No development yet

I have no updates to give as I am waiting for the time to get over to file the cases with the consumer court.

Update: 16/09/2009

I  have no updates to give today as I guess I have to bid time for the 21 days to pass.  I also was looking at the various comments and generally all of them were on the possible next steps.  So here I am outlining the various possibilities:
Going to RBI: The tricky thing about going to the RBI (filing a complaint with the ombudsman) is that you can file a complaint only if you not done so in any civil court (as given on their website).  But it does not state if you can got to a civil court after you have filed a complaint with the ombudsman nor it specifically says anthing about a 'consumer court'.  Also the ombudsman can be approached only after 30 days (like the 21 days for a consumer court).  So I did the next best thing - that is write to the Dy. Governor of RBI as a letter instead of a complaint.  I am not aware of what happened on that front as I have got no feedback.  But I guess the RBI wont take it so lightly and something must be happening in the background.  Aslo since it does not specify anything about 'consumer court' I think I will file a case with the ombudsman after filing it with consumer court and before filing a defamation suit / other civil suits in the civil court.
Civil Courts: The decision is to whether to file a private petition or a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) - the advantage with PIL is that it wont clash with the RBI rule and also since it is in the interest of the public the case will be more readily accepted.  The flip side is that if the Judge feels prima facie it is not 'serious' enough, it wont be even entertained.  Of course there is nothing stopping from then filing a private petition.  But the other thought is if a consumer court takes say 6 months to give a judgement and then a PIL is filed, it will be much more potent.
Consumer Court: I am just biding time and as soon as the waiting period is over it is going to be filed.  And the relief going to be asked will be so unique and so selfless that the court will have no other option but just to bargain on the specificities.
Press: I guess the press should be leveraged once the cases are filed so that they too have more interest in the proceedings.

Update: 15/09/2009

I got a call from ICICI Bank (their Hyderabad Office - No. 04066068888 at around 4.50 p.m.) and a person called Preethi called to say they were sorry but had no answers for the questions given to them.  The conversation was brief and they said they would get back with the responses.  But obviously there are no answers except shutting down their operations.

Update: 14/09/2009

The first newspaper article on the issue. A lot of them are waiting for me to file the consumer complaint so that it becomes official and then they want to carry it. Well what I can say - it is all a cycle.

The article came in Deccan Chronicle, Chennai Edition. The URL is:
http://dc-epaper.com/DC/DCC/2009/09/14/INDEX.SHTML

You can see it in the SpeakOut Column. Top Right.

Update: 13/09/2009

I have not heard from the RBI. On Friday, I was informed by the consumer court that I have to wait for 21 days before filing a complaint. So I guess that will have to wait. I have not got any replies for any of my questions from the Bank Either. I guess that is why this problem came to be in the first place.

2nd Update for 9/9/9

Just now posted a complaint on an online Consumer Forum supported by the Government - core.nic.in

Complaint No: 3323/1/2009

Update: September 9

The money has been reversed.  But that's the least of all problems.  Because if that is not done they are in deeper problems.  However they could not (or rather have not) answered any of the questions raised.  I have written mails to the following:

• Ms. Chanda Kochhar
• Mr. K V Kamath
• Mr. Charudatta Deshpande (their head of Corporate Communications)

But I have not received any replies so far.  I have now written to Ms. Usha Thorat, the Deputy Governor of RBI informing her of the seriousness of their stupid rule and have requested the following:

• That ICICI should immediately be made to stop using the rule
• And more importantly they should reverse all such transactions after the new rule came into effect

Let us see what is the impact.

The Genesis

The New Rule In ICICI Bank's Credit Card Policies and how the bank is misusing that provision (Not that the power was given to it by any law of the land)

Like always all that it takes to vent your frustration in public is a continuing harassment that one is subjected to without any let up, recourse or solution. I for long have been seeing many common citizens like me being penalized, humiliated and harassed for no fault of theirs by banks that project themselves as the harbingers of societal growth but in reality are not less greedy and manipulative than your worst movie villains. And that I guess has been the main reason why it continues - that we are just spectators, mute witnesses who sympathize for a few moments and then return to our daily grind. I admit I have been guilty of that and I have been rightfully punished by the Almighty for witnessing crime but not doing anything about it. However 'Better late than never' is a good phrase to motivate you into getting into the confessional mode. And here I am writing the first Blog of my life about the practices of the leading Private Sector Bank in India, ICICI Bank.

The new policy that ICICI Bank has included in it's Terms & Conditions for Credit Card customers is that ICICI Bank at any time debit their Savings Account with an amount that they think is equivalent in dues on your credit card. This of course means the following:

• That ICICI Bank is the law of the land because if they think an amount is due the customer has no choice because they do not have to go any judiciary to ask permission to take the money - how this is possible and how they are above the law is still a mystery and how RBI is allowing ICICI to continue with this is a bigger mystery
• They have a policy only for grabbing money because it is their sheer arrogance that they think they are always right and the customer is always wrong - so while they can have a policy as how to take money, they have no policy as to how to give it back or what to do when they are wrong
• That such a powerful legislation (I have to call it that because they are behaving bigger than the judiciary and the government) can just about be handed over to any employee in ICICI Bank because in their over zealousness to grab money they need as many hands as possible to use their limited thinking, maturity and understanding to do the swindling

But what happens when they take money from an innocent? Such blogs get written. An amount of almost Rs. 50,000/- was debited to my savings account on August 31, 2009. Now since they are smirking to themselves they leave it to the customer (in this case me) to run around and figure out what happened. Honestly I have been told in so many words by one employee - "See how we can make you run when we want to" or the other piece of gem "The customer is always wrong" in response to my meek statement that probably the bank is wrong in this case.

I then contact the 'higher authorities' - I mail them evidence of my the closure of the CC account - hold your breath - 3 years back - I personally make a visit to their office and again submit the documents and the reply I get - "We will verfiy and revert" - What? Did they just mean that I have submitted fake documents or that they do not know what happens between their left hand and right hand? But anyways I am waiting for the revert.

But do you know what is the best thing? In the first place I did not even have that credit card! Yes, yes you must be saying what kind of an idiot I must be to close a credit card by paying money for something that I did not even have. That too has an 'harassment history'. I was transferring my home loan from ICICI to another bank. I transferred the balance amount to ICICI from the new bank and was awaiting the documents of the house from ICICI. At that time, my late father was handling this piece (as I was abroad). He was shocked when he was told that there is a 'Credit Card Due' and that unless it is settled the documents won't be given. So there were two options - either we fight it out (which in legal parlanc means 3-5 years) and risk (what risk it would have been to forgo) the generosity of the new bank or throw the money and get the documents. At that point of time 40,000 seemed very small to the 1.5 crore home loan and hence our legal counsel said "It is our money, we can get it back anytime, let's just throw this on their face". So we gave that money and asked them to prove that I had this card with the charge slips. However since they got their money they never reverted and shortly since my father also passed way, I lost track on this. Coming to think of this, my father passed away due to a heart attack and I now figure out it was due to their harassment. How's that for being penalized in the first place without having done a thing?

As of Monday (September 7, 2009) I am still waiting for the 'revert'. Ok let me be honest, I did not wait fully - I sent a mail on September 6 to all the big guys in ICICI listing all the facts and asked some questions like these:

1. Why even after 3 years ICICI Bank has not reverted to me with details of the 'Charge Slips'?
2. Why has ICICI Bank not shown the closure details in any records so far?
3. In case the two products (credit card and savings) are said to be different and hence details can't be found then how so only for taking money out they are clubbed?
4. Why is not the customer intimated prior to such an action being taken?
5. In case the credit card address is different from the savings account address then how come savings account address is used only for taking the money but not for sending the intimation?
6. Even otherwise why is there no intimation to the savings account address at all?
7. Since I am also a HNI customer why did not even the relationship manager try to contact and intimate about the debiting?
8. How can such a dangerous power be put in the hands of people who hardly have the maturity to even understand the implication of the actions they are taking?
9. How can a bank employee be so arrogant to say "See how we make you run when we want to"?
10. How dare the bank think that the customer is always wrong - a fact that is reinforced by the fact that they have a policy for debiting but no process or way when they are wrong?
11. Why does it take only a minute to debit the amount but even after 7 days they are still 'verifying the facts' to credit back the amount?

The icing has been the following action:

After seeing my mails and my proposed set of actions there was an amount put further as lien on my savings account. Any idea of what the figure might be? A whopping Rs. 62.5 crores - yes you saw that right, my balance when I checked the online account showed a negative of 60 and odd crores. That surely is a way of shutting me up.

Through this blog, I will updating the status of what keeps happening in the future. I plan to file complaints with the RBI, Banking Ombudsman, Consumer Courts, Civil Courts, Police (criminal investigation as to why in the first place there was a credit card and how the due came to be) among others. I will be spreadin this news to the media and sharing it online like these posts. I also request all of you reading this blog to forward the URL to all known people.

Please post all that you want to say (including similar experiences) and importantly what can be done to end this

September 7, 2009