Jul 22, 2001 04:55 PM
3160 Views
I started an account in this Bank about a year back. At the time of joining I was not aware of what banks like ICICI etc do offer... As they started telling me of all the ''high funda'' schemes they have and the ATM services etc. etc. I was impressed. I even checked up with all the banks I knew of then... the SBI, Punjab Bank, and many others. To my pleasure then I found ICICI the most suited... I was really impressed by them and their services they promised to offer.. So finally deciding for the good I opened my account with ICICI..
As I wanted to send money home to my parents every month I had to go to the bank and ask them to make a draft and then courier it to my parents... Its then I became aware of what is called as an SI(Standing Instruction). This gets executed every month and does exactly as stated in the letter I do give them. So again happy with the services of the bank I went ahead and gave an SI.
Its now that my real problems started.. The money got withdrawn from my account on every 2nd of every month... But guess what it reached my parents never before the 18th of any month. The Draft was made and they had just to courier it. Actually if I courier anything home it takes maximum of 2 days to reach. At the same time if the Bank on the other side(father's account) has to process a draft again it takes a maximum of 2 days. So altogether it should reach my parents by the end of 5 days.. It should reach my father at least by the 9th or 10th. Where has the money been for the rest 8 days. God only knows.
For the first few months I kept mum. All of a sudden one month my father received the money only by the 24th and that too my father had to pay money(as transaction charges) to get the money transferred to his account. I got in touch with the Asst. Manager & OIC here and asked him why this happened so? He said that two Banks i.e. ICICI and Bank of Baroda have become one so the transactions was run by error. I could see no relation with what I asked.. the only thing left for me was to say that this should not repeat again.. and to which he grabbed on and said it will never occur again. I even asked him that what did I have to pay the courier charges for when Bank of Baroda is present at my home town where I am sending the cash(as ICICI takes courier charges only for those transfers where they do not have a account). To that he answered that the databases of both the banks will have to be made one which will take at least 9 months... So for the next 9 months even when ICICI has a division in my home town I will not be able to make any use of the services offered to the customer until the databases do not combine. Anyway I could do nothing so I gave them another chance.
Again the next month my father received the draft only by the 20th. This time I asked the Asst. Manager & OIC what was wrong.. again he had some dumb excuse.. Finally I waited for another two months.. The situation was going from bad to worse.. The money I used to send to my parents used to reach at the end of the month... What use is that money for them at the end of the month when almost all major expenses of the month are over?
I have discontinued the SI and prefer sending money by registered post or else courier the draft myself.
ICICI promises customer satisfaction. Most of their systems have a hell lot of bugs... The MINI statements they have most of the time prints out erroneous data and the account balances shown at times is wrong.. The people sitting in the bank have no idea why that happens and are best on giving excuses. They are never ready to help also in case required...
The above all I might have noted out of my anger with their services... But I feel that it is these angry customers that they need to serve to and prove that their bank is worth what they claim...But to say their bank and services offered are good but they need to keep with what they say their bank offers..
