| Address: Vellore-632006, Tamil Nadu |
Am a policy holder of HDFC LIFE in the plan HDFC SL ProGrowth Super II and my policy number is 19239550.
After payment of 5 annual payments of Rs.2 lakh each, beginning in April 2017, the 5th payment of Rs.2 lakh having been done in March 2021, we wanted to withdraw the sum completely after March 2022. To facilitate this we had been coordinating with officer concerned of HDFC LIFE. He directed us to visit the office to terminate the ECS option of payment. Accordingly, we had visited the HDFC LIFE office during the third week of May and completed the required formalities and the person who serviced us confirmed to us that there will be no more ECS presentation to the account. But, to our dismay the premium amount of Rs.2 lakh was debited from our account on 8th June, 2022. On conveying the same to the officer who was servicing us, he was also unaware as to how the account was debited even after we were told that the ECS payment had been terminated.
With a view to sort out things, the officer informed us that the total amount available including the recent payment of Rs 2 lakhs in June was around 15.33 lakhs and that he could help in withdrawing the entire amount, as the process of reversing the debit of ECS of Rs 2 lakhs would be long drawn out and the easier thing to do would be to withdraw the entire corpus.
Hence, the officer initiated the process for complete withdrawal in coordination with his colleague which i presume is from the centralised team. The colleague, over a video chat which started at around 2.30 pm on 10th June guided me on the process for complete withdrawal. She also confirmed that the sum assured was around Rs.15.33 lakhs, enquired as to why i was withdrawing the entire amount and then advised me on the documentation required for the same. All the documentation was completed immediately and she also confirmed that all the documentation was in order and the process for withdrawal of Rs.15.33 lakhs was set in place.
Following this, on 11th June, i got a call from the HDFC centralised services confirming once again that the fund in my corpus was around Rs.15.33 lakhs and that this was not the right time to withdraw the funds and that if i needed the money so badly, i could withdraw around 5.5 lakhs and still retain the remaining amount and wait for the NAV to go up even further before i withdrew. But i clearly conveyed to the executive that i had decided on withdrawing the entire amount of around Rs.15.33 lakhs and didn't want to resort to partial withdrawal.
After all this, there was a message received as SMS stating that 'the surrender payout of INR 1464641.98 against policy no. 19239550 was credited to my bank a/c via NEFT on 14/06/2022'. As can be understood, the amount credited is way less than the amount of around Rs 15.33 lakhs as conveyed to us by 3 different people, in 3 different instances on 3 different days. On contacting the officer who serviced us locally, regarding the shortfall it was conveyed to us that by the time 'surrender processing' was done, the NAV had reduced and hence the credit of lower amount of Rs 14.64 lakhs.
But, i would like to bring to your notice that the amount of around Rs 15.33 lakhs was confirmed by three different people from your office at 3 different instances and mainly both at the time of initiation of the closure process with official over the video chat and with the call from your centralized team, the next day. Also at no time was it conveyed that this amount could vary subject to NAV prevalent at the time the processing would be undertaken at your office. Now, I as a customer will only go by what was conveyed to me at the time of initiation of closure assuming that those terms and conditions will be adhered to, by your office, and anything else is out of my purview. Hence, I as a customer cannot be penalized for the delay in processing that may have happened at your office leading to closure at lower NAV of my policy, because at the time of initiation of process of closure i was clearly told that the withdrawal amount was around Rs.15.33 lakhs and as a customer and is the general norm of processing in any industry, the value conveyed at the point of closure as conveyed to the customer is what is sacrosanct.
Hence, i would request you to do the needful to ensure that the shortfall amount is credited to my account at the earliest, without further delay, as i must admit that this has been a very unpleasant and distasteful experience - being penalized for no fault of mine and then being made to run around to retrieve my own money.
I also got an intimation saying that a TDS of Rs.13928.53 has been deducted whereas we were made to understand that there is no TDS deduction at all in HDFC Life policies and thus far no TDS was deducted in the earlier 2 policies that i had. Kindly clarify why the TDS has been deducted.
Awaiting an early response and quick action on these issues.
Jul 12, 2022
Complaint marked as Resolved The complaint was posted under the wrong provider
HDFC Bank customer support has been notified about the posted complaint.
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-Anay
HDFC Bank Customer Assistance