Did you ever have a problem with your ICICI account? If not then the bank is a great bank! But if you do have a problem you will realize what a unreliable, unresponsive bank it is. Take a few examples (and please ask your local ICICI bank officers if its true or not)
When you visit a branch and the person in the counter doesnt respond to anybody because he/she is "busy" with some personal work of theirs, you just have to wait! The branch managers are usually "busy" elsewhere (probably pacifying others) and everyone else have their own work to finish.
The staff in the branch "strongly encourage" you to talk to the phone banking staff regarding any problem. Then after you cross the idiotic validation process (next point!) and an estimated 6 minutes of waiting (actual time take taken is more than 15 minutes if you are not disconnected by then) you speak to a phone banking officer who politely asks you about your problem and then "encourages" you to visit the local branch for assistance.
When you use ICICI phone banking the account number and date of birth is enough to get account balance and last 10 transactions etc...Virtually that means I can get the account statement of almost all my friends, family members and relatives - apart from my colleagues and business associates. Wow thats a lot of power! (May be thats why its called Power pay account!!)
My Free Quarterly Bank Account statements are not being delivered. The address is correct and several reminders were made to the call center and the Branch concerned. Each time my "Request" is taken and a promise is made that I will get my statements. Then they wait for me to make another "Request". But the good news is the same courier company finds promptly delivers my ICICI credit card bills - all the time!
If any one of you know how to escalate a problem you are facing in the ICICI bank, please tell us! Even the staff at the branch dont know (or so they claim) whom to escalate the problem to.
Every day I get atleast 2 calls from people claiming to be from ICICI bank - offering me either a Free Lifetime ICICI Credit Card (I already own the same Free Lifetime ICICI Credit Card!) or a car loan (Again I have taken the car loan from ICICI bank only). Needless to say, the call comes at peak hours when you have negotiated a huge traffic jam, settled in your office and then when you are in the middle of a busy meeting.
If you get a cheque with either Bad handwriting on it, or if your name is spelt slightly wrong (example: Prashant instead of Prashanth) then you’re in for a surprise. The money is not credited to your account because of the "name mismatch". Thats a good security feature right? It could have been, except that the money is already collected from the person who issued the cheque and kept in a "Suspense" account. So how do you get your money back? the phone banking tells you to give a letter claiming that there was a mistake in the cheque, while the branch tells you to get the letter from the person who issued the cheque. Eventually you may get your money back - but you would have spent a good deal of time trying to understand what is going on - even as ICICI bank is earning on these Suspense accounts!
When you deposit cash, you are asked to deposit through Envelopes. Have you had an experience when the amount is not credited to your account? Try asking the call center or the branch staff about it! They will tell you "It should have been credited by now" as though we are only joking about money being not credited.
I did a online transfer using "Bill Pay" to pay for my credit card bill. I got the message "Hot pay successful". Money was deducted from my bank account, but in my credit card statement (online, through phone and confirmed through the branch) the money was not credited. After making several more calls to the call center ("Our systems are slow please call us after 1 hour", "Sorry sir, no amount was received on your credit card account", "I will take down a complaint", etc..) I was finally told that they had a "systems upgrade" and thats why the payment was not reflected. Cant you disable the Bill pay option if its not working ? One working day gone on this!
Does ICICI bank return the documents that it collects with the application when your application is declined ? I doubt it. A friend of mine was in for a rude shock a few months after he applied for a ICICI bank credit card. Not only did he not get the card, but we was now being harassed by some telecom companies, because someone had taken a telephone connection with my friends ID proof and address, in my friends name, misused it and discarded the phone. The only time friend ever gave a ID proof was for the ICICI credit card application!
While all may not face these problems, one thing is for sure. When you face a problem - you will know how unreachable ICICI bank is. Unless we consumers start questioning their practices, they will keep getting awards for being the "best private bank" while in reality its far far from the truth.