To their discredit

Pushpa Girimaji

During a visit to a mall, an agent of a credit card company offered me a credit card free of charge. I accepted it and filled the form, but when the card arrived, I noticed that they were charging me an annual fee. So I told them that I did not want the card, cut it into four pieces and mailed it to them. Yet, the bank is insisting on my paying the annual charge and is sending me a bill every month, adding interest on the original amount. How do I deal with this?

This is not the first time that a bank has raised such an illegal claim and harassed a consumer for no fault of his. In many cases, the banks have even sent the name of the consumer to the Credit Information Bureau (CIBIL), thereby tarnishing the consumer’s credit record. So please do take it up with the bank immediately.

As per the Reserve Bank of India’s directive to the banks on their credit card operations, every credit card company has to have grievance redress machinery and the name and contact details of the designated grievance redress officer should be given on the credit card bill. The banking regulator also says that the officer should resolve the complaint quickly. If the consumer fails to get a satisfactory response from the officer within 30 days of lodging a complaint, he or she can approach the Banking Ombudsman for redressal of the grievance. ‘The bank shall be liable to compensate the complainant for the loss of his time, expenses, financial loss as well as for the harassment and mental anguish suffered by him for the fault of the bank and where the grievance has not been redressed in time’, the regulator says.

So follow this procedure and demand that the bank reverse the illegal charges and also pay you compensation. You can also approach the consumer court, but the process before the Ombudsman would be much quicker and simpler.

Have consumer courts resolved such cases? Can you quote an order?

Consumer courts have given relief in many such cases. In SBI Cards and Payment Services Vs Dwijendra Naryana Deb (, RP No 3514 of 2013, decided on May 28, 2015) for example, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission awarded a compensation of Rs 4 lakh to a consumer, who was similarly harassed by the bank. In this case, the complainant Dwijendra Narayan Deb, a resident of Kolkata, had applied to SBI Cards and Payment Services for a credit card. However, what was issued was different from what he had sought, so, like you, he cut the card into four pieces and along with a covering letter, sent it to the post bag number given by the bank and followed it up with a registered post to the bank informing them of it .

To his shock, however, he received a bill the very next month, for an ATM withdrawal of Rs 6000! This was in July 2006 and the bank never listened to his repeated complaints and kept on sending him bills which got bigger and bigger. When he refused to pay, the bank harassed him through recovery agents, forcing him to lodge a complaint with the police and eventually, seek the help of the consumer court for justice.

While upholding the award of Rs 4 lakh as compensation and costs of Rs 10,000 ordered by the West Bengal State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, the apex consumer court pointed out that the entire dispute revolved around the withdrawal of Rs 6,000 from the ATM using the card. Yet, the bank had not produced any evidence to support this claim. And it’s explanation that “it would be very difficult and time consuming to bring forth such evidence of transactions” was illogical and unacceptable, the Commission said.

It also took exception to the main argument of the bank that the consumer had not produced any evidence to prove that he had actually delivered the card to the post bag. By the bank’s own admission, only ordinary post was delivered to post bags. So how can a consumer produce any evidence of having sent it when the bank required the card to be mailed to a post bag? The Commission asked.