I cancelled the HSBC Credit card, and sent the card duly cut into two halves, thus disabling its further use. HSBC's customer service acknowledged this cancellation as having received on 6th August. They wrote that I should reconsider cancellation. I was physically not in a position to use the card as it had been irrevocable made unusable.
The Bank has now written to me by 3rd Feb’2011 that the Credit Card is yet active as per their records. That I have not used the card since June/ July is obvious from the Bill Statements.
The Bank made two payments to Skype, one in September and another in November overlooking the fact that the credit card had been cancelled and acknowledged by the bank WEF 6th August. These payments were “Online Card Not Present Transactions” by the bank without any authentication or authorization by me; while I am prepared to make the payments of the Auto recharge Bills of Skype, I cannot be charged late payment fees of Rs. 1000/ on a payment dues of Rs 644/-. Made to Skype by the Bank. Further No fresh membership fee for the current year is payable by me, as the Credit Card had been cancelled by me by August itself. I cannot be penalized for Banks bureaucratic delays and inefficiencies.
The case in gist is as follows:
(a) I cancelled the Credit Card and sent surrendered the Credit Card by sending back to the bank the Card cut into two halves, disabling its physical use.
(b) HSBC acknowledged to have received the cancellation of the Card by their letter dated 14th August.
(c) Subsequent to Cancellation the bank made an Auto Recharge payment to Skype of about Rs 633/- (10 Euros) in the month of September. This “Online Card Not Present Transaction” has been made by the bank after the my cancellation of the card without calling for any Authentication /Validation from me.
(d) There was a credit balance of Rs 326/ as per their Statement with due date for payment on 4th October.
(e) In the meanwhile I sent a Cheque for Rs 354 / Drawn on HDFC Bank by July / August for settlement of all dues.
(f) The Bank adjusted the above cheque against the credit balance stated under (d) above and showed a net payable amount as Rs 326, in their bill due for payment in Nov’ 2010 on account their payment to Skype made in September. They had not accounted for my Cheque referred under (e) above)
(g) The Bank adjusted the above referred Cheque payment in their bill due for payment in Dec’ 2010 and showed a net balance payable amount Rs 00.90.
(h) I was hoping that I have closed the HSBC credit Card account and my card has been cancelled irrevocably.
(i) Bank had not sent any further bill due for payment in January. But they sent bill due for payment in 1st February showing an opening balance payable as Rs 1073/-.On verification of the account of Skype, I found that the Bank had made another payment to Skype, an auto recharge payment – an Online Card Not Present Transaction, of Rs 644/-(Equivalent to 10 Euros). The Skype Payments made by the Bank were Online Card Not Present Transactions without my involvement.
(j) In the above bill the bank for payment in 1st February added fresh membership fee of Rs 700 for the current year. They also added further late fee charges to the outstanding and raised my payment dues to Rs 2350.91/-
(k) When I have represented the matter to the Bank, the Bank by their letter dated 3rd Feb’ has made a startling statement that the Card is still active. This is ridiculous, as I a do not have any card with me now. The Bills bear out that I have not used the card since June/ July and no payment is charged to the card from my end. The “Online Card Not Present Transactions” for payment to Skype were made by the bank on its own volition, and I can not be liable for bank’s defaults.
(l) I am prepared to accept the Skype Payments made by the bank even though they are made after cancellation of the credit card and without any authentication /Validation by me.By this I am liable to pay the Skype Charges only of around Rs.644/ .
(m) I cannot be made to pay late payment charges of about Rs 1000 / on a Skype payment of Rs 644/.Further I am not liable to pay any fresh membership fee for the card for the current year as the card itself has been cancelled by August.
R.Kalaignanam
ATTACHMENT:(1)- My Letter Dated 12th Feb to HSBC
Page 1 of 4
To
The Manager-Customer service, February 14
The HSBC Limited,
Customer Connect, 96, Radhakrishnan Salai,
Mylapore, Chennai-600 004
Email: [email protected]
From
R.Kalaignanam,
1903, Sapphire-B2, *
Regency Towers,
Kavesar,
GB Road,
Thane West-400 607
Tel:9167142427
E Mail: [email protected]
Sub: Your Bill Dated Nil for Period 11th Dec to 10th January
Reference:
a) HSBC A/c No: 54220710 0144 9610
b) Your Email response Dated:3rd February to my letter dated 1st Feb’2011
Dear Sirs,
1.0 It appears that you have chosen to reply to my referred letter in a casual manner without adequate application of mind to understand the case. I would attempt once again to explain my position lucid enough to enable your appreciation of the case and the related facts.
2.0 YOUR CONTENTION THAT THE CREDIT CARD IS STILL ACTIVE IS ERRONEOUS
2.1 You have contended in your above referred Email Response that the Credit Card in question is still active as per your records. This contention is erroneous and unjustified for the following reasons:
(a) Please refer your own letter dated 11th August referring to our letter as received on 6th August. you have stated: Quote
We request you to reconsider the cancellation of the credit card and continue usage of the Credit card’ etc. Unquote
(b) Our decision of cancellation of the card has been conveyed to you by returning the card in question cut in the middle, back to you along with our letter intimating you of our cancellation of the card. The mutilated credit card disabling its further use has been sent back to you as per the advice of your local CS department. Since we have surrendered the credit card duly mutilated, disabling its further use, our cancellation is rendered irrevocable.
(c) You have acknowledged by your letter dated 11th August that you have received my above (Under (b)), referred letter surrendering the mutilated Credit Card and informing you of the cancellation of the Card. You have clearly acknowledged in your letter on our intimation of the cancellation of the credit card
(d) You are aware that I was not in a position to use the card any further as I have sent back the credit card duly cut in the middle disabling its further use. Thus the cancellation of the card was final as the Credit card was irrevocably rendered unusable and surrendered to you with my cancellation letter. Accordingly your claim that the card is still active is absurd. It is a poor reflection of your processes.
(e) If your request for reconsidering cancellation vide your above letter had to be effective, a new card should have been sent to enable our further use of the card. In the absence of any action enabling our further use of the card, the cancellation of the card as intimated by us was final and irrevocable. Hence your contention that the Credit is still active, not taking cognizance of my cancellation of the card is void and repugnant to law.
(f) Our physical impossibility of using the card any further beyond the date of my cancellation of the Credit Card is not merely hypothetical. That no transaction has been made by me using the card, after our cancellation of the card is self evident from your bills. (The Auto recharge payments made to Skype are directly made by the bank without my involvement)
(g) You have charged to the Card two Auto-recharge Skype payments, one in September and another one in November after as shown in the bill made from your end without my involvement both made after my cancellation of the Card. These payments were online Card Not present Transactions from your end; your erroneous charging to the card would not in any way affect the cancellation of the Credit Card WEF 6th august.
(h) Had you followed the Reserve Bank Mandate Notification dated February 18, all Banks are mandated to provide an additional authentication/Validation based on information not visible on the card for all “online Card Not present Transactions”, I would have been spared of this agony I am subjected now to, on account of your ineptitude.
3.0 SKYPE PAYMENTS MADE BY YOU AFTER CANCELLATION OF THE CREDIT CARD HONOURED BY ME
(a) You have made some vague absurd statement about charge-Slip, or acknowledgement by bank etc without understanding the payment process followed by you in respect of Skype. There is no charge-slip involved. I have also not questioned the veracity of your payments to Skype. What all I have stated is that you have made the payment to Skype for auto-recharge against the Credit Card which itself had been cancelled by me much earlier and that you are not entitled to charge to the cancelled card on your own volition without my involvement.
(b) Notwithstanding these facts I have already stated in my last letter dated 1St February that I agree to pay the Skype bills as the payments made are genuine notwithstanding the error committed by the bank of paying against a credit card which had already been cancelled by me.
(c) When Skype raised the routine “Auto recharge” invoice, HSBC should have advised Skype that the Credit card against which the payment was claimed had been cancelled and hence you were not in apposition to make the auto recharge payment. If you had followed the RBI mandate of additional Authentication /Validation on this Card-not –present transaction, you could have avoided the errors committed by you.
(d) Please understand that I do not have any dispute with Skype. Please make efforts to understand how the Skype payments were being made from your end. Accordingly. Your advice how I must dispute the transaction as per your established procedure is childish I reject them with due contempt as absurd and inapplicable.
4.0 OUR ATTEMPT TO CLOSE THE ACCOUNT THWARTED BY BANK
(a) Not withstanding that you made the payment of Auto-recharge in the month of September against my Credit card which had been cancelled in the month of August itself, I still accepted the payment made to Skype by you in September.
(b) Please refer your bill dated Sep’2010 (Bill Period 11th August to 10th Sep’2010 showed a balance of Rupees 306.21 to my credit. Taking this credit to my account, the cheque payment of Rs 354 /- made by me drawn on HDFC Bank RefNo: 37404 dated 8th July as a full and final settlement would have squared up the payment of around Rs 640 /- made to Skype in the month of September by you.
(c) Please refer your bill dated Sep’2010 (Bill Period 11th August to 10th Sep’2010 showed a balance of Rupees 306.21 to our Credit. In your bill stating payment due date as 1st Nov’ (For the billing period 11th Sep 2010 to 11 Oct) you showed a payment of Rs 633.11 to WWW.Skype.Com. This payment to Skype is not authorized by me, as it has been made by you in September after the cancellation of the credit card. You adjusted the credit balance of Rs 306.21 lying with you and showed the balance amount payable by me as 326.00.
(d) Further by you bill with payment due on 2nd December (For Bill period 11th October to 10th November) you adjusted the above (a) referred cheque payment of Rs 354/-, you showed a balance amount of Rs 00.00 as payable. The amount and cheque number shown in your statement are erroneous and they should be corrected as stated by me above.
(e) I believed that I had closed the account for good as I had settled all the payments and the card had been irrevocable cancelled
(f) To my chagrin, you made a further payment of Rs 633 or about (Equivalent to Euros 10.00 as I could ascertain from Skype’s Account Statement), unauthorisedly as it has been made after the cancellation of the Credit Card. Though I have not received the bill for the Month of December, I presume the credit balance you are showing in the Bill dated January (For Period 11th Dec to 10th Jan) shows a opening balance of Rs 1073/ is on account of the payment made to Skype.
(g) As I have stated before, I shall settle this bill paid to Skype though you have made the payment on your own volition after the cancellation of the Credit Card as it is a genuine payment though you were not authorized to incur this charge to my Credit Card which had already been cancelled WEF 6th August as per your own admission.
(h) However I am not agreeable to pay any late payment fees on account of your failure to take my cancellation of the card in time. You cannot expect me to pay for all your inefficiencies.
6.0 YOUR BILLS ARE NOT SENT REGULARLY
(a) You have failed to respond to my request to send the bill statement for the month of December as requested by me vide my letter dated 1st Februray 2011.
(b) You had failed to send your bills earlier also. On our writing to you, you had sent the bills up to bills Bill payable on 1st Dec. I need the next bill where you have included the Skype payment of 10 Euros made by you and the details of additional charges you have added to make the opening Balance in the next bill (as Payable by Feb) as Rs 1073.00 as shown.
5.0 THE PAYMENT MADE TO SKYPE ALONE IS PAYABLE BY ME
(a) The only charge I agreeable to me is the Skype Payment made by you i.e. Rs 640/- (Approximately or about Monday, February 07), equivalent to 10 Euros.
(b) You have charged an additional membership fee of Rs 700 together with further late fee charges etc making the total outstanding to Rs2350.91You are the only Bank who would charge a membership fee for a card which is cancelled by August itself.
(c) You have to correct the outstanding as the amount equivalent to 10 Euros, agreed to be paid by me. I would settle this account on receipt of your corrected statement.
6.0 CONCLUSION
(a) I trust the Bank would see the rationale in my request and take remedial measures as needed.
(b) You must check the records, why a customer since 2000 who had never defaulted in payments should dispute your action and cancel the card.
(c) If the bank chooses to be adamant in its unjustified stand, I would have no other option than to invoke the consumer Options available to me including taking it the Consumer Forum, and record my the experiences in “Google Alert “
The choice of touching yet abysmal depths of Customer service or otherwise is resting with the Bank. I await your communication.
Yours Faithfully,
R.Kalaignanam
CC HSBC’s Collection Department: Tel :91 40 39807400
Attachment (2):HSBC Reponse Dated 3rd Feb
Your Credit Card: 5422 XXXX XXXX 9610 (KMM9355231V5106L0KM)
From:
HSBC INDIA NET
View Contact
To: kalaignanam r.
Dear Mr. Kalaignanam,
Your Credit Card: 5422 XXXX XXXX 9610
Reference Number: 03022011650
We refer to your email of 01 February received through
[email protected] regarding concerns on your Hongkong and Shanghai Banking
Corporation Limited (HSBC) Credit Card account.
We would like to inform you that your card account is still active as
per our records.
We take this opportunity to inform you that there is an outstanding of
INR 2792.11 towards your card account.
With reference to your query, annual fee is a part of the regular tariff
structure on your HSBC credit card. Hence, it is charged to your card
account. Reversal of annual fee is offered if such a promotional scheme
is applicable. We regret as we are unable to reverse the same.
We request you to make the payment towards your entire outstanding on or
before the payment due date to avoid further incremental charges being
levied to your card account.
We confirm from our records that the transaction of INR 1282.82 with the
merchant WWW.SKYPE.COM INTERNET LUX was debited to your Credit Card
account on 18 November.
As per the normal process followed by banks, if the merchant does not
submit the charge slip or acknowledgement to the bank within 30 days
from the date of transaction, the transaction will automatically drop
from the system.
If the transaction is billed to your credit card account, we request you
to send us a signed credit card dispute form mentioning the transaction.
The dispute form can be downloaded from the below link:
http://www.hsbc.co.in/1/PA_1_083Q9FFKG80E20RA9Q00000000/content/website/
pdf/personal/cc_customer_dispute.pdf
The dispute forms can be sent to us using any of the options below:
? Email a scanned copy of the completed form to [email protected]
mentioning your reference number 03022011650.
Fax to 044-67444728
? Send to the addressed mentioned below:
HSBC Credit Card Division
Dispute Desk
PO BOX 5080
Chennai 600 028
On receipt of your form, a dispute will be initiated with the member
bank the resolution will take 30 - 45 days.
We regret our inability to address your query regarding the change of
your mailing address since you have chosen a communication channel that
is unsecured in nature.
Hence, we request you to contact our Phone Banking Services for further
assistance in this regard.
A complete list of our Phone Banking numbers is also available at
http://www.hsbc.co.in/in/personal/phone.htm
For an online demo on Internet Banking and more information on our wide
range of products and services please visit our web-site www.hsbc.co.in
Yours sincerely,
Anirban Maity
Customer Service Executive
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
"Now you can be protected against loss of your wallet and travel
documents with the Card Protection Plan (CPP). To know more, please SMS
''CARD? to 575750. Conditions apply."
ATTACHMENT (3): HSBC Response Dated 14th Feb'2011 to my letter dated 12th Feb '2011
Your Credit Card 5422 xxxx xxxx 9610 (KMM9422141V56848L0KM)
From:
HSBC INDIA NET
View Contact
To: kalaignanam r.
Dear Mr. Kalaignanam,
Your Credit Card 5422 xxxx xxxx 9610
Reference Number 14022011305
We refer to your email of 12 February received through
[email protected] regarding concerns on your Hongkong and Shanghai Banking
Corporation Limited (HSBC) Credit Card account.
Our records reflect that your card is active as on date and hence the
annual fee has been charged to your card account.
We confirm from our records that the transaction of INR 607.45 with the
merchant WWW.SKYPE.COM INTERNET LUX was debited to your Credit Card
account on 12 November.
As per the normal process followed by banks, if the merchant does not
submit the charge slip or acknowledgement to the bank within 30 days
from the date of transaction, the transaction will automatically drop
from the system.
If the transaction is billed to your credit card account, we request you
to send us a signed credit card dispute form mentioning the transaction.
The dispute form can be downloaded from the below link:
http://www.hsbc.co.in/1/PA_1_083Q9FFKG80E20RA9Q00000000/content/website/
pdf/personal/cc_customer_dispute.pdf
The dispute forms can be sent to us using any of the options below:
•Email a scanned copy of the completed form to [email protected]
mentioning your reference number 14022011305.
Fax to 044-67444728
•Send to the addressed mentioned below:
HSBC Credit Card Division
Dispute Desk
PO BOX 5080
Chennai 600 028
On receipt of your form, a dispute will be initiated with the member
bank the resolution will take 30 - 45 days.
We request you to make the payment in order to avoid any incremental
charges being levied to your card account.
We regret to note that you wish to discontinue your relationship with
HSBC and cancel your credit card.
At HSBC we give utmost importance to customer service and try to ensure
that the facilities we offer suit your requirements.
Further, we regret to process your request for the cancellation of
credit card as it an unsecured mode of communication.
However, any of the following ways may be opted to cancel the card:
(i) We request you to send us a secured message by logging into your
Internet Banking ID to cancel the card.
(ii) Call the Phone Banking service to cancel the card.
A complete list of our Phone Banking numbers is available at
http://www.hsbc.co.in/in/personal/phone.htm
(iii) A letter can be sent to the following address for the cancellation
of the card:
The Manager
Customer Connect
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
No. 96, Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai
Mylapore
Chennai 600004
Assuring you of our best services always.
For an online demo on Internet Banking and more information on our wide
range of products and services please visit our web-site www.hsbc.co.in
Yours sincerely,
Mili Misra
Customer Service Executive
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
"Now you can be protected against loss of your wallet and travel
documents with the Card Protection Plan (CPP). To know more, please SMS
''CARD” to 575750. Conditions apply."
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