I am writing this review today not just to share my experience but also expose fraudulent practices being carried out by the Bank.
In this time of High Incomes and an active campaign by the ruling government to purposefully devalue the currency, perhaps nobody is bothering about the debit of Rs. 600 from their Corpclassic accounts for not maintaining the minimum balance of Rs. 25, 000.
The bank maintains that It duly informed of the customer about the changes through courier letters, posting a notice on the notice boards in the branches and on its website.
To this statement let me ask a few obvious questions.
1) How many of us really received the Letter to inform us the change in policy of minimum balance....TO answer that I asked around... I asked a lot of people in my area, office and friends who hold Corpclassic accounts with Corporation bank.
Answer: None
2) How many of us are maintaining multiple accounts with various banks, so as to avoid being taxed on the interest earned by the money we already paid income tax for and for that matter how many times do we visit those branches to know about the account status.
Answer: Who has the time....we either check the statements or the ATM receipts or at most using netbanking using the website. But according to the Bank’s Chief Manager in our area Branch the responsibility lies with the customer and not Bank to know all the policy changes in the Bank. His exact words " You should have come to the bank and read the notice".
3) And finally how many of us have dared to use the netbanking facilities and if we have how many of us have paid any attention to the insignificant looking scrolling marquee that leads to page that says
"Corp Classic Deposit Scheme – Revision in Scheme Guidelines" that has links to download pdf files and in those files it mentions of the changes. This is a glaring example unethical practices to hide information and still maintain legality.
Answer: A peice of information that significant is usually published on the Home page of a website in Red.
As for my experience and How I got them to credit the money back. Please read on.
My parents are both retired Individuals and are maintaining Corpclassic accounts with Corporation Bank.
My father went to the bank to get the account statement as the bank does not send them by post or Email but has to be updated on the Pass book. He found that Rs. 600 has been deducted from both the accounts for not maintaing minimum balance.
Upon enquiring he found about the policy changes and the teller (Personal Banker) told him nothing could be done about it and upon persisting, redirected to the Chief Manager of the Branch.
The Cheif manager was rather rude to him and his curt answer was that these changes were applied by the higher ups and he could not do anything about it.
He came home told me what had happened and though being an IT professional, I did my graduation in Bcom hons and I sat down with the statements and found that this corp classic accounts use money from the accounts to use them as fixed deposits and actually the account has much more than the minimum balance as stated by the policy changes.
So I directed my parents to write applications for account closure and went to the bank to talk to the Manager in person. He started to feed me the same well rehearsed lines , I interjected and showed him the fact about the deposits, and then I clearly sensed what was actully going on.
He knew about the facts , it was either a algorithmic glitch or a well crafted plan to make some more money for the bank to make up for losses in some other investment.
I told him to revert the deductions and the fact that my parents wish to take their business elsewhere, to that he clearly threatened me that if the accounts are going to closed anyways, why would he bother to revert the deductions. But as soon as I mentioned consumer court , he started filling out the paperwork for reverting the deductions.
In conclusion, I would like say that these banks have been utilizing the loopholes in our legal system for far too long, just think how much is 600 X lakhs or even crores of customers is. Nothing will get done unless we do something about it.
If you are a Corpclassic account holder and you are experiencing the same problems. Rather than going to the Consumer Courts individually, Lets band togather and file a libel suit. These suits not only scares the corporations but also wakes up the Governance policy makers.
1) Please do not provide Account Number and other personal Details
Just your name , way to contact you and your experience
Here is my email address: billycoolblues@yahoo.com
Thanks and regards