Almost a month back I got a call from HDFC bank promising a free (for one year) silver credit card. I thought I’ll give a try and said yes. A couple of days later they sent a representative to me to fill the application form. I filled the form and the guy told me that it would take 2-3 weeks to get the card. I got the card in 2 weeks - but it was not a silver card, but a gold card. Also nothing was mentioned about the one year free period. So I called up the customer service. They confirmed my doubt- the card was not free.
Couple of days back I received a statement according to which I’m supposed to pay an annual fee of Rs1653/-.
I sent an e-mail to them stating that I want to cancel the card. I didn’t get any reply to that. Later I called them up. They told I need to cut the card into 2 pieces and put it in their drop box along with an application to cancel it. I’ve to do all this because I said yes to a free credit card !!!
I don’t think this is an isolated incident. I see this as part of a well planned cheating. For example suppose the customer doesn’t care to verify with the bank about the first year fee waiver and starts using it as soon as he receives it. He’ll be surprised to see the yearly fee when he receives the first statement. And he has no option, but to pay the fee because the first time he uses the card, he is accepting all the conditions of the card usage.
After writing this review, I saw another review. Read this:
https://mouthshut.com/review/HDFC_Bank_Credit_Card-69002-1.html
This sort of confirms my conclusion- mine is not an isolated incident.