ICICI - Blatant cheating of customers & the (In)justice that is passed of as the law

[Rtech]

Firstly, thanks for the support guys.

Originally Posted by Adityapd

i would recommend making this whole experience public by writing to popular carmags like autocar, overdrive, newspapers, other sites like mouthshut.com, etc....i am sure you will get a lot more helping hands and suggestions to build your case stronger and strip the facade off ICICI.

I surely will be doing this Aditya. You can count on it.

Originally Posted by Steeroid

Secondly, I feel you should have reported the incident and lodged an FIR with the writer at the police station. But its easy to talk after everything has happened...

Steeroid, I did go to the police station with the intention of filing an FIR. I had done nothing wrong, and I intended to make that very clear. However, as mentioned, there basically is no single law in India. It all depends on the mood of the Inspector in Charge. And this guy refused to even listen to my statement.

Originally Posted by gkrishn

You know what, if you had connection in right place, things would have been bloddy simple.

Krishn, I do know a few people, but I chose not to call anyone as I didn't think it was necessary. And doesn't it speak badly about an system that only works if you know the right people?

Even now I have the option of going through "some channels", but like I said, I'm sick of it. I want to do this over the counter. If nothing else, maybe it will atleast make certain people in certain positions sit up and take notice.

Just to give you an example of the "legal system". I had gone to the Cop station to submit my letter which contained my account, or should I say the REAL account, of what happened. While I was waiting there, another 2 guys, one of whom had a broken hand, were sitting and talking to the same Inspector. Apparently they were friends who were driving down the same road as I was when they said a dog came out in front of them causing them to swerve into the oncoming lane and hit a tempo head on. Nothing happend to the Tempo driver, but as I mentioned, the passenger of the car was hurt. However, instead of charging the tempo driver with the same charges that were brought on me, the Inspector was asking the passenger if he wanted to file charges on his friend, the driver of the car!

Now, if you take my example and swtich roles, I would be the Tempo driver and the taxi would take the place of the car coming into my lane and hitting me. However, in my case I was the one charged and the taxi driver has got off scot free.

Where is the justice I ask you?

[Surprise]

This should be paining you a lot. Sorry about that

Originally Posted by Rtech

We immediately got out of our car and went to the aid of the driver and the passenger in the back seat. As mentioned in the other thread, I called Dippy and the rest of them turned up there in no time to help out. My friend who was with me in my car at the time, went with the taxi driver and the passenger to hospital. The driver suffered a minor cut on his head, and the passenger seemed to have a fractured ankle. We covered all charges at the hospital at the time as the driver and passenger did not have the means to meet the expenses immediately.

I remained at the accident scene till the Police van arrived

After the accident occured, is your car in drivable condition ? If it was, you would have driven away without caring for the driver who was irresponsible and casual. If your car, is not in drivable condition, you would have spoken to the passenger and preferred staying out of police station demanding money from the cab owner for the depreciation that you need to pay to the insurance

Originally Posted by Rtech

At this point I also gave the telephone number of the Inspector at the police station that had written the accident report so that they could call and verify what I had told them.

You know the attitude of the inspector then why do you do this? is it not advisable to keep these guys away as much as possible

Originally Posted by Rtech

15-12-05: I receive a call from Abhay stating that a copy of the FIR was required to be submitted in order to process my cashless claim. A fax sent by ICICI on 16-12-05 states that they require the copy of the FIR to process the claim. He also informs me at this point that the working has been completed and they are now only waiting for this last document.

Haven't you submitted a copy of FIR while submitting the insurance claim form itself?

Originally Posted by Rtech

My Final note – DO NOT DEAL WITH ICICI, whether its their banking, insurance or loans. They will gladly take your money with a smile, but when it comes to actual customer service, they are the WORST I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

Do you have similar bad experiences with Banking and loans or based on your bad experience on this claim you stamp there service as bad on Banking and loans too

[Jaggu]

Rtech sue them, thats all i can say.

I feel, this way ol gen insurance companies are better, maybe they dont really care about the claims pay out with there, mera jeib senahein jaraha heinnaah, attitude..

[rkg]

iam very sad to hear about what happened, but iam not suprised.
all the foreign and private banks are just like that. ICICI takes the cake.
here are some of my experiance with hum hai naa
we r having salary a/c with icici , bangalore ( koramangala) after they begged us to open there in 1999. then i took personal loan. u know u have to bring all the bond papers etc and they still charges u processing fee of 1%. then i have given autodebit option form my salary a/c with them. suprisingly they do not deduct( the great automated bank with its software does not do it automatically) the monthly EMI inspite of enough balance in the a/c and then add both principle and interest to outstanding priciple and claim interest on that( practically compund interest, just like old money lenders in rural india, who do not debit u'r remitances to a/c) and claim iam defaulter. when i pointed out enough balance in the a/c, the manager told me rudely i have to remind them every month . then i repaid the loan imm and closed the loan a/c with them. in this regard i have sent inumerable no email but no response from ICICI.
then all us colsed our salary a/c with ICICI and moved back to SBI.
i was having ICICI credit card. i wanted to redeem the points with some gift. i recievd gift promptly with in week. when i opend the pack it was totally damaged piece. i reported to them. thay said they will replace. it is 3 years. iam yet to receive. i just simply cancelled the card. now they r offering me free card for life. i said just get lost .
they another strange thing happend. some guy with a surname like mine defaluted( as per ICICI) they started calling me telling that he has given my address . i told i do not know him, how he can give my address. but still they have sent a person to my home. i just banged him so he left. then after few days some one else called me again . then i told i will file defamation case if ICICI calls me again on this issue. since then they stopped calling me. simply bec i share surname with some and by accident i happen to be a cuatomer of ICICI they started harassing me
biggest problem with ICICI is their left hand does not know what right hand is doing. unfortunetely i had to take home loan form ICICI. with days of taking loan some one form ICICI calls me asking for home loan.
infact ICICI is misusing the database of its customers. it is selling the emails and addresses and ph no's to different comapnies to increase revenue.
it is same with HDFC, ABN AMRO CITI( biggest of them)
one of my friends wife is working on a MNC. salary a/c with citi. citi sends a letter stating that they have sanctioned a OD to her and deducted RS 1000 as charges for OD this is when she did not aks for OD. more in my next post

[Rtech]

Well, it seems we have someone connected to ICICI??

Originally Posted by Surprise

After the accident occured, is your car in drivable condition ? If it was, you would have driven away without caring for the driver who was irresponsible and casual. If your car, is not in drivable condition, you would have spoken to the passenger and preferred staying out of police station demanding money from the cab owner for the depreciation that you need to pay to the insurance

Sorry, Surprise, I'm not sure how you would react, but I had no intention of driving off. The thought never crossed my mind.

My first instinct was to get out and see how the others were. I didn't bother talking about damages at that time. I made sure the injured were taken to the closest hospital at that time. Financial worries can come later.

Or maybe I am reading your post wrong if you meant "could" in place of "would". If so, I apologise.

Haven't you submitted a copy of FIR while submitting the insurance claim form itself?

Firstly, the cop refused to give me a copy. Scondly, the ICICI surveyor himself said I didn't need a copy of the FIR at that time. Once they asked for it, I managed to get it and gave it to them as I have writen.

Do you have similar bad experiences with Banking and loans or based on your bad experience on this claim you stamp there service as bad on Banking and loans too

Yes I do. My company has a car loan from ICICI. Just recently they wanted to pay off that loan. To get this done took them 2 months of calls, letters, personal visits.

And if you think that them blatantly cheating me out of lakhs of rupees is not experience enough to call them cheats, well, you are obviously a much wealthier person than I would ever be.

Once again I apologise if I got the tone of your post wrong.

[rapideffect]

RT,

Really sorry to hear your experience with both the legal system and the well known ICICi. After going through your experience, I strongly feel getting out of the Insurance cover which I renewed on 3rd DEC with ICICI lombard online.

Is there any ways to cancell / terminate the current policy with ICICI and getting a new one from New India Assurance.

Also, rope in Mumbai Grahak Panchayat in the scene they may be helpful to you. Please consult with them. Their website is http://www.mgpnet.org/ and you can find their contact no also there. If you're planning to call them , better call them after 2.P.M.

[nitinbhag]

ICICI sucks, no doubt about it..
I had a brief experience with the credit card division.. they promised me a lifetime free gold card and then sent a grey card.. the first statement has annual fees on it.. the next 2 statements had all kinds of interest and penalties inspite of paying in time.. after 3 months, it was a lifetime bye-bye to hum hain na, from me..
Rtech, dont let them get away with this..

On the cop story, the less said about our police force, the better..

[kphilip]

Rtech i feel very bad about ur experience..sue those ppl..We all are there to support you...

[Beemer]

Hey rt ,sorry to hear what happened with you . Sure ,the law in our country needs a lot to be desired .
Its always beneficial to take the matter publicly by writing down to the automags, besides ,there are quite amany consumer friendly tv programmes nowdays showing in the news channels ,do call up at their helpline nos and tell/fax them the copy of each .Take this matter publicly as much as possible .

We all know it would be a hard exercise for you but i think you should be rest assured cos in most cases these insurance cos. loose the legal battles and your case is as clear as crystal , be rest assured you ll get the claim sooner or later . But yes dont forget to s***w the ICICI .

All i can say is Shame on ICICIlombard .They need to be taught a hard lesson ..

[Harrie]

ICICI has a very bad name in my organisation too. They harass customers to no end during housing loan repayment. My organisation being one of ICICI's largest corporate client makes no difference. We get the same treatment!

[satyamenon]

RTech,

Really sorry to hear about your misfortunes...

On my part, I vow never to make use of ICICI's services. I know all banks and insurance companies have their ups and downs, but thus far, I've been happy with Citibanks, HSBCs and LICs services. Shall stick with them.

P.S. am supposed to meet an insurance agent from ICICI next week. No prizes for guessing what i'm going to tell him.

[goldie_malhotra]

Hey Rtech - really sorry to hear about your bad experience.

This news is giving me the jitters as I also got my car insured from ICICI lombard recently. Will have to look into how I can switch over to a more reliable insurance firm.

Also, i had a bad time chasing Citibank - those **** took around 3 months to send the NOC papers and the refund amount when I prematurely closed my car loan. And refused to pay any interest on the refund amount for 3 months time.

RBI guidelines seem to have no effect on these thick-skinned bunglers. My sincere apologies to those who work in these firms, but there seem to be lot of such complaints nowadays, its just not funny.

[rapideffect]

On the outset of this bad experience, i suggest to open a new discussion thread on the Experience with Car Insurance companies.

[Aditya]

Ported head and I stood by the car till we were summoned to the police station. As many as three different police inspectors and innumerable constables came to the accident site to inquire. I suspect they were just trying to show off a bit. The last inspector who came, yes the same bloke who prepared the FIR, went to the extenet of stating that the car should have stopped within 10ft. if it was doing less than 60km/h. Ridiculous! I have lost faith in our police since ages. All they can do is arrest lovers. The real anti-social elements go scotfree.
ICICI - what can I say? I have a savings bank account with them and thank God most of my money is not in it.
As far as insurance goes, New India have always been quite good.

[RX135]

First things first! My car insurance is due in January. So here ICICI goes straight out of consideration.

Normally, I would hesitate on giving blanket verdict on an organization based on just one incident. But I have had my share of problems with ICICI credit card, which was fought for about 8-9 months. Can you believe that there is not a single authority in entire Pune, who can sit across table and discuss credit card issues? You wouldn't, but I learnt it the hard way. As a last resort, I threatened them with a court case for harassment and negligence, it was sorted out exactly as I asked for. It wasn't matter of 2000Rs. but I was so pissed off with the callous attitude.

RTech, I really feel sorry about whole episode. Please please please speak to your "connections" regarding the court case. NOT for influencing the police or court decision, but to ensure that a FAKE case doesn't stand against you in court. (Believe me, it is very much possible).

Now about your insurance claim! Your insurance case will be sorted most likely as soon as you move to court. If not, ICICI recently was slapped by courts for high-handedness in load recovery, and yours will be next story.

Best of luck for everything! Fight for it (I know, more than 90% well wishers would have told you to back out).


Why don't we have a good lawyer cum car-enthusiast on our forum?