Learn how to a fool a customer from Kotak Mahindra Bank @kotakbankltd
Well, I was a loyal customer to the bank till today (06th Jan 16). Most of us have a habit of opening recurring deposits along with term deposits, which is exactly what I did. I have an RD & ab TD (term deposit) account with Kotak bank and was happy to be their customer till this incident occurred.
My recurring deposit matured on 05th Jan 2016. Next morning, I was shocked (06th Jan 16) that the maturity amount had not been transferred to the saving a/c. I visited the branch located at Mahavir Nagar, Kandivali West (Mumbai) to understand the root cause, and what they told me was horrifying. A couple of months back, my wife, being the first account holder, was coerced into buying a credit card against a fixed deposit.
“How can someone sell a credit card by blocking your own fixed deposit?”
Here is how they fool a customer?
They will sell a credit card and inform you that it is against a fixed deposit, once the credit card is issued, they will make a lien on your fixed deposit so that they are risk free. On the top of it you cannot withdraw your fixed deposit until you cancel your card or settle the outstanding amount, in simple terms, they are making more money by providing a credit on your fixed deposit which is your own money and earns a high-interest rate on the outstanding amount.
Why I didn’t get my recurring deposit maturity amount?
As I mentioned above, they lien/block the funds from your fixed deposit. However, in my case, they blocked the recurring deposit because the amount was more prominent compared to the fixed (term) deposit.
WOW! Bank lien the deposit which has more money without any care for the internal processes. All they care about is achieving their targets.
What happened next?
Well, to cancel the credit card it will take another 4–5 working days, post that they will remove the lien/ unblock the amount from my recurring deposit and only after that will it reflect in my saving account. They are sitting on my cash interest free for atleast 4–7 days and are getting interest on the amount loaned to other customers. Imagine a bank giving you an interest free loan!!
When I spoke about closing my account, the customer service manager was more than happy to show me the process of closing the account and moving to another bank.
I hope & pray people don’t get trapped by such products/banks. Please understand and ask as many questions as you want before enrolling for newer products/services.
We all know banks just want to make money on our MONEY.
Ping me at spjatin4@gmail.com or tweet on @techieview
