My experience started when I opened an account with ICICI Sriji towers Jaipur. I sincerely regret that day. My husband recommended & now he also regrets it.
In 2012 Ms Tanvi Gupta literally convinced me to buy Prudential policy of Rs 35000/- for seven years. I even told her that I might move overseas, she said for now you are resident & she filled all the details. Being educated I was coerced & took not one but two policies!
Soon I moved overseas without carrying details of my policies, I just had the policy number & dates when to pay them & I continued paying my policy. In Feb 2017 as per the option available, I paid my policy by international credit card which was deducted thrice. On request two of the payment was refunded to my card.
Meanwhile, I had many family issues & I had to go to see my critically ill father in UP. Somewhere in June 2017, I visited a local ICICI branch to check upon my policies. They asked for KYC & started selling another policy saying that my policy is not good. I was upset & said my father is unwell & I just want to pay my policies. They told me my policy for which I paid thrice was all up-to-date. But I started getting a SMS on my phone that we owe you 36000/-. Bank people said don’t share your account to this link it may be a scam.
Again in December 2017, I went to Jaipur branch & they told me to ignore the SMS your policy is all good. But SMS kept coming. I was preoccupied with my family illnesses & other commitments. I visited to Jaipur in Feb 2019 to close my account at Sriji branch, finally Abhishek Sharma told me your policy has lapsed. Then he found out that I need to urgently contact Prudential. I wrote emails to them but their reply was I have to pay penalty & the policy again. They agreed the amount I paid by my credit card, was with Prudential but they didn’t deposit towards my premium & that’s what they want to return. But why they didn’t deposit, I don’t have answers. Because of them, not crediting the amount towards my policy, my policy lapsed.
Now I understand that they did the same thing for my other policy. Every time I went to bank they told me that all was ok, because of this I missed my last premium. I realized when I searched the physical copy of my policy. After knowing that I have nearly lost more than 5 Lacs of rupees, I went into an emotional shock! I decided to close my saving account with ICICI as I wasn’t using it & I had to pay the penalty, they asked me to change my account to NRI account, saying that once we re in-state your policy, my money can be deposited in that account (hope is life).
As I wanted to do everything properly & had some hope, I converted my account to NRI. Ms Neha Durani & someone by name Anil came to my house for paperwork. However, I can’t login into my NRI account till date because they have written my email wrong on their end. I came to know through NRI branch.
Till date no one has helped me, instead after paying for 5 years for my two policies, I have lost all! I had to take psychological counseling for the same. I was surprised why & how it happened?
Ms Neha Durani who opened my NRI account doesn’t recall who I am! At the time of account opening, she would chat on what’s app. I believe she has moved on. I contacted Ms Kanchan but she has moved the branch.
Mr Abhishek Sharma gave me the contact of someone big shot Mr. Saurav Jain in Mumbai who promised to look into the matter, it’s 3 years!
Someone from Prudential wrote that Prudential & ICICI are independent, if so then why are all the bank employees busy selling Prudential policies, gold & house & land packages! Without my written permission, the unused money meant for my policy, recently was deposited in my NRI ICICI account! That means they knew very well & are searching for people’s accounts.
If ICICI & Prudential are different, then how could Prudential deposit the unused money in my NRI account?
I really want to take them to consumer court/court. This was suggested to me by one of their own bank employee in the Sriji towers in Feb 2019. I think he was just listening to the whole commotion. Even they were surprised why my payment was lying with Prudential. However, Abhishek suggested that Saurav Sir is the person to help me out & if still need be then I can take legal action. In fact, he spoke to Saurav Jain in front of me.
I gave up on Jain after sending all my details & so many requests. After 3 years I’m planning to come & want to try my luck with legal services. I found this site & thought I should write here. Bank is supposed to safe guard our money, not swallow it. For marketing purposes, they always call, but when there is some error, they wait for the opportunity.
According to them, I should have seen my email. There are thousands of promotional emails. They started sending me SMS when my policy has lapsed (they never mentioned that it has lapsed), I wish they could have sent a SMS reminder, that please call us or there is an error. I was unable to contact them, I requested them to give me a call with days, times etc. But I saw at times missed calls from private numbers at the odd hours three years ago.
But the thing is that they don’t know if a person can’t pick up the call, then they can leave a message because we can’t call back to a private number. I wanted to share all this with some senior authorities. Only once a sensible person, ( I may be wrong with his name but I think he was Rahul Chanchad) called me after my email & told me that there are two payments I have done & it’s not deposited towards my policy. He promised he will speak to his seniors. Guess his seniors don’t care about these things.
It’s not about small amount or big amount, it’s about ethics & customer care. I just wonder how hard it must be for many people who may be gullible or desperate to have some savings. For me, it’s like I didn’t want this policy but I took it to help a young girl Tanvi Gupta who thought it’s not a big amount for me but she would get some points.
In the end, it’s my loss! If anyone reads this then please be careful as we don’t read in between the lines & do not buy something you don’t want.
Hoping to get a justice in the court.