006 - The 2 Bs of my life

Thats BSNL and Barclays. Two pains that I still carry from the last year. While one is recent, one is more than 2 months old.

My last post explained the BSNL issue. Today i waited the whole day for the technician, but in vain.

Barclays, though an international brand, I must say has got a f*** all process! Sorry for the word, but am damn pissed.

I had made a purchase worth Rs. 7000 Rs on Oct 4th 2008 using my credit card. As per the bill, the due date was Nov 1st 2008. According to the Bank’s instructions that I found on the bill, I had made a payment of Rs. 3000/- on the 28th of October through NEFT, i.e four working days before the due date. And a sum of Rs. 4000/- on the 7th of November. The payment of Rs 4000 that I made through Billdesk got through.
However after realizing that the payment has not got through, I cross checked with my savings account bank and received a confirmation from them that the amount has been transferred. They did share the NEFT Code too. I immediately called up Barclays customer care and registered a complaint, which was on Nov. 7th. Since then I have made numerous calls to the customer care and send emails requesting to sort the issue. It’s really sad to note that not even once did I receive a call updating the status of the same. Instead I keep receiving around 3-4 calls per day from the Barclays collection department for not making the payment and now they have added Service Tax and late Payment Charges on the card and the amount to be paid has become above Rs.4000/- In addition they keep threatening me about credit history.

When I realized that the Bank is least interested in resolving the issue, I decided to get into it myself. Upon checking I found that the NEFT code that Barclays claims on their Website is different from which my savings account listed while doing the transfer. I called the customer care and the agent gave me a totally new code! Now there are three NEFT codes! They are not sure if they have got an I or 1 on their code. I asked the agent to make a note of it and to initiate an investigation. But I realized today that the agent has not done anything on that!

This is just one instance! Their Collection Department is totally isolated and do not have access to disputes and case histories. If you ever send them an email, they will revert after a week and ask you to call customer care for details, and if you call the customer care for details, the agent will never know about such an email! They will keep sending you emails which reads "We refer to your e-mail regarding non-receipt of statement on your card account. Please be informed that your credit card statement are dispatched via courier and you will be receiving shortly.", Though you would have never send an email.

The saga still continues...

Will wait for a week and probabky then send an email to the consumer forum..

Got to hit the sack now, need to go to office early.

Masaa al-khair
Cheers,
VS