My mother had been a customer with Muthoot Finance for more than 15 years. We recently had a distressing, miserable, and upsetting incident that made us lose all our trust in Muthoot Finance, raising our doubts in the ethics of its employees. We saved ourselves from a possible fraud that was about to happen regarding a gold loan at Muthoot Finance, Milap Nagar Branch.
I took a gold loan on 30/09/2023 Saturday, because of an emergency situation, a bereavement in the family, and we had to book flights with this money that evening. One of the senior most female staff started selling her lucrative gold plan to my mourning mother despite knowing the urgency of our situation. They asked me to provide my documents (Aadhar, Pan, photo etc.) even though my mother had an existing account, promising us that the amount will be transferred to my bank account via IMPS.
The branch manager, Mr. Anil, said that it would be easier for them to transfer the money to my account instead of my mother’s account. We wanted the money to be transferred to the bank account because:
a) It wasn’t safe to carry that amount outside in cash at that time of the evening in that locality.
b) There weren’t any banks open at that time of the evening for us to deposit the cash. All the cash deposit machines were at least 5 kms away.
We had to book flights for the same night. I submitted the requested documents at 5:26 pm 30/09/2023. Another person who’d submitted the documents after us, left with the money transferred to his account. His process was finished within 10 mins. The test transaction of Re.1 sent to my bank account went through successfully, proving that there wasn’t any problem with the transfer method. We were made to wait. Our denial to their plan they were selling evidently upset the staff. The senior female staff was utterly rude and kept blaming us for the delay in transfer.
The branch manager, Mr. Anil, wasn’t helpful at all. He also kept blaming us for our choice of choosing to receive our money in the bank. He ganged up with the fellow staff and kept telling us to wait. They clicked our photos, made videos of us without our consent in an attempt to threaten us. We were made to feel like we were dacoits, whereas they took the gold and gave us a receipt that we’ve received the money when we didn’t. They kept telling us to wait for 5-10 mins again, at least 5 times. They were giving us contradicting and illogical run-arounds like, "ICICI bank ki problem hai", "aapki galti hai, apko mein pehle hi bola tha. Apka account nai chal raha. Apke bank ne transfer reject kiya hai", etc. Upon questioning this unsatisfactory reason, and telling them that IMPS transfers are instantaneous, they told us that the fund will be transferred within 2-3 hours. Upon asking for a written confirmation that the amount will be received in our account in 2 hours, the female staff said, "phir aap wahi bacho wali baat kar rahe ho. Immaturely behave kar rahe ho. aapki mein koi madad nai kar sakti. Kya aapke mere se loan liya hai?".
They were desperately trying to make us leave without the money and kept threatening us. We were concerned as we didn’t receive our money and it was already 7:15 pm. The senior female staff then said, "apko jo karna hai karo. aap baithe raho ya jao. koi farak nai padta". The senior female staff left, followed by another staff, and they kept leaving one by one. One of the employees gave us Mr. Anil’s number and said, "app wait karo. paisa aa jayega. is number pe phone karlena." We helplessly left at around 7:25 pm. While leaving, the male staff mockingly said, "Thank you for your time. hahaha". We didn’t receive the money that day. We tried calling Mr. Anil to track the progress, but he switched off his phone. The money wasn’t transferred and we had to rely on other close friends for the money.
On 04/10/2023, we received a text from Muthoot Finance that our loan was cancelled, when I was in Kerala, involved in the funeral rituals. Upon calling the customer service, they suggested to call the branch. The branch executives recognized me and kept disconnecting my calls. Finally, the same male executive answered and asked me to call after 30 minutes, telling me that his system is not working. I said that I didn’t even state my concern, to which he said he already knew it. I asked him then why was he disconnecting my calls even when he knew I was the one who was calling and the reason I was calling for. He didn’t say anything and hung up. I called after 30 minutes and asked him about the loan cancellation text. He said, "yes it’s been cancelled." Upon telling him that I didn’t receive any sort of intimation from the branch, he had nothing to say. He pitched his brilliant plan to transfer the loan to my mother’s name and reattempt to transfer the money to my account.
I wasn’t ready to trust him and his colleagues, and Muthoot Finance as a whole. I asked him to hold on to the gold ornament and I would come back and collect it. He was desperately trying to know when I would return which raised my doubts even further. All the time we were in Kerala, going through the tough times of bereavement, dealing with the loss, we had another problem to deal with - the safety of the ornament.
My mother called Mr. Anil, who answered the call finally after his long hibernation in the state of oblivion. The branch manager again kept blaming us for the their mistakes/wicked plans, and suddenly passed on the call to the same rude senior female staff. My mother refused to speak with her. Upon complaining the branch manager, he again started blaming our bank, and didn’t care about our complaints. He did not even apologize once, let alone taking any disciplinary action on the staff as it’s one big happy family who shares the same ethics.
The reason I said it could be a possible fraud is because on the 21st Oct, 2023, when I returned to the branch with my mother to retrieve our gold ornament, we noticed it was broken and was not in the same condition it was given to them. The same male staff who answered the calls earlier, said that it isn’t their responsibility. He said, "maam yeh jaise mila humne aise hi rakh diya. humari koi responsibility nai hai. sorry maam". He merely said "sorry" and said there wasn’t anything he could do. The ornament wasn’t broken at all when we gave it to them. It meant a lot to my mother and has an emotional value attached to it. Such staff shouldn’t be allowed even near to handle such delicate matters, work with people money, allowed to face customers, let alone allowed to work in any domain dealing with money.
I had lost all my trust with Muthoot Finance. In their vehement venture of expansion, Muthoot Finance has lost its sense of ethics and integrity.