Firstly, my advise to all users and consumers, remember that any company who is really good, gets known by word-of mouth ( or Mouth Shut too ), but advertising is for luring.
Also remember that any company who uses a big MEGA STAR to advertise, must be viewed with suspicion. ( If their product or service was that good, why do they need someone to endorse it ? )
eg Hrithik, Shah Rukh and Tendulkar for Home Trade ( now closed, promoter ran off with crores of peoples money )
Hrithik for Tamarind clothes ( now unheard / un-seen anywhere )
Amitabh and his son for Maruti Versa ( product sank without a trace )
Can you recall who endorsed ICICI in the early years ?.....think
Ok, now coming to the real reasons why you need to be careful :
1) Among the first signs of any organization who has grown to rapidly, ( too much too fast ) is its ability to cope with its existing customers.
eg Reliance India Mobile ( can you think of other companies ? )
2) Try calling the ICICI helpline, and see for yourself.
( No, you must actually try it. If you are an existing user of the bank you would know what I mean. )
There is an old proverb :
THE BIGGER THEY ARE THE HARDER THEY FALL.
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As a user this is how they’ve goofed up in the past with me :
1) All credit card payments closed by me, letter from their side sent to me confirming the same. But yet their collection agency keeps calling ( over a year now ) and they still keep sending monthly statements !! All this for a card thats been closed and settled.
2) They delayed crediting a cheque of my wife in her account for over 6 mnths, until we actually were reconciling accounts one day when we noticed the difference.
They claimed it was due to many people with the same name. ( Untrue, since her surname is unique )
3) Extremely poor and robotic call-center staff, who think like machines and not humans. ( they are trained to speak to you with standard lines irrespective of what you say, so its not their fault really. They’re just to stupid to handle live people with their own brains. )
4) ICICI has been the WORST bank i’ve ever dealt with. At all levels, all branches, all divisions.
To summarise, I would say that this bank is headed for disaster as they’ve reached the critical mass beyond which they will never be able to provide services and facilities of any real value. They are collapsing under the pressure of their own size.
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