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-   -   Can companies debit $$$ from your account even after the loan is paid up? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/203053-can-companies-debit-your-account-even-after-loan-paid-up.html)

I had availed a loan with Bajaj Finserve a couple of years back and at that time I was forced to get an EMI card from them at zero cost. I was told that there would not be any charges associated with it unless I make a purchase using the card.

I had closed the loan within a year of availing the loan and also placed a request to deactivate the card as well. Since I never used the card, I never cared to see if the card was actually deactivated.

Now, after 2-3 years, I get a SMS from Bajaj saying that I need to pay an inactive fee of Rs 117 for not using the card and charge would be waived if I transact using this card. I have never used the card and do not plan to use it as well. So I call the customer care again to deactivate the card and this time I made sure that it got deactivated. I was told that the inactive fee would be waived off and there would not be any charges debited from my savings account.

At this point I was confused as to how could Bajaj debit my savings account?

After this fiasco, I went online to browse about these charges and found that there are many more people like me who have been affected. I went through a lot of complaints on complaint board and one thing that intrigued me was that Bajaj was able to successfully debit the charges from customer who had closed the loan years back.

I was of the opinion that ECS stops once the loan tenure ends or when one pays off the loan.

Now my concern is how was Bajaj able to deduct money from a savings account even after the ECS validity expired? How can the bank allow the unauthorized deduction?

The bank doesn't know that the Loan is paid off. For the bank, this is still authorized by you. AFAIK, any amount lesser than the EMI will still be honoured by the bank.

Give a letter to the bank explicitly cancelling the ECS with Bajaj Finance. This is what I did when I wanted my term life insurance to lapse , because the Life insurance company would never deactivate/terminate a policy on their own. They now keep sending reminders about pending premiums which I ignore.

Thank you for this. I was under the impression that the ECS expires as soon as we pay off the loan. I just called my bank to cancel the ECS and was surprised to find that there were couple of other active ECS.

The banker also told me that it is possible for a company to debit my account at any point of time provided that ECS is active. She also added that some companies do not stop ECS even after the customer pays off the loan and at times ECS might be active for a period of 45 years.

To be honest I was not aware of manually stopping ECS.

Everyone who reads this should look at the status of their ECS and manually cancels ones that they have paid off. Better to stop these kinds of charges/payments rather than fight for a refund.

This looks similar to the case where we allow third party apps to access our data on gmail,facebook etc. Once in a while we should go back in settings to review if those apps are still needed. Unfortunately, i think banks dont have that kind of a settings page where we can see all authorized ECS.

Also, i have seen these sales agents, making fools of new unaware customers and get these ECS forms signed at the very start of a credit card account or a bank loan. I think its not mandatory and only optional, but most of us dont know !.

Same with me. ₹117 got deducted from my savings account out of the blue, more than two years after I paid off my consumer durable loans. I swallowed it though. I didn't want to speak with Bajaj CS. Instead, I called my bank and got all outdated ECS mandates cancelled. Coming to think of it, I despise Bajaj's DND policy. I get SMSes to my mobile number to this day about free CIBIL scores, personal loan pre-approvals and what not, despite me requesting them to remove my personal details off their records.

Ditto for me too. I did two things. 1. I called Bajaj finance and told them to cancel that card and to waive off and provide refund , which they did without batting an eye lid. 2. I called my back and asked them about the debit and how they honoured it , and their response was that I might have signed up with Bajaj for an ECS and they aren't time bound. I had to submit an email to them cancelling any ECS from Bajaj Fin.

For me , it wasn't the 117 rupees that was the issue , what got me peeved was the way Bajaj took away the money from me, and for the record I didn't even receive the so called Card ever.

+1 exactly the same happened with me, a fraud by Bajaj.

Do check if the cancellation will impact your credit scores.
You cancelling a fraudulent ECS, doesn't mean the system is aware that it's a mistake on the part of the lender.
It will assume the borrower is in the wrong, till told otherwise.
Please check if there are any further payments due and sort it out with the ombudsman.

You do make a very good point.

Thankfully for me I don't think it impacted anything. The only reason I say that is because I secured a big home loan just last month and it was easy and clean and with a very good cibil score.

Not sure if it’s the right forum but would like to bring up my concern of availing personal loan through bajaj finance. I provided all the documents but due to plan change, I cancelled my loan from BF before it was disbursed to my account. But the problem now is getting back the documents such as photocopies of my pan, aadhar card back from the company and the agent who collected it. Should I be concerned in any way of them misusing my documents?

I think we are past the point where have to worry about the copies we provide as proofs. Its like using android phones/Facebook and then worrying about privacy.

But please forget about getting back the copies. Too much effort and might not yield anything. You may try though. Copies can be anywhere, at the Bajaj Finance Office, their back office, or with a 3rd Party which might have been hired for documents checking etc.

Something related to this -
It has become normal practice to give 3 signed blank cheques (without even a date) when you take a loan. The bank is supposed to return the cheques when you close the loan. In my case, 1 cheque was missing, but I didn't bother because the bank had changed its name in the meantime, and the old cheque (with the old bank name) is not valid anyway as confirmed by the bank.

Ditto here! Victim of bajaj finserv's similar tactics. Did the same steps you did, got the "inactive fee" waived off and asked them to discontinue this card. Oddly, I had last used this card somewhere in 2010:eek:

Now I will call up the bank and ask them to drop all such ECS mandates which are not related to my current borrowings.

Imagine the amount of money this lender would make of gullible people who don't notice or ignore these messages/debits !?

Add me too to the list.

Bajaj Finserv has deducted Rs. 118/- from my bank account without any reason or intimation just out of the blue. There's an ongoing loan with them and all re-payments have been made on time through auto-debit. As another member says, it is not Rs 118/- but the way bajaj has charged is disgusting. Moreover, there is no way of speaking to a customer care representative. All they have is a stupid multi-multi level IVR. How did you guys reach to the representative on phone? If any one can provide the numbers, it would be helpful.

I have raise a grievance online and that is all what you can do. Let's see how it goes. This was my first experience with them of a so-called 'interest-free' loan for which I have already paid around 1500/- extra in a month. If that is the tendency of Bajaj Fin, then this negative publicity is well deserved.

I had the same issue, i had to visit the bank thrice to get the ECS cancelled. In regards to reaching out to Bajaj Finserv, i never tried . I raised a complain on Consumer forum, no update yet. Its been more than 2 months. Looks like this is the modus operandi for them, imagine 118 Rs from all the customers who took loan from them(irrespective of whether they have a active loan or not). A very handsome amount with out any effort:Frustrati

Negative publicity is not something they are worried. I blocked the card by logging into Finserv Portal.