Cheating

Location/place: Kolkata

Name of company/service: ICICI Bank

I used to hold one credit card with ICICI Back which was a British Airways Mastercard. Also, my mother used to hold the corresponding add on card.

Both the cards were supposed to expire in July 2013. Hence, I called up the customer care a few times before that in 2013 and they suggested me to call back in April/May.

Finally, when I called the customer care in May 2013 (or may be in April 2013), I had placed the request with them to replace my and my mother’s British Airways cards with some cheaper card as this card used to cost me Rs 3500 per year for maintenance. They accepted the request and informed me that my existing card will be blocked once I receive the new Coral card.

Accordingly, I have got my new Coral VISA Platinum card and the old card was blocked.

Now, on August 5th, 2013, I got an SMS from ICICI Bank informing that my mother’s add-on card was sent back to the bank by the courier as my mother was not at home.

All of a sudden, on August 23rd, I received 3 cards – One British Airways Mastercard for my mother, one British Airways American Express card for myself and one British Airways American Express card for my mother.

Being surprised on who placed the request for these 3 cards, I called the ICICI Bank customer card on the following day.

The customer service executive informed me that he is cancelling the British Airways Mastercard for my mother immediately and he provided me with two separate service request numbers for the requests he raised in the system to cancel the two British Airways American Express card (one for me and one for my mother) and told me that someone from the concerned department will call me in next 6 working days.

Many days passed and nobody called.

In the meantime, I have also been charged with that so called annual fee of Rs 3500.

Now, whenever I try to contact the ICICI Bank customer care on any of the contact numbers provided on the back of the card or in internet or wherever, my calls never reach the customer care. In fact, none of the two service request numbers (SR280617957 for the card ending with 1004 and SR280618522 for the card ending with 1103) provided by the customer care executive is recognized by either the IVR system or on the ICICI Banks portal.

In my numerous attempts, I could only reach the customer care two times – once the call went to the wealth management department and the other time it went to the saving accounts department.

I really do not understand if in my life time I can at all get rid of this Rs 3500 charged to me every year for no reason.