My woes with Tata Motors Finance.......Will it ever end??

[windsurfer]

I had purchased Palio 1.6 Sport in Oct'06. I had made a down payment of 2L towards the vechile and rest (2.5L) was financed by TMFL. The loan tenure was for a period 3 yrs. Due to the urgency of the loan processing, I gave them HSBC bank cheques to start processing the loan.

The problem started with the first payment itself. I had made very clear that I want all the cheques to presented at the beginning of the month as I get my salary at the end of month. The person who had come to my office to collect cheques had promised me about this (ofcourse verbally and I am really cursing myself for just taking his words). The person also asked me not put any dates on the cheques which I resisted saying that you could present it anytime instead of start of the month. Again, the person confirmed me that it will not be the case. Well, I believed him.

Well, to cut the long story short, the first cheque bounced as I was expecting it to be presented by Dec beginning. However, it was presented in Nov last week. This was the first cheque bounce of my life and I felt very bad. I did my best to call the TMFL rep who had collected the cheques to inform him about the bounce, but strangley I could not get to him. I got in touch with other officials and they said this is correct and I should have known. If I had known how would I even allow the cheque to bounce. I told them politely that what was promised to me. But they refused to accept this and said that cheques would be presented in the month end. After many follow-up calls, I decided that these guys would not honour their commitment. And all this while, I was the one who was calling them about this and surprisingly, nobody called about this till a month later.

I had enough of this and requested that I would like to give new cheques (CitiBank). After some delays, this was finally accepted and a person from TMFL came to my office to collect cheques. I gave him 33 cheques (which also included the defaulted payment). He also promised me that old cheques would be returned soon. Now, TMFL started presenting HSBC and Citibank cheques parallely . Ofcourse HSBC cheques kept bouncing. 3 Citibank cheques were presented and all were cleared. And strangely, no more Citibank cheques were presented and TMFL continued presenting HSBC cheques.

About 3 weeks back, I had been to TMFL Hyderabad and met Mr. Hemant Kumar. I explained him the story and he acknowledged that the problem was with them. He promised me look into this ASAP and arrange for return of HSBC cheques. Again nothing happened and another HSBC cheque was presented after I spoke to him. Also, I have received 2 notices for failure of payment.

I have placed a request with HSBC for stopping payment of further cheques with immediate effect. This was my last option after 6 cheque bounces. I had waited for 6 months for return of my old cheques. Further, HSBC has charged me Rs. 1000 towards cheque bounce charges and my credit history, which was very clean for past 5 years has been spoiled beyond repair. I cannot continue with HSBC any longer for your mistake. Will TMFL be refunding me Rs. 1000?

I have sent a mail to TMFL about this.

Can somebody please suggest me on how should I proceed with this?

[amtak]

A very sad experience. Wish I could be of any help...can't you approach the consumer forum??

[speedmiester]

Never ever trust thess finance agencies and MNC banks without a written statement. You better approach the Consumer forum and file a complaint against TMFL.

[djay99]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

Never ever trust thess finance agencies and MNC banks without a written statement. You better approach the Consumer forum and file a complaint against TMFL.

You can either approach consumer forum or transfer the loan to any nationalized bank like SBI, SBH or Canara.
You will also get some discounts in interest rates.

As speedy said, never trust private players without written statement.
They are thieves approved by RBI.

[theMAG]

You might have issued a stop-payment against all these cheque number series , that I'm sure you would have noticed on the opening cover of the cheque book

[LLL]

Easy solution.

I am sure you would have written a letter to TMFL and not gotten a reply back..if not, then i suggest you do so immediately. Explain the whole situation and ask that your cheques be returned.

Send a CC to RBI Banking Ombudsman, you can get the address from RBI website. RBI will forward a copy to TMFL and ask for an explanation. Thats enough to set these guys straight.

In case its not solved in 30 days, file a complaint with RBI BO. you can do it online. RBI will again fwd the complaint to TMFL and ask for an explanation. They will have to reply to RBI and RBI will forward their reply to you.

I have used this twice now to set a card company straight...CC company added annual fees to my cards after i cancelled them and then continued to add late fees and finance charges despite repeated emails/letters/phone calls...they ran up 5k charges each on both cards but reversed everything after 1 nice letter that i cc'ed to RBI BO.

[ravibhat]

The plan suggested by LLL is right one, Its not worth discussing with comapnies like TMFL, they will continue to do such careless works.

In future we can learn lesson by this. We should opt for ECS by setting the date for every month so we will know on which date money will deducted so we can make sure we have enough funds or at least attach credit account with our savings account(example citibank ready credit with citibank suvidha)

If we have to give only checks in this case we need to make sure we put the dates or if no date is mentioned make sure we have balance, otheriwse no solution at all. These finance guys will never do the way we think or expect

Regards,

Ravi.

[LLL]

No no please NEVER use ECS. its a defective software and i have heard stories of people getting debited even after loan has been paid off as well as ECS debit bouncing with system claiming that funds were insufficient despite the account being slush with funds.

Will suggest we stick to regular crossed cheques...we are still some years away from having good IT systems despite India being an IT giant.

[GTO]

Well, you only have yourself to blame. Should have been more careful:

1. Put the date before handing over the cheques. The date field is the first thing you are supposed to write on a cheque.

2. Give new set of cheques ONLY in exchange of the previous.

3. As themag said, stop payment instructions on the previous cheques.

In a professional transaction, dont believe what anyone tells you. Always take it in writing.

[djay99]

GTO,
I agree with you regarding writing dates on checks but bank people will never agree with it.

I think visiting bank every month and paying loan amount in cash would be the [If this is allowed]

Atleast we have challans that we can throw on their face when required.

[LLL]

my 2 cents on paying loan installment by cash...bad idea.

You have to goto bank every month, you take the risk of carrying cash in ur pocket, you give currency notes to banker who will look at you as if you printed all these 500 rs notes on your color printer.

then there will be no record in your systems of payment to lender. in case u give a cheque, your bank stmt (online and paper) will show finds transfer to lender....lender might give you some receipt but receipts tend to disappear when you need them the most or tend to fade and become unreadable after a few years.

Originally Posted by djay99

I think visiting bank every month and paying loan amount in cash would be the [If this is allowed]

[kuttapan]

SBI allowed me to write dates on the cheques I gave them. Convenient dates for me too..

[Zappo]

Windsurfer, whichever way it is I think you need to get this sorted out immediately. The reason being you do not want a few thugs waiting for you outside the house one of these days to forcibly collect the car. This inspite of them getting all the dues through your citi cheques. I think you need to approach the OB and let them handle it. I think they may even penalize the agency for all the harassment and loss of goodwill with the bank (HSBC). Ask the OB specifically on how to rectify your credit history that these jokers have smeared.

[Karandeep81]

LLL isnt the RBI Ombudsman service only for complaints against the bank facilites/procedures and not for finance companies ?
if that's not the case then yeah i think thats the best possible action to be taken

[windsurfer]

Thanks Guys. Well, I had called up the local office and they say the Citibank cheques could not be presented cos cheques were addressed to wrong entity. I politely told them that they had presented 3 Citibank cheques and all the cheques must have the same name. They did not have any answer to this. I am going down to their office today as i want to meet their Ops Manager.

Further, I given instruction to HSBC for stopping the payment of cheques. I know partly it is my mistake but i never imagined that any company could be run so unprofessionaly. I am stumped. I will wait for reply for my mail as i will do as suggested.

Thanks guys.

BTW, What is the process to pre-close this loan and go for a personal loan? I am tired of these guys?