Hello All,
I would like to bring up the irregularities and fraudulent methods used by Kotak Mahindra Bank while dealing with salary accounts. They are not at all concerned about providing accurate information, they only want the customer to open the account and then cheat them by totally neglecting the promises made while opening the account.
I was approached by the Kotal Mahindra Bank executives in Gurgaon (around Mar-2013) and they convinced me to open a salary account with them by claiming that they provide better benefits than any other bank.
I informed the executive (Mr. Narendra) that currently my firm does not deposit salaries to Kotak Mahindra accounts and they would take some time to add Kotak in their list of preferred banks which means my salary would not get deposited to the account for coming few months (I in fact told them that the lead period can be 2 quarters as well). To this, he insisted that I still open the account with them and even if the salary is not getting credited for initial months, the account will still be treated as a salary account and no account maintenance charges would be applicable.
I trusted him as he is an employee of the bank and agreed to open the account on these terms. After about a month, I got a call from the bank the next month that the salary is not credited to the account and when I explained the above details, they were ok with it. The same thing happened in month of June as well.
In June the executive on the call advised me that I deposit some money to the account so I deposited 5000 INR to the account. When I checked my account status later in August, I saw that they charged me monthly maintenance charge of around 850 INR. I called up the customer care to understand the reasons, but they said that the charges are correct and the conversations I had with the executives earlier were incorrect and I should talk to them only.
I raised a complaint for these charges and the got a call from the corporate accounts manager Mr. Asim Khan. He told me that the information provided to me was incorrect while opening the account. However, he can raise a request to the branch to consider reversal of the charges and also put the account on hold so that further deductions do not happen. I informed him that I am not happy with the bank and would like to close the account.
I went to a branch and submitted a request for account closure but the home branch called me up stating that they cannot close my account as the maintenance charges for next months are pending and my account is in negative balance.
I again raised a complaint and spoke to Mr. Asim Khan and this time he informed me that he cannot put the account on hold and the charges would continue. But he said that he checked with the home branch manager and I should submit a fresh request for closure. I did that and again they did not close the account.
I am surprised as to how they can totally ignore the commitments made while opening the account.This seems like a way to make money for the bank - Make false commitments and then totally ignore them and let the customer bear the charges. I am looking for some avenue to reach out where I can lodge a complain about the bank practices as the bank is not listening to my comments. Please let me know if someone is aware of any organization that I should reach out to. Any help will be greatly appreciated.