To be or not to be. Review on Standard Chartered Visa Credit Card

I have had an account with Standard Chartered Bank, Kochi, for over 2 years. In all that time, I never required any special services from them, and hence our relationship was going smoothly. True to the maxim that nothing lasts forever, they decided to change things in March, when they offered me a Gold Credit Card, free for life! And it came with the added advantage that I could choose to give a standing instruction to the bank to auto-debit my credit card dues, meaning that I would never have to worry about paying the card dues in time.

Like a true sucker, I fell for this hook, line and sinker. Now, the troubles started. The bank sent an executive, who said, “Just sign the form, and I will fill in all the details from our bank data.” Well, I did as he asked, and later on got a call from him asking me to choose between the 5% auto-debit facility and the 100% auto-debit facility. I chose the latter, and then did not bother to check the statement online after the due date, as I assumed that it would have been cleared automatically.

One week later, I checked, and found that only 5% had been deducted, and that I had to pay nearly Rs. 200 as interest on the remaining amount! I wrote to them, using their secure email service, and did not get a reply even after a week, even though they themselves guarantee a reply within 2 days. I then called up the bank, and was told that if I wanted a 100% deduction, I would have to send a fax to that effect. So I typed out a letter and sent it to them via fax. A week later, I called again, to check whether the change had been made, and was told that I would “also have to send the hard copy of the letter by courier/mail.” Now, this is ridiculous. If they could not act on the fax, why ask me to send one at all?

Meanwhile, I got some junk replies from the internet customer service, who seemed to be under the impression that I was talking about Inter Bank Fund Transfer! It is also interesting that their web site does not have Kochi in the list of branches (in the drop-down menu which you have to use to specify your branch, while using the feedback form) despite the fact that the branch has been functioning for over 10 years (more than that, as it was the ANZ Grindlays branch before the two were merged).

I have therefore decided to close my credit card account with them, and also to close the banking account, since both are run by the same people, and I cannot afford a mix up in banking, where I may stand to lose much larger sums of money!