A week back i used my CITI bank debit card at a fuel station to pay. The transaction was declined. I was sure that the account has required balance in it and so i requested the attendant to try one more time. But the transaction was declined again. I paid the bill using HDFC card and left. Soon after a travelling a kilometer, i received a transaction alert on my mobile from citi bank that Rs.400 was debited from my savings account at the fuel station.
I rushed back to the fuel station and explained them abt the msg. The head of the attendants stood out and say "Sir! this is a general happening they see day to day and its absolutely nothing to worry. Once you we settle the account of the swipe machine by EOD i.e. 12AM for the day, the amounts will be reverted back to the respective account. We see these things daily. If you dont get money by tomorrow morning, we will any how be here and we will pay you back by cash". Upon my insistance, he generated a receipt of the successful transactions till then in that swipe machine and that didnt reflect my CITI card transaction but listed my HDFC card successful transaction. I was ok. But i immediately called the CITI customer care and launched a request for the reversal. The customer care person took the request and asked me to call him back after 3 working days so that they can investigate into this and see if this transaction did really happen or not and whats the status etc.
After 3 days, i called the customer care about the status of the request. It took some good 3 minutes for me to get to talk the customer care after all the verification clutter. Soon after an person attended, the call was dropped into a pool and i have to do the entire process again. The person at the other end informed me that the request was done and the amount will be deposited to my account the next day. I thought its cool and done. But...
"But sir, you have a fill up a CDF and send it to a chennai address. "
"What is it?"
"CDF - Customer declartion form"
"Is this mandatory to fill up the physical form? Cant i do it online?"
"No sir, it should be a physical form with your signature"
"Ok"
"Where can i get it from?"
"our website - downloads area <blah blah blah>"
"Huhh hmmm ok"
"And also, please enclose the account statement marking the dispute transaction and any other transactional receipt pertaning to the dispute."
"You mean, i have to travel 40 kms to-n-fro to get the account statement? Can i download it from net banking and will that work?"
"<Smiling> Yes sir, download and printout will work"
"Thank god! But why is this process required when the transaction failure and amount debit was proved?"
"Sir! The amount will be credited back based on the primary investigation but citi bank requires a formal request(that is the customer declartion form to be downloaded from website) and then the dispute will be closed if found legal. Otherwise the amount will be debited back if proved fraudelent or etc."
"Ok! But what if some customer doesn't have access to internet or kind of naive? How can he get the forms etc.?"
"Then the person has to visit the bank and get the required forms from the bank"
"Thats fabulous process you have inline. Absolutely fantastic practical way to make the customer suffer."
"<Smile> Sorry sir, thats the process define. Anything else with which i can help you?"
"Thank you."
Now, see, i spent Rs.10 for calls to talk to customer care, Rs.12 for 6 printouts of CDF form and my account statement, Rs.55 for courier to chennai from hyderabad. Thats a total of Rs.77 to recover MY Rs.400 back and lot of valuable time.
What if the dispute amount is Rs.200. Then i.e. i spend around 40% of my money to get MY money back. How foolish does it look?
What a rubbish and foolish process you have in place CITI bank? This is absolutely not a customer centric process. A bank which advertises quoting "200 years of legacy in banking" is not expected to have such a rubbish process in place for such a very probable and most frequent disputes.
Either it be banks or insurance firms or any service providers has to seriously look into their business processes for practicality.
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