But first the background. I had actually opened my bank account ten years back with ANZ Grindlays Bank. That was before it got taken over by Standard Chartered, and before its slow journey towards a soulless, uncaring corporation.
A customer for ten years ! That should count for something, right ?
Wrong. That counts for nothing. As I was soon to discover.
What is the business that I do with the bank ? Well apart from my savings account, I borrowed my home loan from them. Between my wife and me, we also hold three of their credit cards.
Quite a breadth of relationship. At least that must count for something, right ?
Wrong again.
In fact, I am a senior manager and my company also holds an account with them. They had been our primary bankers before their poor service a forced us to shift majority of the business to another bank few years back.
Anyway, at least this depth of relationship should count for something, right ?
Oops !! Wrong again !
My woes started after I shifted to a new home. After the change, I dutifully visited the bank and got my account details updated.
What no one told me was, that I had to get my addrresses for the credit cards also changed seperately !! For some reason, though the bank encourages you to do all their business with them, they do not exchange information internally.
Wow !
So after our shift of address, my wife stopped getting her credit card statements. Since she doesnot routinely use her card - it's for emergency use only - we assumed that no transactions meant no statements. There was no reason for concern.
Then a few months ago, my wife lost her credit card, asked and got a replacement, got the accompanying statement, and also got a nasty shock.
Someone had made purchases of around Rs. 11,000/- (about $250/-) on her card. On enquiring we found that a ticket on Kingfisher Airlines had been bought using her credit card from Mumbai.
Remember the Airline ticket fraud using stolen credit card numbers that happened sometime back ? I feel that we have been the victims of the same fraud.
And now the fun started.
My wife called, no not the bank, you can't call them any more these days, so she called the call centre.
Well, you can guess the response we got.
- Sorry, nothing can be done, you are too late. You should have informed us immediately that it was a wrong transaction.
- But..but...you never sent me a statement.
- Sorry, we sent these to your old address, but since there was no one to receive themthere, we stopped sending you the credit card statements.
- Yes, but our new address is with with bank, we are receiving the account statements here, so why couldn't you send us the credit card statement also ?
- Sorry, you should have updated your contact details. Sorry, you should have....Sorry, you.....Sorry...
Well, you get the general idea.
Now let me share with you another piece of startling information.
I had authorised the bank with an auto debit facility against my credit cards. In English that means, that they were authorised to deduct the minimum amount due on the credit cards from my savings account.
And tell you what ?
They have been diligently deducting money from my account every month, from the time this transaction happened. All the while that they had never bothered sending us the credit card statements.
It seems that their systems allow money to be transferred between two accounts, but not addresses to be matched between these.
Wow !!
Or was it simply a case of since-we-are-getting-paid-anyway-why-bother-with-informing-the-sucker attitude ?
If I had not authorised an auto payment facility, would they have taken the trouble to look up my address ? Probably yes.
To cut the long story short, after a lot of running around, I got the auto payment facility stopped. I also tried reaching the bank. But you can't meet anybody in the credit card department, you can only call their call centre numbers, and then you receive the same answers ad infinitum.
And then after sometime the payment calls started incessantly.
I refused to pay.
Then it finally culminated yesterday with a short call from their manager. Who by the way, was never available before to hear my plea.
Let me reproduce this discussion verbatim :
Takenforgranted : Hello
StanChart : Can I speak to Mrs. Takenforgranted ?
Takenforgranted : She is not here at the moment. Who is this ?
StanChart : Whom am I speaking to ?
Takenforgranted : This is her husband, Takenforgranted.
StanChart: What's this I hear from my people, Mr.Takenforgranted, that you are claiming that you don't owe us any money ?
Takenforgranted : I have been trying to explain for the last few months, that I have been the victim of a fraudulent transaction --
StanChart: On what basis are you claiming this ?
Takenforgranted : How long have you been with the bank ?
StanChart: Five years.
Takenforgranted : Are you aware how long I have been a customer with the bank?
StanChart : Probably for ages.
Takenforgranted : So you don't care a damn about how old a customer I am, do you ?
StanChart : No.
Takenforgranted : So this is how you treat your old customers ?
StanChart : Don't raise your voice. And I am not finished with you yet.
Takenforgranted : So what will you do if I do raise my voice ?
StanChart : What will I do ? I will debit the entire amount from your account. You come to court.
Takenforgranted : Well then, if that is that, then I will send you a letter from my lawyer.
StanChart : You do that
Takenforgranted : And I am going to close my accounts with you too.
StanChart : That is your call.
Wow ! Hallelujah !! Praise the Lord !!!
- It does not matter that I have been a customer for nearly ten years.
- It doesnot matter that the amount in question is a small fraction of the money that I have in my account.
- It doesnot matter that every month my salary of few times this amount is deposited in the bank.
- It doesnot matter that always all dues have been paid to the bank well on time.
Nothing matters. Apatahy, arrogance and now hostility.
The bad, the ugly and the downright obnoxioux.
You decide which. Decide well in advance before you do business with this bank.
Because to them the customer is not the king. The customer is the enemy on the other side of the barricade.
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