time I receive reply from the bank. But by punishing their customers by charging Rs 50 per call, they r not only reducing phone calls to them, they r increasing the psychological distance of the customers from them & the customers won t feel that the bank is just a phone call away. It would not give their customers the feeling of "My bank" or "homely feeling" while banking with SC bank. SC bank does nt want their clients to call them. They want to punish them for making a phone call to them & make money out of it. My humble request to them to go thru all the points that I have raised over last one month thru my all mails went in vain. They have refused to cancel this clause. In the reply to my mail, they have only re-iterated their policy. The clause of charging Rs 50 for making a phone call to them from 3 rd call onwards in a month remains. It s unfair clause & shows very cheap attitude of senior SC bank officials towards its customers. I do not agree & accept this controversial clause of standard chartered bank which is not a regular norm in credit card industry. I request you to direct them to remove this controversial clause. Thank u. Dr. Sameer Chitnis. Navi Mumbai. [protected]