I have an HDFC bank savings account, and am not unhappy with it. It’s okay. But soon after I got the account I was given an HDFC credit card. I used it for a couple of years before getting so frustrated with the service that I cut it into little pieces, never to be used again. I wasn’t even content to ignore it, actually had to chop it up.
Reason: they kept on NOT getting my cheques. I would drop the cheque (an HDFC account cheque), on time, in the correct box provided in my HDFC branch, and some days later I would get a call saying "Sir, we haven’t received your cheque."
The first three times this happened I gave them the cheque number, etc., and then they sorted out their mistake and all was well.
The fourth time, however, they actually lost my cheque. So I told the guy on the phone: no problem, you can send someone to collect another cheque, but first make sure to waive the late fees and finance charges -- because you lost my cheque -- and also see if you can ask the bank (HDFC, as I’ve said) to not charge me Rs 100 to place a stop request on the lost cheque.
No can do. No movement on these obvious things, not even the finance charge and late fees. Instead, a call (or more) a day for ages, progressively ruder every time. In fact, it was the same young man calling me every time, and he was getting progressively ruder. I, too, refused to pay anything more than I owed (and I did not have a running balance, I always pay the bill in full every month) and dug my heels in.
Eventually, some rude woman "senior" who refused to tell me her name (I asked just as nicely as I could after all that trouble) said I could call so-and-so at the bank and they had shared the case info with him and he would sort it out.
So I did that, and so-and-so had no idea what I was talking about. But he "escalated" rapidly to a "supervisor" who, after some more prodding, agreed to waive the finance charge and late fee. The next day their man came, I paid up in full and immediately destroyed my HDFC card.
Don’t need it -- I took another card, and have had no problems since.
Now, over the last three months, the whole thing is happening again -- this time, it’s my brother’s card and they’re calling me. I’ve given the rude HDFC call centre people his number at least twenty times on different occasions -- often I gave the number to the SAME person time after time -- and they simply DID NOT call him, yet they LIED TO ME, saying that he had told them to call me. Unpardonable!!!
The problem is, my brother’s shifted to a south Indian metro, and has been trying (and trying, and trying) to get them to shift his credit card account there. Why he should have to do that when he’s the customer, when bank computerisation is so extensive, and when STD calls are so ridiculously cheap even for individuals, let alone bank call centres, I don’t know. HDFC wastes money calling me twenty times when they could sort it out with their actual customer in one call.
And they charge him an EXTRA FEE to make his payment where he is, after having failed to transfer his account there for ages. It’s a customer service failure, and it’s not justified in these days of instant multi-branch international banking.
Now he, too, has given up and told them to close his account -- and told them, and told them. I am STILL getting calls for him, and just in the last three days have given my brother’s number TWICE to the same HDFC woman named Sapna. GRRRRRR.
The upshot: Don’t take an HDFC credit card, not even if they pay you. You’ll end up paying in frayed nerves, and you don’t deserve that.
Note: I’ve lived in the West, and while phone custome service is always a pain, the rep at the other end actually will take a spot decision on revoking the fees and charges if you provide info that proves they were at fault. He won’t waste his employer’s time and money on what ultimately is a self-defeating exercise.
Dammit, HDFC, give your reps better TRAINING and the authority to take simple decisions or to IMMEDIATELY refer them upward for resolution to someone who CAN decide. Look, you’ve already lost two customers -- AND I haven’t said one good word about your credit cards for the last two and a half years, AND there is this review on a popular forum. Do yourself a favour.