HDFC Bank

Friends, I would like to present before you a wonderful case study of this renowned private sector bank who shot into fame in the post liberalisation era with its sheer marketing ( read customer service) skills and presently after 17 years cashing in on its tremendous brand equity that it had earned over the last couple of years, demoted itself to a bank which like any other XYZ bank in the tremendous rat race to retain the market share, even going to the extent of duping innocent and ignorant senior citizens!

My 62 year old mother in law, Mrs Indrani Ray (customer id 56853903) was told by the apparently friendly lady executive ( it may kindly be noted that my in laws had sought help from this same executive regarding their day to day savings bank transaction on a number of occasions in the past) to invest in a Pension Champion plan with a premium of Rs 2, 00, 000 consecutively for a period of 3 years with an assurance that she will get a pension of Rs 8000 per month after all the premium is paid.

Even the executive went to the extent by saying that irrespective of the fact that, whether she can pay the further premiums, she will keep on getting the interest on the actually invested premium! Needless to say that they are still awaiting the first penny of interest although it is nearly 1 year of their investment! But this is probably just the tip of the iceberg! My mother in law being a housewife since last 30 years was not aware of the policy document that the bank normally sends to their customers, neither did the friendly executive mention about the same to her: probably she had forgotten to do so as she was too busy in calculating her own commission for trapping my innocent mother in law! The fact of non receipt of all the 4 policy documents came to light only couple of months back during the course of a very casual conversation with me! When I wrote to HDFC , I was shocked to get a prompt mail saying that all the 4 documents have already been delivered to some Yashpal and Kamal although they failed to clarify which department do these so called persons belong to! It may kindly be noted that my in laws had sold off their South Delhi flat and was staying in a rented accommodation near our place in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad at that time, hence they could not change their postal address with the bank. Friends, just look at the sheer callous attitude of the bank who never hesitate to call senior citizens even at wee hours to promote any newly launched policy and in this case they are delivering one’s valuable document like a petty phone bill to an XYZ person and do not bother to clarify from their customers whether they have received their documents or not! Utterly frustrated at this unprofessional attitude of the bank, I asked the bank to return our valuable money as my in laws had lost their trust completely on HDFC bank! As usual I got a call from another friendly executive from HDFC Life Insurance, Mumbai politely saying that there is no question whatsoever in returning the money as it is already so late, the best thing that they can do is to issue a duplicate, that too on payment of some penalties! When I argued that HDFC should have had the courtesy to inform my mother in law when the documents are being despatched, they coolly passed the buck on us saying that the customer has equal responsibility to find out why he/ she is not receiving the documents! Looks like we have again gone back to the pre liberalisation period when sellers used to be kings!