I waited till the end of August 13, 2007, till the "ExtraOrdinary" Ajit Pillai worked "untill" his "ExtraOrdinary hours" had been completed, but he obviously didn't have time to write me. I then had to sit down at my computer again and pour my heart out to a Uday Kotak (supposedly the Chairman of Kotak Mahindra Bank) and try to explain to him how i felt wronged by his bank... But he didn't reply... why should he? He didn't come to me asking me to open an account did he? I needed a place to bank and so I found Kotak.....
Please read on for what was probably my last cry for help ... another futile attempt at getting people at the top to sit up and take notice of how their Associate Vice Presidents handle their business...
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Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:45:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: *****
Subject: Re: Banking Cust escalation - *****- STILL Unable to redeem mutual fund
To:
uday.kotak@kotak.com,
gaurang.shah@kotak.com,
c.jayaram@kotak.com,
dipak.gupta@kotak.comMr. Kotak,
I am having to write to you yet again.
I have received a communiqué from your offices in Ahmedabad who have told me, after three weeks that you cannot offer me an overdraft or any facility because my fund is a closed-ended fund. One week and a couple of meetings later, they said they could offer me 50% of the face value at 18-20% interest. When I wrote back asking for this to be reversed, they needed a week to think about it. That week ended 11 minutes ago. I am tired of weekly banking and am hence writing again. This time I will be blunt enough ...
I invested in the SCEEF mutual fund through Kotak. I contacted your telephone banking in May because I was not able to redeem this online. They told me that I had to drop off a physical request at the branch. I visited your branch in Jaipur to redeem this in May with a written request. I then conferenced a call between your phonebanking and the branch where the branch said it was to be done online and phonebanking said this had to be done at the branch. Finally I requested that we call StanChart. They told me that this can be redeemed only on June 30 or on December 31. He said that redemption requests could be placed from May 25th for the June 30th schedule. I then got two, not one but two, calls from your phonebanking who AGAIN told me that I had to go to the branch to redeem the request (the executive who took the call obviously did not close the service request and someone had to call back to close the Service Request Number that had been generated. SO he called me, got shouted at, and closed the request number with notes that probably read “Customer’s problem has been resolved, closing SR. ) Please retrieve the calls that I have placed in May and that were placed to me in May to find out exactly how incompetent phonebanking really is. Is it that difficult to create a database to help phonebanking executives service customers?
I also tried to place a redemption request online, but got a message that stated “You have no online funds to redeem”. I visited your branch in Ahmedabad on June 25, 2007 to redeem the funds. Mr. Chetan Dave (who unfortunately is no longer with you) scrounged around for a redemption form but could not find it. I then requested him to call Stanchart and confirm that a simple letter from me would also work. He did that and confirmed that it would. I then placed a written request. He called me on Thursday June 28, 2007 to tell me that he had the form and if I could come in again to sign that form. I came in AGAIN to sign the form. He confirmed that he would send it across. I asked him if he was sure; he said that he would get a receipt stamped from StanChart which stated the same. On July 10th he gave me the contact number of StanChart who told me that the request had been rejected because the request was to have been placed online, NOT PHYSICALLY.
Let me elaborate on my points of concern:
Incompetent phone banking – They don’t know what a closed ended fund is; they only know that you call back a customer and close a service request. The only thing that he was interested in at the end of the call was “So sir, your problem has been resolved?” Can someone please train your call center staff on mutual funds? If you cant, please pay me for my time, and I will come down and train them.Have you ever seen the kind of responses customers get to written requests through the “MY Mail” option? They all read the same “Your request has been forwarded to the branch and your relationship manager will contact you shortly. Else, please call the branch on ***,***,***). Does it strike you that you need competent people who read, contact the branch, and then revert to me, and that the TAT of 48 hours is so that you can communicate within your departments and deliver service. Your call center executives simply seem to just copy and paste standard responses so that they can clear more mails from the inbox, reach TAT, and get incentives. Have you seen how many conversations each one lasts for? Go through my mailbox and you will know. Better still, see excerpt pasted here below.
I asked why I had been charged non maintenance charges on my account held in Bangalore and got a reply for my account held in Ahmedabad.
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I have been told that I have maintained Rs 3232.81 while excel on downloading the corresponding statement shows a figure of over Rs. 7000. Your software has debited me for nonmaintenance charges on both my accounts. The average daily balances are as below, my account in Ahmedabad ending 9552 has an average balance of Rs. 7003.42, this month it is 10942, and for the Bangalore one ending 1004 it is 10141.92. Please tell me why you would charge non-maintenance charges for my Bangalore account…is 10141.92 below the minimum requirement? My accounts are supposed to be the ones that were around three years ago, with an AQB of 2500. With a CASA on my relationship over two accounts of Rs 17140, I definitely need more respect and deserve to be treated better!!! And what do I get? Nonmaintenance charges on both accounts. I have a securities account with over 1 lakh invested in just IPOs over the past two weeks. I have always had enough money invested in Kotak to deserve service. I demand that you reverse these charges and make my accounts zero balance for life! I am tired of this; I anyway maintain a very steady balance and have a relationship large enough.
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Go through the emails pasted below.
Incompetent bank staff – I placed not one but two requests in writing. Even a complete moron would have had to check atleast once before asking for the second request. If this has gone by unnoticed, then I wish Kotak Bank well. The stock prices are doing very well because of all the CASA being channeled into Kotak Securities, but look at just the balance sheet for Kotak Bank minus Securities and I bet it will be appalling. Your branches deliver very good lip service, great MBA talkers, lots of “Please Sir”, “thank you sir”, but that’s about it.
Software that does not work – If the only person who can redeem the funds is the online fund, then why does it come back with a message “You have no online funds to redeem”? So does this mean that in December, we will have this dog and pony show again? Kotak in front and me behind, the gullible customer?
I had a cheque returned on 14th July, a Saturday. Your branch didn’t even bother to call me. I know it isn’t your job to call customers, and customers have to maintain their own accounts, but I used to actually call Mr. Dave almost everyday and check. He knew that I was expecting a cheque to hit my account and my exams were running, so I couldnt really come in to the branch. And the account was updated with the bounced details, not on Saturday, but on Monday morning… when I had deposited money in the ATM to cover the cheque on Sunday. It was to the insurance of my car. If anything had happened to me over the weekend, it wouldn’t be insured because the cheque had bounced, because your branch manager says simply that they tried calling me and my mobile came “out of range”. That really is the best excuse that you can come up with! Just tell me you didn’t want to bloody call!!!
At the end of three weeks, I am emailed by your branch that I cannot be offered an OD because this security cannot be mortgaged as it is a closed-ended fund, and that I can apply for a PL by submitting IT Returns. Now you offer 50% of the face value at 18-20% as interest charges. I write and you respond in multiples of weeks!! … Do you guys take me for a complete idiot? Is there any service that you deliver besides lip service? I did what I had to get the fund redeemed, if you cant do your job and redeem it for me, then bloody don’t do it… just tell me you cant and I will understand that you are not competent enough to get the job done.
To recapitulate:1. You cannot call me to tell me that a cheque has come in on Saturday.2. You bill me nonmaintenance charges on both accounts despite having a balance over my relationship in CASA of 17142/- and over a lakh in my Kotak Securities account.3. You don’t redeem my mutual fund inspite of my giving two repeat written requests a week in advance. And I gave these requests on May 25, 2007, today is August 14, 2007 and I am still waiting, breathless with anticipation as to when you will finally be galvanized into action.4. The only way to actually redeem the fund is by trying, trying to use your software which doesn’t permit it.5. You haven’t heard of customer service, just lip service. I propose, and you dispose, or better still, respond once a week!!! C’mon, give me a break!!! Its supposed to be 24 hour banking, not weekly banking
I REPEAT, I WANT THE MONEY, AND I WANT IT NOW. AND THE ONLY REASON I DON’T HAVE IT ALREADY IS BECAUSE YOU COULD NOT EXECUTE A WRITTEN REQUEST AND YOUR SOFTWARE NEEDS TO BE UPGRADED. YOU HAVE INCOMPETENT PEOPLE AT ALL LEVELS. I DON’T REALLY CARE HOW YOU GO ABOUT ARRANGING FOR AN OVERDRAFT, BUT I HOPE THAT SOMEONE IN YOUR ENTIRE ORGANIZATION IS COMPETENT ENOUGH TO TAKE SUCH A BIG DECISION AND GRANT A CUSTOMER AN OVERDRAFT of Rs 60000/- BASED ON A CLOSED ENDED FUND WHICH IS ALREADY BLOODY LYING WITH YOU ON WHICH YOU HAVE A POA MANDATE ALREADY. IF THAT ISNT ENOUGH, LOOK AT THE MONEY IN MY SECURITIES ACCOUNT. IF THAT ISNT ENOUGH, LOOK AT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU OVER THREE GODDAMNED YEARS. SURELY SOMEONE SOMEWHERE WILL REALIZE THAT MAYBE YOU NEED A LOYAL CUSTOMER LIKE MYSELF. IF YOU CANNOT DO THIS YOURSELVES, PLEASE OUTSOURCE YOUR DECISION MAKING AS WELL.
I have always banked with you because it is not an impersonal big bank like ICICI where the manager changes every 6 months, or like HDFC where they don’t really give a damn. But I didn’t think that I was expected to compromise on service. This is now turning into a total NODDY bank. I want my money and I want it now. It has been one bloody month now since I placed my request and I really don’t care how you go about this anymore. If you cannot do anything, I am going to the Banking Ombudsman. I have had enough of this nonsense. Please get your customer services manager to call me on *****; not the call center manager, but the customer services manager(it used to be Leena Sabharwal), and if you think that my phone is out of range, please try again or email me the mobile number and I will call back to get service. And I don’t want lip service again… I want real service this time.
*****
YOUR CONTACT CENTER'S EMAILS:
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Date 03/08/2007 11:52 AM
From Customer Care Officer
To *****
Request Type Banking Services
Subject RE: non maintenance charges
Dear Mr. *****,
Thank you for writing back to us.
We wish to inform you that the Average Quarterly Balance for account number *****(Synergy Savings account) is currently waived off.
The reference number for this query remains 1500083. Please write back to us for any further clarifications.
Assuring you of our best services at all times.
Regards,
Suchitra N. Poojari Customer
Correspondence Unit
Kotak Mahindra Bank
------------ Original Message ------------
And the account ending 1004 based out of bangalore? Tell me about that as well while you are still on it... tell me what my balance was and how much i was supposed to maintain?
*****
------------ Original Message ------------
Dear Mr. *****,
Thank you for writing to us.
We wish to inform you that as per your account type number *****(Edge Savings account), the Average Quarterly Balance to be maintained is Rs.10,000.00 The Average Quarterly Balance maintained in the previous quarter was Rs.3,232.81 and hence the Non-Maintenance Charges have been levied.
The reference number for this query is 1500083. Please write back to us for any further clarifications.
Assuring you of our best services at all times.
Regards,
Suchitra N. Poojari Customer
Correspondence Unit
Kotak Mahindra Bank
------------ Original Message ------------
The account that i have had with you is one that requires an average balance of Rs 2500 per day. Why have i been charged non maintenance charges? I have crossed the aqb requirement. Please reverse these charges. And get someone from bangalore branch to call me. My number is a gujarat number - *****.
01/07/2007 30/06/2007 Non Maintenance Charges 674.16 4,293.03 01/07/2007 30/06/2007 Credit Interest Capitalised 6.57 4,299.60
