I was employed in a top Indian durables firm at that time{left industry now}: I received a walk-in from SBI cards: free gold card, Rs. 10, 000 free gift(!), balance transfer at 0% interest, great customer service.
I was already looking out for a second card to supplement my original beauty{ICICI} so as to seperate official and personal expenses, so I jumped at it. Of course, I knew that there would be strings attached to the ten grand, so I re-inquired at the franchise sales outlet. They re-affirmed the offer as stated above. I then thought that it could be a special scheme for my company, as they had come through official channels{so I thought}
Anyway, the long and short of it is I took the @!#^&* card. and thus came the great day I recieved the invitation to hell. I called up their call center{amazed that I managed to get in touch with them? HA! dont jump to conclusions just yet. read para on call center}, just to re-affirm the ten grand, for I am no fool. I just could not beleive that anyone would gift TEN GRAND no matter how big my company. And I was right, it was no gift. It was a free cash withdrawal. The customer care did not even apologise for the miss-selling. Should have cut the card then and there. But since I did not take it for the ten grand, I just complained and continued. LESSON: when such a thing happens in any product, take a call then and there. It is a signal of things to come, of the company’s standards
Well, I asked for the balance transfer. Here, the original offerings were echoed. so I split by balance into personal and official and took a transfer for the official spends to SBI. The logic: it takes anywhere between 7 days to 45 days for bills to clear after they reach HO, so 0% was looking mighty attractive to me.(murga phas gaya. aur phasa bhi to tarike se, bhaiyya?!) Not knowing that they would bill me 34% p.a. on all subsequent transactions, I freely used the card next month on my official usage. I was stunned when I read the bill in the 4th month. the interest charges were killing me! That defeated the very purpose of my taking SBI card. Since company money was coming in slowly, I was saddled with interest costs{naturally}. Taking the balance transfer should have sorted that out.
Payments: Interest charges every month. Reason: several. One, they do not take outstation cheques, when most other cards do. Two: the cheques are sent to delhi for clearance, so that the payment is actually collected 7 days after the cheque is presented. This should have been told to the customers. But they do not tell this.
Call center: change name to payment center. They get after you as if you are a defaulter! The call center guys’n’gals lack knowledge, and need to check every single thing. The call center number 39020202 is frequently busy. I could go on and on. But you people shoud have got the drift by now.