[Gansan]

I agree with Condor about the Police complaint at this stage, but use your discretion. The bank is notorious for sending goons to collect dues. But what you need to do asap is to write to the bank about the details of this call and the fact that your brother does not own card at all. Politely but firmly request them to furnish you the card and transaction details, charge slips, and a copy of the ID/address proof that was submitted for obtaining the card. Send this letter to an appropriate official of the bank, with a copy to the Chairman and MD as well. All these should go by RPAD and you should keep the acknowledgment cards safely. Send a first reminder after one month and a second one after three months if required, all of them by RPAD only.

If the proof submitted and the photos do not match with your brother, there is no case at all. During 1995 when cell phones were a novelty and prohibitively expensive, my brother received two bills from a company called Skycell for about Rs 85000.00. My brother had only a pager at that time and no mobile. Someone had purchased and used two mobiles in his name! We handled the matter in the same manner. It transpired the "proof" submitted by the buyer was a copy of the pager bill received by my brother! This was not even in the list of approved ID/address proofs at that time. We requested them to give us a copy of this proof, but they dodged, saying they needed higher approval and will send it to us by mail.

We sent a detailed letter to them, with reminders on the first, third and sixth months. There was one last reminder in which we mentioned since they did not furnish a copy of the proof as required by us, we were treating the matter as closed and there would not be any more correspondence regarding this matter. All of them were sent by RPAD and we still have the cards. There was neither a reply to any of the letters, nor any further follow up from their end. Subsequently the company was merged with Airtel I believe.

[Mission_Safari]

My BIL received a similar call from ICICI stating the amount due on his ICICI credit card has not been paid. Name and address told my the caller was correct. But my BIL never owned an ICICI card , so we called the number back and someone else picked up . We asked for the address of the card holder and told him the query. The guy who picked up told us a different address and we thrashed him on the phone for making random calls for guys with similar names of the defaulter. I saw this just as an futile attempt by the agents to try their luck in recovering money from the defaulter and it was just an one off case for us which was resolved in 10 minutes after their first call. My BIL has a salary account with ICICI , so they picked the address from that i suppose.

[amohit]

Holy Crap!
And I was thinking that only I am the victim. Though not ICICI, I have received 2 such calls from Standard Charted. Ditto same story. Amt due 10k. the guy even said that I have paid an installment of 5k. Luckily the address they have is long gone...

I was thinking of continuing ignoring these calls.

Regards,

[sanjayc]

If you are sure your brother does not hold a ICICI card NOR has applied for the any card in the past from ICICI, just chill, nothing requires to be done. Why waste your time running around proving your innocence? Let the bank prove that your brother has indeed applied for a card and the same has been issued!

Next time you receive any such call, just blast them and give a piece of your mind. Then, sternly tell them you do not hold any such card and ask them provide supporting documents.

Make 200% sure first with your brother that he has never applied for a ICICI card either by filling up an application form or over phone/telecall/website etc etc.

[snaronikar]

Try to lodge the complaint with banking OMBUDSMAN..they will be scared out of their wits if you inform them you are going for above for simply harassing you OR ignore these kind of calls.

[sushrutha]

Originally Posted by aargee

"I will not take any actions from my side unless I get a satisfactory response from ICICI"..

Thanks , will definetely put this, when he'll reply to them

Originally Posted by Sankar

In that case why can't he go to the police or file a lawsuit against ICICI bank at this stage?

Thanks Sankar, Will definetely do this in a later stage.

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

But DO give a compalint to police in writing and get an acknowledgment.
.

The same has been done. Gave a complaint in police station, took an acknowledgement.
Mentioned in the complaint stating that ICICI official has threatned.

Originally Posted by Gansan

I agree with Condor about the Police complaint at this stage, but use your discretion. The bank is notorious for sending goons to collect dues.

Thanks Gansan.

Originally Posted by Mission_Safari

My BIL received a similar call from ICICI stating the amount due on his ICICI credit card has not been paid. Name and address told my the caller was correct. But my BIL never owned an ICICI card , so we called the number back and someone else picked up .

Originally Posted by amohit

Holy Crap!
And I was thinking that only I am the victim. Ditto same story.

Regards,

Originally Posted by sanjayc

If you are sure your brother does not hold a ICICI card NOR has applied for the any card in the past from ICICI, just chill, nothing requires to be done.

Thanks mission_safar, amohit, sanjayc.
The above incidents mentioned makes me slightly relieved.

Make 200% sure first with your brother that he has never applied for a ICICI card either by filling up an application form or over phone/telecall/website etc etc.

Nopes , he hasn't applied for any credit card either, let alone ICICI.
He doesn't even hold any account in ICICI.

Contacted ICICI customer care, and verfied if any card exists in my brother's name, CCE verified his database and told that there doesn't exist any card card for the mentioned Name, Birth Date, City.

Thanks snaronikar,
That's what we are planning to do next

But still my brother is worried a lot.

[alter.e.go]

I'd follow Sanjay's advise

[sanjayc]

Originally Posted by sushrutha

Contacted ICICI customer care, and verfied if any card exists in my brother's name, CCE verified his database and told that there doesn't exist any card card for the mentioned Name, Birth Date, City.

See, that's what I was thinking. Guys, pls use common sense instead of running scared, provided you know you have done no worng.

Those who are advising for FIR etc, do they mean, if your neighbor/close buddy/known person just calls you up and asks you to pay up, by quoting details like name/add/dob etc, does that mean one needs to run to the nearest police station? It may all be a prank played by someone! Or, some trick to just confirm the personal details, maybe, and some bigger issue/scam maybe in the offing.

In case such a thing would indeed have taken place, your brother would have got statement/email/sms etc. Nowadays, banks have mechanism in place wherein sms/email alerts will be sent on puchases involving high amts. Further, the amount asked for was over 90K..I mean even if a new card is issued, such high limits/spend will never be granted.

Next, pls edit the title to a more appropriate one. Until it is conclusively proven, it does no good to anyone. This reduces the credibility of the forum in a way. I remember another such thread sometime back which turned out to be a non-issue. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifti...insurance.html

With so much of personal details floating around, it is imperative that we must use common sense and due diligence, before divulging/ confirming/ denying any details. If one is clean, there is nothing to be worried about (from the business sector I mean, if it is the govt or police etc, then it is a different story altogether)

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by sanjayc

If you are sure your brother does not hold a ICICI card NOR has applied for the any card in the past from ICICI, just chill, nothing requires to be done. Why waste your time running around proving your innocence? Let the bank prove that your brother has indeed applied for a card and the same has been issued!

Because these details would be reported to CIBIL.

Next time if he applies for Card / Home Loan at ANY other bank, he will get a tough time and higher interest rate.

[sanjayc]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Because these details would be reported to CIBIL.

Next time if he applies for Card / Home Lon at ANY other bank, he will get a tough time and higher interest rate.

While the CIBIL part is true, this is unlikely since no written document like statement etc arrived? Banks/their agent just do not start calling for payments until some due dates etc have passed! Sushrutha has never mentioned that his brother has received any such stuff.

It needs to be taken seriously only if some statement has arrived either via courier or email, which proves that his brothers details are in the banks record.

Let's not behave like headless chickens on such pranks. Am not sure, but this type of calls may also point towards some new kind of scams in the offing.

[sushrutha]

Originally Posted by sanjayc

Those who are advising for FIR etc, do they mean, if your neighbor/close buddy/known person just calls you up and asks you to pay up, by quoting details like name/add/dob etc, does that mean one needs to run to the nearest police station? It may all be a prank played by someone! Or, some trick to just confirm the personal details, maybe, and some bigger issue/scam maybe in the offing.

Certainly,
i don't think it's a prank call, coz I called back the same number from which my brother got the call. It's confirmed as ICICI number. But no staff were available as the office closes on sunday by 2pm.

Next, pls edit the title to a more appropriate one. Until it is conclusively proven, it does no good to anyone.

I don't think the title has to be changed, until and unless my brother is proven innocent, let it be as it is. Coz the intiative has been done by ICICI person.

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Next time if he applies for Card / Home Lon at ANY other bank, he will get a tough time and higher interest rate.

Just a day back he has applied for a car loan in SBI.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by sanjayc

While the CIBIL part is true, this is unlikely since no written document like statement etc arrived? Banks/their agent just do not start calling for payments until some due dates etc have passed!

Yes that is the modus operandi.

All details would be right in his ICICI profile, except:

1. Office address
2. Cell Phone / Landline Number
3. Email ID

And his statement / alert would got to these addresses operated by scamsters.

So, the person who owns the card would never know unless default is "sold" to recovery. That is when account breaches a recovery threshold. E.g. for recovering 4,000 it does not make sense. But for recovering 1 lakh it does.

Once it reaches that stage, they will investigate and uncover contact details that are not based on profile in bank.

E.g. "Buy" contact details from Cell companies, scan though CIBIL (it has EACH KNOWN address for each borrower), Search on Naukari.com / Monster.com etc etc.


Overall:

Bank would get correct details only when account defaults AND account breaches recovery threshold.

[sushrutha]

Originally Posted by sanjayc

Sushrutha has never mentioned that his brother has received any such stuff.

It needs to be taken seriously only if some statement has arrived either via courier or email, which proves that his brothers details are in the banks record.

No. Till date he hasn't received any statement in any format.
When he enquired abt the address, CCE mentioned his present address, proper email id, birthdate etc which were all correct.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by sushrutha

All the details furnished (address/name/mobile number) was correct.
My bother said he doesn't hold any credit card from ICICI.

Originally Posted by sushrutha

No. Till date he hasn't received any statement in any format.
When he enquired abt the address, CCE mentioned his present address, proper email id, birthdate etc which were all correct.

Someone's either pulling a big a practical joke on you, or someone dialled a wrong number based on a wrong database.

No point getting worried now. Until you have something in writing, or a recording of the phone conversation, just relax. Then the bank can write off 97k in bad debts with some help from the banking ombudsman and the police.

[sanjayc]

Originally Posted by sushrutha

Just a day back he has applied for a car loan in SBI.

You mentioned earlier that the phone number from which the call came from belogned to ICICI Bank, Bommanahalli Bangalore..how do you know? Does the number belong to actual/official ICICI branch or some DSA/Collection agent of theirs (when you call them, they will always tell "on behalf of ICICI/SBI etc")? When you called the CC number, you confirmed that the CCE denied the existence of your brother's details! In such a scenario, the call could not have come from within an official ICICI branch.

Now that you mention your brother has applied for a car loan form SBI, I suspect this is some agency which does work for both ICICI/SBI (not uncommon) and the guys over there somehow screwed up the details.