[Resolved]  Kotak Credit Cards — Kotak Credit Cards Robbing innocent Clients

Dear Respected Consumer Court,
I want to highlight how kotak Credit Card company is looting innocent n sincere clients by misleading information and unlawful and cheating calculations.

I am having Kotak Mahindra Bank Fortune card No-[protected] from last almost an year. I am very particular & very much regular about my credit card bills payment, all these months i have always paid all the bills very well withing due date and I am having excellent payment history.

Last month in November I was having some financial crisis so i couldn't paid full amount (Rs. 4421/-) but still I paid Minimum Amount Due (MAD) indicated in statement (Rs.3484/-) right on the due date (on 23/11/2009). Statement date for my card is 5th of every month & payment due date is 23rd of same month, so on 5/11/2009 statement was generated & 23/11/2009 was due date on which i paid Rs.3484/-

As per the normal rule, all i knew was that they will charge me interest at the rate 3.1% per month so i innocently assumed that they may charge me 3.1% of the unpaid amount i.e. Rs.937/- and that comes to approx. Rs.30/- (3.1% of rs. 937/- as I had paid Minimum Amount Due which is approx. 78.80% of full amount) but i got almost heart attack when i received my statement next month (i.e. December 5)

In 5/12/2009 statement Kotak bank has charged me interest amount Rs.204.12 + Service Tax Rs.21.03 Total Rs.225/- (which i was expecting to be approx. Rs.30/-). The amount unpaid was just Rs.937/- against which they charged me Interest of Rs.225.15 and that comes to 24% for one month.

When I contacted Kotak's Customer care the officer on line told me that when we pay minimum amount due, they charges interest on whole amount from the date of the first transaction in previous month of the month when statement was generated and he accused me to not to read the booklet provided with the card.

Dear sir do you think that this is Fair by any point of view?? These credit card companies willingly provides us 42 days of credit period but does this gives them license to rob us by slapping 24% interest on unpaid amount for one month?? in this way the annual interest will be 288% can any government allow this kind of daylight robbery???

Most of the people don't get sufficient time to read fine prints in thick booklets given by the company (and their language is so complicated that one can't get it correctly even-though anybody may read it and they keeps so many loop holes and sub clauses that persons gets trapped in it) and they always mentions that interest will be charged at the rate of 3.1% Per Month so its very natural for anybody to assume that when the minimum amount due is paid as per Credit card statement they wont be charged for full amount, but in actual practice these cheaters do collects minimum amount and then they charge interest for the collected minimum amount due + difference amount too, this is highly unfair. I have paid 78.88% of the full amount and yet they are charging interest on the amount they already received and that to for approx. one and half month!!!!

First they are collecting minimum amount due and charging interest too on the same collected amount !!! This is ridiculous and highly unfair.

I feel credit card companies should only charge interest on amount they have not received on due date, when they are receiving minimum amount due right on the due date they don't have any right to charge interest on that much amount, but yes they can charge interest on unpaid balance amount which is their right fair and reasonable thing to do.

I request respected consumer court to intervene in this matter and please take this point as Public Interest Litigation (PIL) as thousands of people must be getting robbed by such cheatercredit card companies and they are making crores of rupees in this unfair way.

Please do the needful in the matter and stop such cheater credit card companies from looting innocent peoples.

ANISH DESAI
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