Location/place: Bangalore
Name of company/service: HDFC BANK
My credit card that was valid till 2014 has been cancelled without intimation. I have been using the card as usual and paying the dues through auto-debit. This week my card was getting declined at retail shops. On calling customer care I was told that the card has been cancelled as my card has been upgraded. However I have never used the new card that was sent to me. Also it has never been mentioned that the old card will be automatically cancelled. This is a breach of service contract. Typically an old card is supposed to remain active and is not supposed to get cancelled automatically when it is in its validity period. There has been no communication that it will be cancelled but the customer service representatives lied to me that the letter accompanying the new card mentioned that the old card will be de-activated and that I was also sent an email on 13th May about this but both of these is false. There has been no email sent mentioning that the old card will be de-activated nor does the letter with the new card mention about this. If HDFC Bank would be deactivating my perfectly valid old card before the expiry of the card then they should have intimated me which they did not. The customer service representative (Ganesh) on the phone laughed at me, kept me on hold for extended period of time and had not even logged the details of the call in the CRM system as he asked me to repeat the card number and other details after more than 30 minutes on call, most of which I was kept on hold. His manager Prahalad lied to me that the letter from the bank with the new card mentioned that the old card will be cancelled and mocked at me for not reading the letter and told me that I cannot expect him to open my mail and read it out for me. All this kind of mocking, ridiculing and humiliation was done despite the Bank being on the wrong side by not even informing about the cancellation and claiming that they have clearly mentioned it in the letter when it is not.
I had to undergo embarrassment and humiliation of the card getting declined at shops where I had done purchases. I could not purchase products that I wanted and was stranded without the means to purchase because the card which shows that it is valid till 2014 was cancelled 1 year in advance without any intimation about the cancellation. I was laughed at, mocked at and ridiculed by the customer service that the BANK had clearly mentioned in the letter accompanying the upgraded card that the old card will be cancelled and that I was also sent an email on May 13th. The reality is that no such email was sent, the letter with the new card is dated 23rd May and the card number is different, there is no reference to the existing card number and also no mention of the existing card being automatically cancelled. I had to waste my time debating with customer service and also waste time searching and also in writing these complaints. A call back was promised to resolve the issue but never happened.
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