This incident happened to me 2 years ago. I was having a Corporate Salary Account with ABN Amro -Residency Road - Bangalore since March - 2004. In december-2004 I availed a personal loan from ABN AMRO and given an ECS from my salary account for the EMI of Rs.3954/.. In Agust 2005 I changed my job and salary account also changed to HDFC.
For first 4-5 months I kept adequate balance to meet my ECS. Then the branch people informed me that I can not have the zero balance account as I changed the job. So I requested them to change the ECS to HDFC Bank. The front office executive told me that taht will cost Rs. 500+ Service tax. He gave me an alternative option to drop the EMI Cheque before due date (17th of the month) so that they will not send the ECS once the EMI for the month is received.
I started doing the same. All went fine till March 2006. In march as usual I dropped the EMI Cheque in AMN AMRO Drop box which got bounced due to signature mismatch. The ABN Amro people never informed the sameand kept quite. In april when I got my saving account statement from HDFC I notice the cheque return. I called the ABN Amro Tele Banking. The telebanking officer told me that nothing to worry and again drop the cheque. Since the EMI for april was also nearing the due date I dropped a cheque for Rs 7, 908/- two emi’s clubbed together.
I also checked my account to make sure that the check got cleared. The check got cleaared for 7908.In May a collection guy called me for EMI Payment. I asked him for which month he is asking the EMI. He told it is for currency month (May) and I happily paid the EMI amount thinking that ABN has given me a new service of check collection and I need not go to ATM or Branch to drop the cheque. This continued till May 2007. Every month by 10 the collection guy would come and collect the cheque from me and go. In may I again needed some money and applied for a personal loan with HDFC Bank.
My application was rejected and the reson given was that my name is in CIBIL for 1 EMI over due in ABN AMRO. Then I went will all the documents to ABN AMRO Branch and explained all the events to the collection manager. I asked him arrange for preclosure of the loan. Then I came to know what exactly happened. The cheque that I deposited for 2 EMI’s together has been applied to one EMI of March - for which check was bounced. They also deducted the check return charges and additional interest fro 1 month from the remaining amount and issued a check to me for the balance amount of 2500+. (7908-EMI 3954-250 CR Charge-Interest). The check never reached me and no one informed this also. They had all my contact information including mobile number, e-mail.
They also kept on charging later payment fees from April’06 till May’07 and also additional interest. When I told them that I never received any check from them, they checked all the information and told me that as I never presented the refund check the money is lying in their suspense account. Then finally I disputed the late payment charges and additional interest which they waived off and closed the account in August 2007. Now I am happy. I more happy that they have removed my name from CIBIL as well, which is appreciated.