Let us say I escaped from them. I am new to stock market and wanted to open an account and called sharekhan to find out. The person who came to my home was very polite, friendly and talked nicely. He offered an account at Rs. 300 for account opening and Rs.10000 for margin amount. AMC is Rs.400, delivery (0.35 %) and intra-day (0.05%).
He got signatures on the forms and got my cheques and gave the receipt. I just asked him I wanted to see the form fully. Then he gave me the form saying that he had filled the form with some other name and email id. Since he had no other forms he used the same form for me. Further he said he had already asked for a new first page from Mumbai and will get it soon. But he didn’t tell this before getting signatures from me. I didnt suspect much and asked him to send a scanned copy of the filled first two pages. He sent the scan of the first page after one day.
He promised me that I will get the kit in one week. After a week I asked him I didn’t receive any kit or any other info from sharekhan. He said there is a technical upgrade of their network is going on and will be done soon. I waited for another week and called him few more times. Then he started saying you to enquire at the respective office in Chennai. Meanwhile I called the customer care numbers (both toll free and paid numbers). Always there will not be any response. Only you will receive computerised voices asking you to be ready and wait patiently. I waited for 8 minutes and the call will be cut automatically. This happened both on trading time and non trading time. Further it happens on week days and weekends. I made more than 12 calls to both the customer service numbers and never had my call attended.
Further I called their branch office in Chennai and gave them the application number and asked for the status. The person at the other end asked the name of the person who collected the form and his mobile number. I didnt have the mobile number at that moment and was not able to give it. I was little angry and asked him why cant he track with the application number alone. For that he hanged the phone and describing me as "mental" to the person next to him. When he started talking to me after that I asked when he called me as mental and is it the way to treat customers. He didnt give any explanation. I asked for his name and he asked me back "why should he tell me his name?" Then he cut the call without any apology.
All these happened after 15 days of receiving my application. Meanwhile I called the person who collected the form and told him what happened when I called their office. He simply said sorry and he will not be able to track the person who has talked to me. further he said there are only lady customer service people in their office and he doesnot know who attended my call. That’s all there was no explanation.Then I asked him I no longer need an account in your company and please give me my cheques back. They have so far not used the cheques as I can see that no money was debited from the account till date. He said he can only give the Rs.10000 (margin amount) and cannot return the Rs.300. I said then you have to explain me about the delays. He offered no explanation. Later he said he will check the status of the application and inform me. Also he will ask his manager to talk to me. I expected something since I am a new customer to them.
Meanwhile I have sent two emails to myaccount@sharekhan.com, info@sharekhan.com and feedback@sharekhan.com explain the worst experience I had. The emails were sent 8 days back. So far I didn’t receive any acknowledgement or solution to the problem for the email complaint as well.
It seems that there is no way a customer can contact sharekhan if he has any problem once giving his money to them. We have to forget customer service and I don’t know how this many people hold accounts in share khan and how they solve their problems.
But nobody called me back so far. It has been 22 days so far and my account has not been opened. I simply dont have any idea what to do and whom to contact to solve my problem. Dont ever join this mess.
Meanwhile I found a Sharekhan advertisement in a popular website (a week back) for opening a new account and entered my contact details in the evening. By 11 am next morning I received a call from sharekhan executive who started explaining me about the advantages of their product. I told him my problem and he said he will look into it. So far I have not received the solution.
If you dont have the time to run after sharekhan for small problems (for weeks and months) please dont go for it. In my case as a matter of self respect I wont go fo them for the way I was treated.
Bottomline: Customer care exists in sharekhan only until they receive the application with the payment from you. After that customer care is non existent. You are on your own. Make a wise decision.