I don’t know why I am still with this bank. I have 3 major incidents that has left really a bad impression of the bank on me.
- I joined my first job and at that time, they only had optoin of opening salary account in citibank, so I had to open with them. It took more than 2 months for them to dispatch the ATM card and PIN after opening the account.
Problems started when I took a loan from Citifinancial. The EMI was cleared through ECS facilty at every 5th of the month, but my salary only gets credited at 7th of the month. Every month I make sure that there is sufficient balance in the account for this ECS to clear. Once I ran short balance and had to borrow from my father and deposit it at the ATM machine (I remember I had deposited at the 3rd of that month) thinking that it would be credited at least by 5th morning and the ECS would be cleared. To my horror, on 6th when I checked my account, the ECS was bounced!!!! The next entry in the statement was the deposit I had made.
I called citi phone and enquired as to why the ECS clearance was bounced. Their reply that day still makes me wonder how citibank works.... The citi phone officer told me that any deposit would reflect in the acc the next day at 12:00 midnight (i., e 4th midnight or 5th 12:00 AM), and the ECS clearance would occur at 7:00 AM. Now if the deposit is reflecting at 12:00 AM then how come the ECS waiting to be cleared at 7:00 AM be bounced??? They had no answers. But at the end, there was a check bounce entry in my acc and Rs.250 + ST charged against me. (for Rs 1891 ECS).
This was not the only instance that happened. It happened another time as well...
Once I was in urgent need of cash and withdrew Rs. 4000 from my account in an ATM (that machine offered only Rs. 100 denominations). While taking the cash out of the machine few notes got struck and I was unable to get the cash. I immediately called the Security guard posted there. By the time he came to me, the cash counter of machine closed and the cash went back in the machine. I checked my account again and Rs. 4000 was alredy deducted. I immdtly called citiphone and informed them. They said it would take 3-4 days to verify and reverse the withdrawal. After repeated calls, I was able to get it back credited only after 20 days.... God knows how I managed that crunch situation...Every day I used to call and every time, I used to get only one response that they are looking into it.
This incident, I feel the funniest of all. It was the last day to submit my application form and fees to correspondence degree course I wanted to join. They accept the fees only through DD as it should be sent to Delhi office from here (Bangalore). I went to the MG Road branch, since I never stepped in bank before, I went straight to receptionist and asked where can I get a DD from my suvidha account. The Receptionist told that DD should be signed by an official who is not available now and you can drop the DD form here and collect it tommorow at 5pm. Does it take that long to issue a DD that too when I have an acc with the bank????? I promptly walked out of the bank went to the ATM next to the office building and withdrew the cash . Went to another bank, paid the amount and had the DD within 15 minutes!!!!!
Now, what is the point in having a account with the bank when they can’t even issue a DD deducting from own acc??