Feb 09, 2011 02:37 PM
3692 Views
I have got an ICICI VISA gold credit card which I have been using since last four to five years. But the support that I have been getting from the customer care has been consistently pathetic.
While travelling to Hyderabad few months back, my card was stolen along with my wallet. My debit card, some cash, some receipts were also there. I realized the same only when I got the sms from ICICI stating the debit of some 3000 rupees from my card account. By the time I could realize what had happened, I got another sms stating the debit of some 5000 rupees again from my account. I immediately called up the customer care to block my card and the same was done immediately. The misuse was carried out in one of the TNG outlets in Hyderabad. The incident had happened between 6 to 7 in the evening hours.
After that I had spent some 5-6 hours in the Police station raising an FIR. It was difficult as usual as I stay in Chennai and the theft happened in Hyderabad while going on a personal trip.
I had also placed a request to the customer care to support me in my enquiries and please be patient enough in raising the payment statements. To my request, the big man was not even ready to listen to me. "Any transaction that happens before the card blockage, the customer is liable to pay", was the only sentence communicated and probably repeated around 10 times in one conversation. Still being patient enough I requested them not to generate the payment statement that month and wait till the investigation gets carried out. And I dumped my phone after that.
Obviously this is not something that I or any other customer does not know, but at least, please listen. I have lost my card.Definitely not to my surprise, I got the billing statement for the month mentioning some 8000 rupees of payment due. This time I called up the customer care to put forward a request of not charging the late payment fees and the additional charges as this is a case of theft and misuse. That the investigation is still in process and I will make the required payment after the investigation gets over.
As I am not a rich person to just close my eyes and make payment for a fraud transaction. But this time, they had actually surprised me. I received my next month's statement with all the charges added to this. Finally I had to make the payment for all the mentioned charges and my card is still in blocked condition. I have not requested for another card.
The fault in this case lies with many:
TNG Outlet, where they have not bothered to check the details(signature, whereabouts….) of the ones making eight thousand worth transaction at a time. The ICICI bank for not making mandatory the PIN entry at least for transactions in thousands. The ICICI customer care for having no interest in the investigation of a case where it's own card was misused. This damn care attitude of the customer care can actually encourage a lot of misuse and make customers like me suffer.
Biswarupa
