[Resolved]  ICICIcredit Card — undue penalty charges

This is the letter I sent the ICICI Credit Card Department over and over again for repayment o[censored]ndue penalty charges.

//letter to ICICI begins

To,
Customer Care (ICICI Bank)
Credit Card Department

Subject: After visiting your Andheri Branch with my credit card issue, I discussed the same with your officer ‘Madhuri Iswalkar’ and she has advised me to forward this letter to you that was also sent as registered letter to chandivali branch. Upon her advice, I hereby request you to do a reversal on my credit card account no. [protected] & relieve me of the unjustly added outstanding dues to my card as I strictly stick to my reasons of not being eligible for paying any dues for a mistake thoroughly made by your customer care executives. I do not wish to continue your credit card service. The entire story is as below:

While subscribing to your service, details given in the original form by me included the auto-debit option clearly checked and my email address as rinki.[protected]@relianceada.com amongst other details.

I was offered a scheme of having my residential phone bill directly paid via. the credit card on a monthly basis. I had opted for this scheme however none of the bill amounts were auto-debited from my account and had to be manually paid up by my family members. Nevertheless, you kept sending me messages for compensating the unpaid phone bill amounts by you.

Following this subscription, I had made an online transaction of Rs.1000/- using the card as donation to CRY (Child Relief & You). This is the only real transaction that has ever happened using the card since subscription.

It was understood by me that having opted for the auto-debit facility, transactions made using the card would enable you to directly debit the required amount from my account and that I was not required to take time out of my busy schedule & run around your branches to make payments.

I started receiving customer service calls after a couple of months enquiring about payments for the transactions. Even after repeatedly telling them to auto-debit the amount, and though they verbally complied confirming to me that they had already auto-debited the amount, I kept being harassed again after a few months with contradictory statements & messages. The messages on my phone stated that the card bill had been sent to my email address rinki.[protected]@reliance.com

It is needless to mention that ‘You’ have made incorrect data entries (note the data entry errors made by you in the auto-debit column and the email address).

Even after sharing ‘Your blunder’ with your customer service executives, I kept being harassed.

For the mistake committed by your people, I as the customer am not expected or entitled to spend so much of my time, effort and energy to resolve the problem that you created through ‘incorrect data entries’ and then confirming ‘incorrect facts’ that can be as I understand now a ‘propaganda’ to glean extra money from the customer through unethical business practices.

This business deal with you has caused me severe pain and I find myself harassed extremely for absolutely no mistake on my part. I am now inclined to get an ‘ombudsman’ in the picture & reclaim my lost funds that you incorrectly forced me to pay up as penalty charges.

You also withdrew Rs.1000/- from my account which I am grateful for, but something you could have done right in the beginning as payment for the real and only transaction made using the card, and avoided me so much harassment. You also blocked my card for mistakes made by ‘You’ and expect me to leave all my other works and run around your branches to solve an issue of a molehill that you made a mountain out of.

I have been a long time customer of ICICI, having had savings account, FDs, and SIP with you. I had trusted your banking authorities to not put me through such an ‘ordeal’ & be honest and transparent in your dealings. This is a serious offense to me.

Even a collector was sent to my house who promised me a response call from your office within a day or two for resolution, even telling me that I had no need to go down to the branch, but till date I have NOT received any response call from your bank.

The phone number for enquiry mentioned by you in the letter on July,09,2008 is ‘ALWAYS’ busy. Do you expect customers to leave their important works and keep trying your number through the day and forever??? Why do you share such numbers which are never accessible????

I am very disappointed in your services & would want to take up this issue with RBI ombudsman & even beyond if required & if I am not relieved of this immediately.

Acknowledgement of the letter is awaited to be at the earliest.

Rinki Banerji

//letter to ICICI ends

**In the end, they still debited the penalty charges unduly charged, of amount more than Rs.5000. And there has been absolutely no intimation from their end to my constant letters to them.