[Resolved]  HDFC Bank — Classic Assurance Plus - Cheated with wrong infomation by HDFC Life Broker Vizza (Code:[protected]

Address:	600010
Website:	www.hdfclife.com

Below is a detailed complaint i gave to HDFC Life on 19 Nov 2016. Still now i have not got a solution from HDFC on the money i have lost. They got back to me in between saying that they have given warning to the sales person at Vizza Brokerage, but that does not solve my problem or get back the money i paid. Now HDFC also stopped responding. Somebody please help.

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Hello Sir,

Please find below my policy details:
Policy Number[protected]
Name - Joe Selvaraja
Premium Amount - INR.98, 223

In Nov 2015, Mr.Sachidanandam (Mob - [protected]) & Ms.Harini ([protected]) of Vizza Insurance Broking Services Pvt Ltd (Code:[protected] contacted me claiming to be HDFC employees and proposed HDFC Life Classic Assure Plus Policy.

As a part of the policy, they explained to me that if i pay INR.98, 223 for 7 years, i will get INR.1, 33, 0315 at the end of the 10th year + 10 lac insurance coverage for the 10 years.

Additionally as a special offer they said that if i use my hdfc credit card to pay for the premium, i will get interest free EMI's and Sodexo coupons worth INR.2500.

When i questioned them about liquidity of the policy, they said that if i liquidate the policy within three years, i will not get any bonus amount. Here they conveniently did not explain to me that even my premium amount will not be refunded if I decide to stop the policy.

As a part of all my documentation, they also took a photograph of my credit card and told me that it will be charged in Dec 2015, but did not tell me that they will be using it to make a credit card mandate for auto debit for the next year with HDFC.

Not only that, they impersonated me and called HDFC credit card call center and made service request to change the premium into EMI. While they were doing this they called me and said that they are in the process of converting my premium into EMI and i will be getting a OTP shortly and asked me to share with them. I also shared it as I believed them to be HDFC employees.

Only after i received the card statement I came to know that the premium amount was converted into EMI with 10% interest, which is higher than the maximum return i could get from this policy. If i was told that there will be interest, i would not have chosen to pay by card or would not even have purchased the policy.

I got a second shock when i got the policy where it was mentioned that the bonus could be anything as low as 4% to as high as 8%.

I immediately doubted the intentions of the Vizza team and contacted Mr.Sachi & Ms.Harini and again asked whether they are actually HDFC employees. Again Ms.Harini said that she is employee of HDFC Life Nungambakkam branch.

First i was talking to Ms.Harini on the discrepency on the bonus percentage. She said me that the policy will be like this only but i will definitely get above 8% bonus. I kept asking her to share the same breakup in writing in official mail(attached PDF). She kept avoiding me for some time and then sent the mail to me (attached PDF) from a bogus mail id called "[protected]@outlook.com". Again i did not suspect this as they had created the mail ID in such a way that the name of the mail ID resembled the official mails which i got from HDFC Life.

Mr.Sachi apologised saying that due to a system error, the interest got added to the EMI and that i will get monthly refund on my bank account. As he said, i got INR.780 deposited in my account for the month of Jan - Feb 2016. The interest stopped getting credited after that, then only i understood that Mr.Sachi was himself depositing his personal money in my account to make me believe that the interest was getting refunded.

From March onwards, i have been trying to contact the above two people to give me refund on my interest and the Sodexo coupons, but they kept evading me saying silly reasons. As i am a marketing person, i also didn't have time to continuously follow up on this with the team.

Now last month end i got a call from Vizza office claiming to be HDFC office and informed me that my credit card will be charged again as my next year premium is due on 28 Nov 2016. During this call also they introduced themselves as calling from HDFC only and did not divulge that they are indeed a brokerage agency. I told them that i still have not got refund on the interest for my previous year premium and that i do not wish to pay using credit card. I was told by the lady that in order to change to ECS i will have to come to the HDFC Life office directly and give a request for this ECS change or they can send their sales person to collect the forms from me.

When i followed up with Mr.Sachi for this ECS change, he told me that my cancelled cheque is already updated in HDFC system and all i need to do is to call the customer care center and place a request for ECS Debit. After i spoke to the customer care only i came to know that i have to give a formal mail request to cancel the Credit Card Mandate 15 Days prior to the due date. As i have called 10 days before the due date, they mentioned that my request may or may not get processed and advised me to visit a branch. They also told me that the people i am speaking to could be brokers.

This is when i called up Ms.Harini's number where a Mr.Rajesh ([protected]) finally told me the truth that they are actually not HDFC representatives, rather a brokerage firm called Vizza.

In total the Vizza team have:

a) Given me wrong commitment on the bonus payout percentage
b) Have not explained me that i will not get back any money if i surrender the policy
c) Have lied to me that my credit card has interest free emi offer
d) Have lied to me that i will get Sodexo coupons worth INR.2500
e) Impersonated me in converting the credit card premium amount into EMI by calling HDFC customer care and giving my details available with them.
f) Made me believe that HDFC is giving interest refund by depositing money in my account
g) Made me believe that the bonus amount is fixed at 8% by sending formal mail from bogus HDFClife mail ID
h) Wantedly did not mention that credit card mandate has to be cancelled by raising service request 15 days prior to policy due date

There are some mistakes on my side that i did not goto a HDFC Life branch sooner to check this. But the reason i did not do so is because i could not think that somebody using the HDFC brand will cheat me. I have been a loyal customer of HDFC for more than 6 years now, I have HDFC Bank Account, Car Loan (closed), Housing Loan, Credit Card & Term Insurance.

I have come to HDFC for every single one of my financial need and have never been cheated before. This is the first time i am in this situation with HDFC and i am devastated as now i came to know that i will not get any money back for the 1 lac+ premium (including interest to HDFC) i have paid till now.

I visited the HDFC life branch today and due to all these wrong informations have asked them to remove the credit card mandate and stopped my payments as everything i was told about the policy is wrong.

Please consider this as a special case and refund the premium paid by me and take necessary action against Vizza Brokerage Agency.

This 1 Lac is my hard earned money and if not for this policy, i would have used it to do part payment on my HDFC housing loan.

Am hoping HDFC will give importance to a loyal customer and treat this as a special case and either refund me my money or adjust the same in my housing loan.

Sincerely expecting your support & amicable solution.

Regards,

Joe Selvaraja,
[protected]