ICICI Bank Debit Card charges + Feedback

[asingh]

Ok....some questions regarding banking, primarily pertinent to ICICI bank.

1. A friend of mine swiped his ICICI standard salary account debit card at a petrol pump for fuel. Simple card. No petrol add-on or any such scheme. He was charged for the petrol and another charge of ~65.87. Roughly the price of per liter. When he called up, they told him that this is a standard charge for using at such establishments. Is this correct. Are they allowed to do this..? Does ICICI do this for all merchant outlet usage..?

2. Any EFT done outwards they surcharge RS. 5. (SBI too does this). How come some banks do not levy this, but some are. CITIBANK and HDFC do not.

3. ICICI has warned my friend, that if ever for 45 days a "salary load" does not happen he will be charged RS 15,000 penalty and 0.00 balance facility will be revoked. This has happened to some of my friends and they were not warned. Incidentally it happened on my HDFC account. For roughly 2.5 years it ran as a salary account + zero balance with no penalty. Suddenly they hit me with a RS. 800 fine. I closed out the account. Why do they not notify the customers of such debits. There is no provision to get back the money.*

4. I missed my first car EMI/ECS because the "ECS mandate" was not set on my source bank. Citibank. ICICI tried to pull the money 2x times, but Citibank revoked it. So there is a debit and immediate credit of the same. Now a friend was telling me that at the time of NOC they will charge me with a penalty for the miss. That too the first EMI. Whose fault is this..? ICICI did not tell me when I filled out the forms. In fact I called up ICICI and informed them about my ECS miss. Citibank said, this "might" affect my credit rating. How can I get this rectified. I called up ICICI, they are now blaming Citibank and me. I like to keep my financials absolutely clear, so was pissed off at them. I think Citibank is not at fault here, they were protecting my assets.

5. When ever one switches job, can we "force" the accounts department to not open our account with ICICI/HDFC if we do not want. Usually the tie-up and bank account start up is mandatory. I never want to bank with ICICI/HDFC.

*I think there a lot of guys walking around with multiple accounts here -- job changes. Would advice them to close out.

Thanks a lot friends..!

 

[m-jeri]

I tried telling that to my current company that no i dont want to bank with ICICI. just want to continue my AXIS. but no was the answer.

 

[asingh]

I tried telling that to my current company that no i dont want to bank with ICICI. just want to continue my AXIS. but no was the answer.

Are you facing similar charges on your debit swipe plastic..?

 

[m-jeri]

Well.. I only used it twice. that too in a restaurant. never had any charges for that.

I use my CC as plastic money. that day the card was not accepting. Debit is mainly for ATM use.

 

[archish]

Ok....some questions regarding banking, primarily pertinent to ICICI bank.

1. A friend of mine swiped his ICICI standard salary account debit card at a petrol pump for fuel. Simple card. No petrol add-on or any such scheme. He was charged for the petrol and another charge of ~65.87. Roughly the price of per liter. When he called up, they told him that this is a standard charge for using at such establishments. Is this correct. Are they allowed to do this..? Does ICICI do this for all merchant outlet usage..?

Its called petrol surcharge, its 2.5% i guess not sure of the exact percentage. 2.5% is levied on the total bill. Its a standard practice across all cards, unless they say no surcharge for some particular co branded card. Read the T&C

2. Any EFT done outwards they surcharge RS. 5. (SBI too does this). How come some banks do not levy this, but some are. CITIBANK and HDFC do not.

Yes EFT charges are 5 + 12% tax comes around 6rs. In HDFC they are charging Rs 5 upto certain amount. I have HDFC account as well, i guess if your account is salary account they wont charge in HDFC, ICICI they charge on salary account as well

3. ICICI has warned my friend, that if ever for 45 days a "salary load" does not happen he will be charged RS 15,000 penalty and 0.00 balance facility will be revoked. This has happened to some of my friends and they were not warned. Incidentally it happened on my HDFC account. For roughly 2.5 years it ran as a salary account + zero balance with no penalty. Suddenly they hit me with a RS. 800 fine. I closed out the account. Why do they not notify the customers of such debits. There is no provision to get back the money.*

For me this happened with HDFC, within 6 months of non salary credit it was changed to savings account without any notification. Its a standard practice i guess, the non notification thing is a big issue indeed, i guess they take everything for granted.

5. When ever one switches job, can we "force" the accounts department to not open our account with ICICI/HDFC if we do not want. Usually the tie-up and bank account start up is mandatory. I never want to bank with ICICI/HDFC.

It depends on the company you are working, there is no way you can force.

Finally the bank service depends on the the customer base, increasing customers leading to decreasing quality of service.

 

[smnrock]

I think most of the cards has surcharges only for fuel transactions and not for other transactions. Some bank/cards will reverse the surcharges for eg ICICI indian oil card and hsbc CC(i use)!

Another my personal suggestion dont ever opt for ECS, you never have control on the transactions like, some time you may not have required balance in the a/c and they will put penalty(some banks) for that. Suppose if you want to change your ECS terms to reflect different bank(due to job change or some thing like that), again you've to follow manual process

Best is to do automatic transfer setup from your a/c every month on a particular date, like set up on NEFT for next one year.. though it will cost you 5 rs extra, but u will have control on it.

 

[pepps3484]

For me this happened with HDFC, within 6 months of non salary credit it was changed to savings account without any notification. Its a standard practice i guess, the non notification thing is a big issue indeed, i guess they take everything for granted.

This must be written in T&C's when we are opening a new salary account...but we mostly don't care to read

 

[setuniket]

Ok....some questions regarding banking, primarily pertinent to ICICI bank.

1. A friend of mine swiped his ICICI standard salary account debit card at a petrol pump for fuel. Simple card. No petrol add-on or any such scheme. He was charged for the petrol and another charge of ~65.87. Roughly the price of per liter. When he called up, they told him that this is a standard charge for using at such establishments. Is this correct. Are they allowed to do this..? Does ICICI do this for all merchant outlet usage..?

Yes, with petrol debit/credit card transactions there is a charge(outdated idea IMO) which is charged over and above the fuel amount which is provided in the list of charges in the kit along with the debit/credit card. So unless the card explicitly provides for surcharge waiver expect additional charges.

2. Any EFT done outwards they surcharge RS. 5. (SBI too does this). How come some banks do not levy this, but some are. CITIBANK and HDFC do not.

AFAIK know its completely upon the bank to decide charges on the bank service they provide unless the RBI expressly prohibits such charge. Of course if you think the charge is excessive or unwanted you can escalate to RBI(easy procedure)

3. ICICI has warned my friend, that if ever for 45 days a "salary load" does not happen he will be charged RS 15,000 penalty and 0.00 balance facility will be revoked. This has happened to some of my friends and they were not warned. Incidentally it happened on my HDFC account. For roughly 2.5 years it ran as a salary account + zero balance with no penalty. Suddenly they hit me with a RS. 800 fine. I closed out the account. Why do they not notify the customers of such debits. There is no provision to get back the money.*

That penalty amount seems to just too much, what the bank can charge you is the charges for non-maintenance of QAB. It seems the person calling just wanted to scare off your friend. See what happens is when you open a salary account the T&C provides you with such a condition, however no one bothers to read such long list of conditions and generally ppl are unaware of any such condition. As the person has accepted and signed the form means he is aware of the condition there-in still the bank informs the customer about the applicability of the regular savings conditions(as and when the change happens). however it is not mandatory for banks to inform you as you have already accepted the condition in the form.

4. I missed my first car EMI/ECS because the "ECS mandate" was not set on my source bank. Citibank. ICICI tried to pull the money 2x times, but Citibank revoked it. So there is a debit and immediate credit of the same. Now a friend was telling me that at the time of NOC they will charge me with a penalty for the miss. That too the first EMI. Whose fault is this..? ICICI did not tell me when I filled out the forms. In fact I called up ICICI and informed them about my ECS miss. Citibank said, this "might" affect my credit rating. How can I get this rectified. I called up ICICI, they are now blaming Citibank and me. I like to keep my financials absolutely clear, so was pissed off at them. I think Citibank is not at fault here, they were protecting my assets.

Completely ICICI's fault, write a complaint mentioning complete details about the mandated forms not being filled. You are not supposed to know every form to be filled for ECS. So better shoot off a mail ask not to charge you with penalty and also that your CIBIL credit history should not be effected due to mistake of theirs. The website has details to escalate if the bank doesnt respond satisfactorily(which eventually can be escalated to RBI at a later stage). You are completely safe here.

5. When ever one switches job, can we "force" the accounts department to not open our account with ICICI/HDFC if we do not want. Usually the tie-up and bank account start up is mandatory. I never want to bank with ICICI/HDFC.

Unfortunately no, your company if maintains salary accounts with a particular bank they well not allow you to open salary a/c in other bank. Neither you can dictate their choice nor you can choose you company on the basis of the bank they are associated with.
However let me give you a small tip on how to deal with problems in salary account(in any pvt bank). Talk to the people in your company who handle people from the bank, ideally someone from the HR department, if you have any issues with the bank these people have better powers and experience to handle issues and the bank officials associated with such deptt will assist you in handling issues with the bank. After all company is their customer, such escalation through your company goes long way in providing quality service to you.

 

[Ethan_Hunt]

3. ICICI has warned my friend, that if ever for 45 days a "salary load" does not happen he will be charged RS 15,000 penalty and 0.00 balance facility will be revoked. This has happened to some of my friends and they were not warned. Incidentally it happened on my HDFC account. For roughly 2.5 years it ran as a salary account + zero balance with no penalty. Suddenly they hit me with a RS. 800 fine. I closed out the account. Why do they not notify the customers of such debits. There is no provision to get back the money.*

WTF? Even I have a Citibank account, which has been lying dormant for almost a year now. I was notified by mail that it had been converted from Savings to Suvidha account and that I should maintain a minimum sum of Rs. 25,000/- in that account to not incur the account maintenance charges. I get a message each time saying my account balance has reached (negative) Rs. 250/- Should I close the account?

I have had an ICICI account for almost 4 years now and there hasn't been a Salary deposit or any deposit, in general, for 2 years now, but they never did anything. This is weird.

 

[MrCool]

ICICI has warned my friend, that if ever for 45 days a "salary load" does not happen he will be charged RS 15,000 penalty and 0.00 balance facility will be revoked. This has happened to some of my friends and they were not warned. Incidentally it happened on my HDFC account. For roughly 2.5 years it ran as a salary account + zero balance with no penalty. Suddenly they hit me with a RS. 800 fine. I closed out the account. Why do they not notify the customers of such debits. There is no provision to get back the money.*

I have never heard of a Rs15000/- penalty. It is true that after 6 months without any salary deposits the account will be changed to a Savings account with Minimum Average Quarterly Balance of Rs5000. This has happened to me once, when i quit my first job and dint care to close the ICICI salary accnt(I never closed it they deactivated it after a year or so with no transactions). They did sent me a notice to my home abt the change to savings accnt though it reached me at a later point of time only. I never had any issues of losing cash as there was no balance kept in the account( I knew such things are going to happen though never had an exact picture ).

 

[setuniket]

WTF? Even I have a Citibank account, which has been lying dormant for almost a year now. I was notified by mail that it had been converted from Savings to Suvidha account and that I should maintain a minimum sum of Rs. 25,000/- in that account to not incur the account maintenance charges. I get a message each time saying my account balance has reached (negative) Rs. 250/- Should I close the account?

I have had an ICICI account for almost 4 years now and there hasn't been a Salary deposit or any deposit, in general, for 2 years now, but they never did anything. This is weird.

You will have to pay the negative bal amount to close the Citibank a/c.

If ICICI bank hasnt done anything, dont wait for them to do something. Instead take lil time out and close the account.

 

[asingh]

Wow...such responses and so fast. Thanks a lot.

Lessons learnt:

1. Do not swipe plastic at petrol pumps. If in dire emergency get 2-3 liters and top up later. OR, get a petrol card.

2. EFT is chargeable at banks discretion.

3. Read Terms and conditions.

4. TE Rocks.

@Mr. Cool:

I saw my friends statement. He had an empty ICICI account. No salary input. One day his mom transferred him 20K and moved it to this same account. 15K was subtracted for minimal maintenance charge or some crap like that.

@Ethan:

Take the effort and close out the account. Why carry financial over head.

 

[Onemufc]

Okay . Credit Cards are a tricky cards but unless they tell you that there is no Petrol surcharge never fill petrol from them unless it is a emergency .
Credit cards are good for shooping only. That is it . Buying clothes , Gadgets , EMI options is the only use I have of it . Another point : Always have credit card of that bank in which you have a account , otherwise they have all sorts of problems.

Also , Close your unused Accounts .

 

[MrCool]

@asingh hmm... Thats pretty sad 15k for nothing but keeping a **** accnt wid them for few more days...

This can happen to anyone i guess..It is true that we cant do anything regarding those losses, they will have every darn thing covered up in the T&C...The lesson is once ur done wid a salary account extract every drop of juice outta it, forget it or if you can spare some time close it for gods sake,, never ever put money back into it...

These guys will offer every possible thing in the whole world to convince our employers to keep the salary accnts wid them but they dont care a darn thing about our individual accounts. There are some recent cases where ICICI repeatedly charges Rs800 monthly from salary accounts for not keeping a minimum balance, It seems those salary accounts are not being interpreted properly and they dont care to fix it even after complaining often...When you go back to a bank with some queries what u get in response is shear disappointment( i know there are exceptions but they are rare)...

 

[asingh]

^^

How can they hit a penalty on a salary account..? Were the accounts getting incoming every month..? You sure..?

 

[MrCool]

Yes they are salary accounts and were receiving salary deposits every month, but what cudve happened is the guys that take care of these new accounts must've wrongly put them as savings accounts or purposefully did that for maybe 'meeting targets' and the money is getting deducted monthly. But the guys don't lose their money for ever, they get it back after some time, but this repeats again and they are put through this unnecessary hassles for the bank's negligence/convenience...Whatever it is this has happened with new salary accounts of ICICI with my previous employer as well as current employer, so it cant be a mistake, it must be deliberate.

 

[medpal]

1. Fuel transaction are an overhead for both the dealers and banks as margins suffer, so they invented this way of charging customers, different banks different policies, some charge straight away, some charge for specific amounts, some do not charge at all.

my personal advise, dont use your card for fuel transactions, instead stop at an atm, withdraw specific amount and use it.

2. HDFC also does charge 5/- as outbound NEFT charges, it was introduced by RBI, some banks are charging it, if you are a regular customer and maintaining account well they dont charge you, I am not charged anything by HDFC.

3. 15000/- penalty is a bit too much, but yes under some circumstances they can charge prohibitive sums, better you read terms carefully. Now a days policy changes are not being physically mailed to every customers, some emails, some smses and announcement at the branch is what they do. So keep an eye for every announcement in emails.

4. you must press for revoke of any negetive rating on CIBIL, and also revoking any penalty, they will do it, if you follow them strictly and be strong and authoratative, also ask them to show the photocopies of all the forms you signed so that you can find they have not done anything wrong with it. If you persist with and reach upto the highest channel it will be revoked and sometimes they also issue a letter mentioning the same about procedural lapse so that it does no reflect on your credit history, dont let them go off easily.

5. you have to bank with the tieup your employer has, you cant do anything there, as your employer is taking benefit of multiple schemes for better facilities, so they have to give back customers. You must close your accounts when you switch employer and if you banker is new.
Some personal advise :
Make a habit of filling form your selves.
Strike off details not needed, not necessary, not interested and not applicable (It can be misused by ticking yes or no and you are trapped, ie free accident insurance, health insurance unnecessary cards ets.)

Every bank now forces or gives you the debit card, for which they charge around 100 rupees as annual fees, but if you are firm and if you fill up your form yourselves, you can force them to give you free ATM card, there by saving a small but significant amount over a long term. As now a dasy corporate employees get CC very easily you dont need debit cards barring one.

If you are charged something inadvertently, you can always talk to bank manager, higher authorities and get it revoked easily, nice language initially definitely helps.

 

[setuniket]

Yes they are salary accounts and were receiving salary deposits every month, but what cudve happened is the guys that take care of these new accounts must've wrongly put them as savings accounts or purposefully did that for maybe 'meeting targets' and the money is getting deducted monthly. But the guys don't lose their money for ever, they get it back after some time, but this repeats again and they are put through this unnecessary hassles for the bank's negligence/convenience...Whatever it is this has happened with new salary accounts of ICICI with my previous employer as well as current employer, so it cant be a mistake, it must be deliberate.

Write a mail warning the bank to stop charging you and then reversing again and do not hesitate to threaten them that you will immediately escalate to RBI's Banking Ombudsman next time any such charge is deducted. Everything is online in this case.(rbi.gov.in). so its neither inconvenient for people who are affected.

Its high time customers start fighting back with complaints to RBI, not let these jokers get away with such acts. Make the bank responsible for the acts of their employees.