I had the misfortune of applying to the Mumbai Central Branch of ICICI Bank for opening a joint account as well as for ’Gold’ credit cards for both me and my wife on 18 Feb 2006. I was told that the account will not take long and the documents would reach me in 05 working days. As for the Credit cards, 21 days and they will be in my hand. The Joint account was opened after many phone calls and chasing-up on my part as well as 10 mails to the customer service department of ICICI. Despite my having filled up the application forms in BOLD CAPITAL letters, the bank fed the address incorrectly into their database and neither the Debit Cards nor the cheque book or the PIN numbers reached me.
After another protracted round of mails and phone calls, I had to personally go and collect the Debit cards from the bank on 18 Mar 2006. Similarly, after wasting a whole lot of time on phone calls and mails, I had to go to the bank again on 25 Mar to collect the cheque book. As regards the PIN, nothing is known. To add insult to injury, when I tried to submit an application for correcting the address that the bank itself fed incorrectly in the first place, they asked me for the residence proof again. I wonder what they did with all the documents that I gave at the time of opening the account.
The story doesn’t end here. Now comes the icing on the cake, on 24 Mar 2006, I received the PIN for the Credit card (at the correct address) but no card has been forwarded. When I enquired about the card on their (help)line on 29 Mar 2006, I was told that instead of 02 credit cards, only 01 has been made and despatched but they have got the name wrong. When I again sent a mail to the customer service department ( I wonder if they have one), I promptly received a reply informing me that if I want to change the name in the credit card, I need to furnish proof of name, residence, birth, death, existence and everything under the sun and maybe beyond. This again, when the bank in its own wisdom mis-spelt the name.
All this when my wife is already an existing customer of the bank for the past 04 years and the bank has all the correct details (we even gave the details of the old account at the time of applying).
My advice to everybody - if you want banking services, there are far better and definitely much more efficient banks out there. Maintain your sanity and go to some other bank. As for me, I have written to the RBI and am taking up the matter with the Consumer Redressal Forum.