I applied for a car loan from ICICI Bank at sometime mid-April 2006.
The reason I applied for the car loan through ICICI Bank was because
the agent assured me that the loan would be disimbursed in not more than 3 days.
He also quoted an interest rate of 9.25%. Even though I had the option to avail a loan
from a public sector bank at the rate of 8.75% I chose to go with ICICI
bank because I needed the car urgently and it would have taken much
longer in the public bank.
So after filling up all the forms and getting assurance from the agent
of speedy clearance I started waiting for the loan to get cleared. It
did get cleared but only after about 15 days of waiting and atleast 100
repeated calls to the agents and different people in icici bank call centre from my side.
I would have called the agent everyday twice for those 15 days, but
either he never picked up the call, or even if he picked up he would
typically assure me that he would call back after finding out the cause
and would never call back.
Finally my loan application got cleared and I was able to take
possession of the car.
Shockingly, when I received my Amortization Schedule letter
from ICICI Bank and I WAS SHOCKED TO SEE THAT THE RATE OF INTEREST
QUOTED WAS 10.5% INSTEAD OF THE 9.25% quoted by the Agent.
I contacted the ICICI bank call centre regarding the blatant lieing of
ICICI banks agent and they assured me that they will take action. The agent
visited me on my house and when I confronted him that he had lied to me regarding
the rate of interest, he had nothing to say other than hang his head in shame.
However when I asked their customer care rep. about why I was lied to, they started making different
excuses.
The first excuse made was that the loan details sheet that the agents carry with them
was a bit old and he was not able to see the rate of interest properly. This is completely
unbelievable because the rate of interest is something that an agent has to repeatedly quote to
the customers and is just single number. To assume that the agent cannot remember a single number
and has to look up a form for the same is completely ridiculous.
I wrote a mail to the customer care once again and threatened them that I will go
to customer court. They assured me that they will take action and took about 15 days again
to get back to me. After which the only thing they had to tell me was that the agent had
quoted me 10.5% instead of 9.25%. It seems that the icici ppl believe that their customers are not only deaf but also stupid.
All in all, whenever dealing with ICICI bank please note that their agents are used to blatant
lieing in your face, and whenever taking any figures from them please take it in writing so that
later when they overcharge you, you can show them proof.