Hi!
I have created this blog so that we can share the facts & understand our rights when it comes to Credit Card Billing & Collections activity in India. By understanding our rights, we can avoid the harassments and unethical collections activity followed by most of our Banks. That’s right! Most of our banks, including the MNC’s, do not follow the rules set by the Reserve Bank of India [RBI]. I have been in this industry for 5 + years & NO, I’m not a lawyer nor do I belong to a Law Firm. I use to design collection activity for a MNC bank & make sure all the collections activity follow the guide lines set by the RBI.
The question is, do all banks have set guide lines & do all banks follow the collections guide lines set by the RBI? Well, the answer is both Yes & No! Banks do have guide lines. But their employees who are at the lowest level are just not aware of all the guidelines. By the way, most of the collections work is outsourced to the local Collection Agency which is operated by individuals. These collections agency seldom follow all these guidelines. The third party collections agency use unethical collections methods to increase their liquidation rate or the money they collect. The more money they manage to collect, the more they get paid from the banks.
You must have come across collections agents calling you at late hours & coming to your home without informing you. Some abuse you & also threaten you. Some call up & inform your family members or your colleges that they have called to collect a debt. They even ask your family members to pay the debt if you’re not available at that point in time. All these activity & more are against the law!
Now before I mention the consumer rights, let us see what happens if a bank or a collection agency is caught violating the rules set by the RBI.
1] You may claim a huge amount from the bank, about 2 to 5 lacks for a minor violation & more for a major violation. Yes, the consumer court has been good, if not excellent, in giving judgments & is also fast in giving judgments.
2] The RBI has the rights to cancel the license of the bank! No such cases have been found till date though.
3] The bank will be fined a huge amount by the RBI & will be seriously warned against such activity. Their actions will be monitored by the RBI & they will restrict that bank form outsourcing their collections activity. This will prove to be a huge loss for the bank as they would have to hire & train their own collection agents & waive off a huge amount of bad debts.
.................Continued at     http://creditcardcollections.blogspot.com/