Credit card dispute & civil written off status

It is pertinent to raise some tangible and pertinent questions to the bank.

--If the customer is extorted to pay disputed amounts and later on investigations the disputed amounts are deleted from the bill, then shall the bank pay same interest, finance charges, to the customer as it charges from the customer? What interest bank has agreed to pay in its policy? Does bank convey such policy to the customer?

--Shall the bank refund the extorted amounts to customer if it is not able to complete and conclude investigation? Does the bank agree to provide documentary evidence to customer regarding the investigation?

In your case bank has reversed all amounts disputed by you and hence has to reverse all consequential amounts e.g. interest, late payment, finance charge, taxes etc. bank has to supply a notice to the customer before reporting the details of the customer to credit bureaus and credit rating agencies. Did bank supply any notice to you?

From publications and posts some of which are available at LCI also it can be noted that  it is a set precedence and strategy of the bank to report the genuine customer to the credit rating agencies including CIBIL and then coerce an force the customer to pay the charges to remove the name from CIBIL.

Customer can obtain credit report from the bank by paying a fee which can not be more than Rs.50/-. In your case you can demand credit report from the bank maintained with:

·                  CIBIL – Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited (www.cibil.com)

·                  Experian - Experian Credit Information Company of India Private Limited (www.experian.in)

·                  Equifax - Equifax Credit Information Services Private Limited (www.equifax.com)

·                  Master Card negative list ( earlier Satyam)

 even without charges along with copy of the all communications sent by the bank to these agencies while asking to include your name in the list of defaulters and to the bank concluded its investigation and reversed the charges, and finally to record the reversal as “written off “status. Bank should have updated the status as “wrongly reported’ and bear the onus and consequences on it.

 Bank shall not supply these communications easily (email/letter/fax) etc and you may to obtain a court order.

You may on your own send an email to CIBIL to correct the status by attaching the investigation report supplied to you by the bank with a copy to the Chairman of the bank, and demand reply from bank.

You may apply resources to educate the bank customers who are in your circle and let them take their decision to continue or sever their relationship with the bank.

You may announce to the bank that you shall be constrained to go public with your complaint, and approach institutions of print and electronic media, police, courts of law, Govt. regulator. Ministry, ministers, NGO’s, social and public forums etc at their cost and consequences if bank fails to comply to instructions and provide relief say in next 7 days, and you shall collect the charges of seeking all charges for legal advice, and legal actions, you may have to take.

 If the bank fails to comply you may approach a competent and experienced lawyer and proceed under expert advice e of your lawyer.

You can see the decided consumer cases against this bank, at various sites and at CONFONET, and take a stand that this bank is habitual offender.

Dear Arumugam,

Repeatedly I have been mentioning in my past replies to credit card queries,regarding credit card recovery mafia operating. Nothing will be done by these banks,once you are listed as defaulter.If your name is listed in CIBIL,it will run for 8 years.Even if you clear all your dues,you are not eligible for any kind of loans from any financial institutions.File a complaint wi the banking ambudsman and you can even report the matter to the consumer forum.

Hi,

Thanks for answering the questions. 

Coming back to the answer. No SCB Bank didn't contact me before reporting to CIBIL. I am not sure letter is sent to the address where i resided. But for sure there was no email communication.

I was out of India for between 2006-2011, so i am not sure any letter is sent during the period. Only after returning to India, i came to know the same has been reported to CIBIL during 2009.

I am planning to take legal action against the wrongful communication to CIBIL. 

One more question, I had 3 cards from SCB during that time. Since I disputed transactions made in one card, i stopped using/paying the card until disputes are resolved. In the mean time, SCB moved back some amount from other two cards to the disputed card. Since this process was continuing i stopped using all the cards.

Is it legal to move amount from one account to other account?. Even though I had zero balance on other 2 cards due to this move SCB made me to have balance on other 2 cards. So in all now all the three cards had pending balance & keep on increasing at the rate of 40% year. 

Is it correct to move amount from one account to other without my consent?. 

Dear Mr.Ramaswamy,

In your first query you mentioned that you had only one card.Now you say you had three cards.If you are not clear in your query,our views and answer will differ.Any way act as adviced earlier.

Mr. Devalla has given prudent advice. You should post all facts.

You have posted:

--"Even though I had zero balance on other 2 cards” and "SCB moved back some amount from other two cards to the disputed card. " Both statements are contradictory.

If bills of other two cards were paid in full how SCB can transfer some amount from these cards to 1st card? It is felt that no card from SCB is life time free membership charges, so even if card member pays the transactions for which card is swiped, membership charges remain balance. You need to explain this to company and obtain clarification from company.

On the other hand your lawyer can take stand dispute which was registered with the company within specified time but company did not resolve and inform the card member in specified time, and instead of providing provisional waiver of disputed amounts and complete resolution company preferred to complicate the matter and extort exorbitant charges.

--"For 2 transactions it was rectified with 2 months & other 4 they reverted back amount only after 15 months."

Did the company inform that they have not been able to investigate the other 4 transactions? or other 4 transactions are found as made by card member? Did you post reminders in writing? What was the conclusion of the company?

Apparently company has "written off" these 4 transactions with or without the reason for writing off and since these transactions are written off as per practice the “written off" and settlement status is viewed as bad and lowers the credit rating of the card member.

Kindly look into the attachment.

You may approach your lawyer with all record of emails, complaint numbers, letters, phone calls etc and let your lawyer handle the matter while you can focus on your career and line of business.

Attached files may be useful.

Mr.Arumugam,

AS far as credit cards are concerned,each card has a different account.The bank cannot club each other.If you hold a banking account in the same bank,credit card dues can be put on lien to your account.That means whatever you deposit in your account,will immedately be transferred to the lien account.

Mr. Devalla has given valuable advice. Kindly follow it.

The banns claim that it is a law that bank enjoy general lien on all a/c. It is seen bank do not hesitate to excercise lien even while case is in progress in a court of law, consumer forum and if a legal notice is served bank do not take time to vacate the lien e.g. HDFC Bank.

Kindly look into the attachments:

----RBI CC Operation of the banks

8. Right to impose penalty

The Reserve Bank of India reserves the right to impose any penalty on a bank / NBFC under the provisions of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 for violation of any of these guidelines.

---- banks cannot exercise lien over the personal account

(v) Lien

Banks have a right to exercise lien under section 171 of the Indian Contract Act against the dues from

constituents/customers. However, the banks cannot exercise lien over the personal account of a customer on the ground

that money was due to the bank in another account where he acts in a different capacity, if there is no agreement to that

effect.

In Union Bank of India v/s K.V.Venugopalan where it was held by the court that the fixed deposit money lodged with the bank is strictly a loan to the bank. The banker in connection with the FD is a debtor .The depositor would accordingly cease to be the owner of the money in fixed deposit .The said money becomes money of the bank, enabling the bank to do as it likes, that however, with the obligation to repay the debt on maturity .In the same ruling it was further held that the bank being a debtor in respect of the money in FD, had no right to pass into service the doctrine of banker’s lien and the money in Fixed Deposit.

So the answer as per the judgment is lien is a legal right of bankers though, but does not extends to fixed deposits

Incidentally, a group of lawyers in Chennai have formed a Trust under the name of Centre for Social and Economic Justice and they have filed public interest litigation in the Madras High Court last month to strictly enforce the master circular mentioned above. In this petition, they have included the Finance Ministry, RBI, IBA and all the credit card issuing Banks as the respondents. The details of the same are available at

www.creditcardwatch.org

The Banking Codes and Standards Board of India (BCSBI)
..:: BCSBI ::..

The Credit Card Holders Association of India
Credit Card Holders Association of India

Please also read the following circulars from RBI. https://www.creditcardasson.org/RBI%20guidelines%20on%20credit%20cards.doc

Defeat is not final when you fall down. It is final when you refuse to get up.

Thanks for the input.

Sorry if I confused in my prev query.

I was holding 3 cards at that time. 2 VISA & 1 master. Lets call them card A, B, C.

I was having dispute only for card "A". So i stopped using that card. I was using & paying on time for cards "B" & "C". 

SCB was charging interest + late charges for card "A". I wasn't bothered since i am sure disputes will be over & these charges will be reversed back.

Since i stopped paying on card "A". SCB moved some amount from card "B" to card "A".  Since i was regularly paying for card "B", i was infact paying for card "A" too.

Once i realized & stopped paying for card "B" too, same game played on card "C". 

Smart game. What was supposed to be interest + late charges on one card, now becomes multiplied by 3. 

I remember the incident played by CC companies some years before it was brought in light. Lets say you avail overdraft facility & assume if you cross the limit lets say they charge 500 per instance.

My credit limit is 10000 & used credit is 9000. On a particular day i did 9 transactions of 100 each & one transaction of 1100. 

So i am above the limit (9000 + 900 + 1100) = 11000. 

Now comes the interesting part. Computation of overdraft charges. 

Apply smaller transactions first. so overdraft charge is applied for bigger amount(1100). In this case 500 only.

Do it other way around. Apply big transaction first (9000+1100) is well over limit. So next 9 small transactions will again draw overdraft charges. So in all 5000. Smarter move right.

Coming back to the questions. No i wasn't updated on the progress of disputes. I will update if i have any progress.

What is the chances of me getting home loans. Assume zero liability today & income is well over the asking amount. Also assets i hold too is valued much more than asking home loan.

Dear Arumugam,When they have issued three different cards they cannot club one another.Amount from one card cannot be transfered to another card.Something has gone wrong with your card accounts.I request you to submit a petitionto the banking ambudsman.

From : jayakumarramasami@yahoo.com   : I am a retired senior citizen aged 62 years. I retired in march 2004.I had 4 credit cards. SBI.,SCB,ICICI<SCB-Manhattan. Till  last three months I had managed to pay off promptly the minimum dues every month on all the 4 cards. My pension is Rs.12,000/- p.m. of which 6000/- is paid by ECS to LIC Housing finance.I am unable to pay dues on my cards.I am unemployed and my ill health does not permit me to take up any employment. The CC banks keep sending persons to collect dues and make frequent calls on my mobile to pay up. Can the banks attach my property legally. The house was not purchased by my own earnings. It is my late father property and I understand that it legally belongs to his grandsons and grand daughters.

Kindly somebody advise me how I can handle this financial debt situaton ?

Dear Sir/Madam

Previously i had a credit card of Bank of Baroda. But even after clearing my amount after discussion, my name and outstanding amount is still appearing in Civil Site, and i am not able to avil a lone for my business. So i request you to clear my name from the civil. I also have the copy of the NOC cirtificate. Please check the attach ments.

Thanking You

Pramod Das

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am holding credit cards of SCB since 90's. I am one of the best customer. I enjoyed a very good credit limit. I pay credit card bills well on time.

Last year I was in Canada & paid through credit card for a Chopper. The merchant have to charges me in CAD (Canadian Dollars) instead of that he charge USD (United States Dollars). While swiping the card he charged USD. I reported this matter to SCB & as a good customer I paid the amount in INR equivalent to CAD.

Bank has asked me to furnish all the details which I did. There was no communication from bank & suddenly one day I received sms to pay difference amount with interest. I called them, they once again asked me to provide all the details which again I did.

Now every week, I received call from bank to pay outstanding & every day I get sms for the outstanding. They even threatened me to make my card hot. So I told them till the matter is settled I will not use the credit card.

About the month back, someone from the bank called me & asked for the explanation, I gave the explanation which was recorded by him.

He again asked for all the details which I provided. I was expecting some positive results instead of that bank said, they are helpless. I should take up this matter with merchants EDC/Payment Gateway with the franchiser (Master/Visa). I inform that bank should contact merchants EDC/Payment Gateway with the franchiser (Master/Visa). They refuse to do so & are continues calling & sending sms for o/s payments.

I have asked them to provide mail exchange & correspondence/communication they had with their counterpart for my matter under RTI Act.

They failed to provide this information. I am of the opinion that they have not done any communication with their counterpart & are simply claiming the difference from me with interest.

I am platinum card holder and this the treatment SCB is giving to me. Tomorrow for similar fraud SCB will ask the client to pay. According to me it is their legal duty to fight on behalf of customer & to protect the interest of the customer.