Feb 04, 2012 10:38 PM
9730 Views
(Updated Feb 22, 2012 10:14 PM)
I have taken term plan from Metlife(plan name is Met Suraksha) in 2007 and my policy no is 00261148. At that time premium offered by metlife was more competitive(source Outlook Money) so I went ahead with this policy. However in general my experience with metlife is not so good in terms of customer support is concerned.
In first week of Jan 2012 I applied for ECS mode payment at Begumpet office. I was told by the executive that It takes around 25 days for the process the ECS mandate application so you may have to pay the premium manually as my premium due date is 24th Jan and ECS will be effective from next year i.e 2013.(I have opted for annual premium). However executive advised me to wait for 1-2 days after my due date and if my premium is not deducted then only I should pay manually.
I waited till 26th evening and premium wasn't deducted via ECS so I paid online assuming that ECS will be effective from 2013.
On 31st Jan I saw in my bank statement that another premium was deducted with the same amount by Metlife. I immediately wrote mail to customer care and got an auto generated mail that they will revert back to me in next 4 days. I was impatient and immediately called to customer care. Talked to an executive. I explained him the problem but his attitude was not customer friendly. He told me that since amount has been deducted today from my bank and money has not been realized by metlife so he can't do anything. I was begging him like anything to know why did you deduct money, can you take advance request to refund my money. But to no avail, he was adamant since money is not realized, I can not rely on your statement that metlife has deducted money from your account, you should call us after 2-3 days then they can take a request to refund the money. I again insisted to show him my bank account statement but he was not ready to listen anything. I was totally helpless as I needed that money(Its Rs 10257) for some other purpose. I felt like I am not with the right Insurance company who is so insensitive about his customer. At least he could have verified whether ECS was triggered from metlife or not and could have taken advance request to refund money. But no Metlife is not bothered and he is free to deduct money from your account:(.
Exactly after 3 days(on 3rd Feb) I got another shock when metlife has deducted premium second time through ECS. In total they had three premium paid i.e they have deducted premium till 2014. Out of frustration I called to customer care and narrated the entire story. To my dismay executive refused to acknowledge that there is any extra premium paid to metlife. He was claiming that as on 3rd he can see only one premium paid which is on 26th Jan, remaining s aren't realized and not reflected in their system. In total they have deducted a total of Rs 20000 extra from my account and they are refusing to acknowledge it. They are insisting me to call after 2-3 days. I went into argument mode and told that you guys are telling lie.
I challenged him to see my bank account statement and then make a claim that Metlife has not deducted any extra money. But the executive sounded like a goonda and not ready to listen anything and we agreed to end the conversation. Not sure how soon I shall be getting my excess premium paid back to my account. I have also written mails to customer care, their grievances cell with account statement but haven't received any communication back as yet.
Overall this was a very bad experience with Metlife and thinking of discontinuing the policy from next year.
Feb 22-2012:
After writing many mails to customer care and GRO, I got one of my premium refunded on 16th Feb 2012.Still Metlife has one excess premium with them. Grievance officer named Gita is claiming that matter is closed and if I am not happy with the response then approach to IRDA. Quite frustrating. I have written mail to IRDA and also to GRO(Metlife). If anybody can help me with what legal option do I have to get my money back and to get proper compensation for the harassment done by Metlife, that would be great.
