[rishibravo]

Denying the allegations, an ICICI Bank's spokesperson told TOI: "We are aware of the notice and we will contest the allegations before the Commission. These allegations are not correct."

How can the bank deny it when the car was found in godown of the Bank. Its sad . Supreme court should make a fast track consumer court and the victims should be given immediate relief.

[kalpeshc]

Doesnt India have a concept of class action suits like the West ? People just need a platform to voice their discontent with bad service and goondaism like this. Not just with ICICI, but other organizations too. Consumer is still a weakling in progressing India.

[Rehaan]

A related read - TBHP

cya
R

[EVO6]

I agree it is a wrong way to have goons handle NPA cases... But do u think the Bank takes this as the first step.. when the borrower fails to comply with proper requests and methods of relinquishing the car, thats when the GOONs come into play... I am not siding ICICI but I am sure this must be a few of the last steps.. its just that the collection agents go haywire sometimes...

[v1p3r]

Well, if there is a signed contract which states that the car/item reverts to the lender if X number of installments are not paid, I guess that contract would be legally enforceable. Won't the courts and police be enough? Do they need to go this way?

[Centro-P]

This is extremely disgusting. All these banks should be boycotted and taken to task. I hope that person gets swift justice. And why leave it at 47lakhs? Make it a crore. Banks like ICICI are prolly making billions in profit.

[THE-U-]

What do the banks do if a customer defaults on a loan and doesn't surrender the vehicle? In the US with all the credit reporting bureaus, the defaulting customer will never be able to take out another loan. The repo-man is armed to the teeth as well when they send him to reposses a vehicle.

I would like to know how many payments had the customer missed before ICICI resorted to this.

[rkg]

what about ICICI asking customers to pay for some one else whom you donot know at all. only thing common is surname with the defaulter. what if ICICI is threatening a customer in such cases. here who is at fault. it happened to me.
what about ICICI not credtitng your checks/salary and then charging you for not maintaining minimum balance in a/c
what about ICICI not debeting your a/c of EMI of loan even though enough balance is there and thus making you a defaulter and charging you penalty
all these things happned to me with ICICI koramangala branch, bangalore
the biggest fraud ICICI perpetrated on this country is ICICI bonds in 2002 and 2003. as per RBI rules ICICI has to pay interest on application money from the date of realisation of check to the date of allotment of bonds( which was approximately 2 months) @ 3.5 or 4%. IDBI, REC paid such interest but ICICI did not. ICICI collected more than 300 to 400 crores each time. so the approximate money saved by ICICI is around 3-4 crores @3.5% (tentative estimate). it kept the public money for 2 months and did not pay them interest.
so it is ICICI which is on the lookout for cheating the public at every opportunity rather the reverse most of the time.
some one said we should have credit info bureau like USA. that is fine. what if the bank knowingly gives loan to a guy and he defaults? ICICI in its greed has given loan to a guy in our office inspite of the fact he defaulted earlier to same bank and branch. who is at fault?
ICICI is greed personified. it is like old days money lenders one sees on films

[iraghava]

Originally Posted by THE-U-

The repo-man is armed to the teeth as well when they send him to reposses a vehicle.

Yes, but the difference is that in the US the repo man is armed for HIS self-defence since people can at times get violent. Whereas, in India the repo-man is armed to beat the crap out of the poor guy who's defaulted. The SC has at times clearly specified that to recover a vehicle use of force is not allowed under any circumstances.

[squarecut]

It does not surprise me one bit. But this bank gets away scotfree in most such cases because there are far too many suckers who are taken in by their ads and their pro active ways. The fact that most people in India lack financial savvy make them easy prey to ICICI.

If you take a car loan from ICICI, be prepared for such incidences. And if you take a housing loan from them, be prepared to pay thoughout your life ( including retired life) notwithstanding what the original tenure of the loan was supposed to be and you still may not have paid off the loan. ICICI bank is just like the illegal money lenders, with the only difference being that they trap supposedly literate urban victims. lakhs of housing loan takers from ICICI will realise sometime in the next decade that they have turned into bonded labourers of ICICI.

I realised this fact last month, and worked hard to rid myself of ICICI home loan. And I succeeded, and a nationalised bank came to my rescue which took over that loan.

Like many others, I hope that the ICICI bank pays dearly for its ways, but they are a big fish and their customers are small fries, so hoping for ICICI to be punished is rather wishful thinking. Litigation in India takes years, and ICIC, with its financial clout and delaying tactics can tire the individual victims out.

People who have taken loans from ICICI should see to it that they pay it off as early as possible, even if it means they have to pay more than expected. The peace of mind that they will get after they are rid of ICICI is priceless.

[Zappo]

Well, what i am abt to write won't sound very enchanting so here is the disclaimer first. I do not support ICICI or any other ABCD bank and their wayward tactics. They are worthy of all the contempt.

Having said that, what are we getting so heated up about? A news report? Media loves nothing better than masala news. Even if that means adding some masala of their own at times. In this case the defaulter is an unknown builder. Probably a small time one at that. And if the banks are high-handed then let me say these people are also no infants when it comes to cheating. For all that we know the guy may have been continuously defaulting on his loan and also avoiding ICICI. And when the recovery agents force him out of his car he just promptly admits himself/his friend to a hospital and calls up some journalist to rake up the issue. Now this is all conjecture, maybe, but a very plausible one I would say.

About banks not debiting the charges and then making you a defaulter and such similar cases it mostly starts with some system fault which is left unattended by most of us. Later that snow***** into an issue when the accumulated charges and penalties go too high. At that stage it goes beyond the capabilities of any normal individual to waive off the charges on his own personal discretion. And that starts all the trouble.

I have seen a case recently where my friend had a lot of trouble with StanChart credit card. He paid some 50000 bucks to foreclose a loan on his card (some stupid EMI scheme). The money kept lying in his account but the loan was not closed. Every subsequent month he would pay just the monthly dues minus the EMI (as he had already "foreclose" the EMI) but the bank thought otherwise. It kept charging him penalties and interest. Here the stupidest thing he did was that he did not follow it up doggedly on the very first month after paying the 50000 bucks to get it sorted out. Some call center girl will every month assure him that it will be looked into and that was that. The story will repeat the next month again. After 9-10 months the dues inflated to such a proportion that it was beyond anyones capabilities to sort out the issue. They wanted him to first pay off all the dues before they could look into the matter. While the bank was at a wrong since they should have immediately adjusted the extra money towards the dues they never did so, this guy was at a bigger fault due to his negligence on the follow up part. Afterall it was his money in question. Had a lot of trouble with the reco agents as well...

To cut a long story short, extinguish the sparks... the fire later may just become too big to handle. The first principle of sound project management

[esteem_lover]

A very valid point, zappo. It is always best to write letters or emails about your problems. these are the ones that get the attention of the concerned folks. making calls to the call centre help desk is of no use.

[rkg]

About banks not debiting the charges and then making you a defaulter and such similar cases it mostly starts with some system fault which is left unattended by most of us. Later that snow***** into an issue when the accumulated charges and penalties go too high. At that stage it goes beyond the capabilities of any normal individual to waive off the charges on his own personal discretion. And that starts all the trouble.
I have seen a case recently where my friend had a lot of trouble with StanChart credit card. He paid some 50000 bucks to foreclose a loan on his card (some stupid EMI scheme). The money kept lying in his account but the loan was not closed. Every subsequent month he would pay just the monthly dues minus the EMI (as he had already "foreclose" the EMI) but the bank thought otherwise. It kept charging him penalties and interest. Here the stupidest thing he did was that he did not follow it up doggedly on the very first month after paying the 50000 bucks to get it sorted out. Some call center girl will every month assure him that it will be looked into and that was that. The story will repeat the next month again. After 9-10 months the dues inflated to such a proportion that it was beyond anyones capabilities to sort out the issue. They wanted him to first pay off all the dues before they could look into the matter. While the bank was at a wrong since they should have immediately adjusted the extra money towards the dues they never did so, this guy was at a bigger fault due to his negligence on the follow up part. Afterall it was his money in question. Had a lot of trouble with the reco agents as well...

To cut a long story short, extinguish the sparks... the fire later may just become too big to handle. The first principle of sound project management [/quote]
Dear Zappo
it is very nice to be optimistic. but it is not the case with ICICI. it is not software glitch but an intentional practice followed by most of the new generation banks to boost up the fee based income. in my case i have pointed out immediately that they did not credit my salary. still the fine was not reverted. we simply changed to SBI( entire organization) as thay are doing it most of us.
in case of your friend it is bank's fault not your friend's. you can take the case to banking ombudsmen. stanchart or citi or ICICI do it intetionally as they do not want you to close the loan. if you pay you credit card dues regularly everymonth effectively using the 50 day free credit period your not welcome for the bank. it is fact.in my case when i took loan from icici they were not debiting the EMI from a/c at ICICI it self. the staff arroganlty argued we have to go every month and remind them to take EMI. but the same staff started autodebiting my a/c sincerly after i closed the loan. nothing was due from me to bank and bank software started to autodebit a non existing loan. i have written number of letters. one got reply after one year asking me what can do for me.
it is because of the behaviour private banks RBI has made it mandatory on the part of the banks to issue reciepts for checks as the banks are crediting the checks dropped in boxes into a/c and later on arguing through their well paid lawyers that it was not deposited at all
in my friend's case CITI just sent him letter stating that they sanctioned OD for Him( he did not ask for it) and sanctioning fee of Rs 1000 debited from his a/c. one more strange practice by CITI is if you use OD they will not debit your a/c with amount used in OD but convert it into loan with 12 /24 EMI without your consent.
because of all this i cancelled my all my credit cards and refusing all the lifetime free cards also

[zakaaaaasss]

but it is not the case with ICICI. it is not software glitch but an intentional practice followed by most of the new generation banks to boost up the fee based income.

i 2nd that....read my story now...

few yrs ago I was working in Nariman point and i opened an a/c with ICICI branch there. the person handed over their (in ?) famous 'welcome kit'. all well and i'm told that my a/c will get activated within a day or two.

a week after that, i used the ATM card to deposit few thouands. the card accepted the money and gave me a transaction slip. done.....
then i issued a cheque from that a/c to my hotelier and that got bounced . i cleared my hotelier with cash and then headed to the icici branch. after repeated requests and then shouting and raising enogh voice they started to look into the issue. finally the manger said that the amount i had deposited is lying in suspense a/c because the ATM card and the my a/c is not yet activated..... i was like *** in the first moment it accepted my money when the card and the a/c was not activated at all.

[mahadev_kc]

When I was using CC, paid twice for missing the payment twice. Though it was for lesser amount (< 200Rs). After that, I completely stopped using CC and from past 3 years, never had any CC.