[spadival]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Here is the "Hidden fee" (IMHO)
This protection is free on other cards. It is a MUST on any card. Otherwise if your card is lost you will be liable for ALL transactions till you report the card as lost.

I think thats fair enough.. isnt it? This is pretty standard T&C on most international credit cards.

Originally Posted by Zappo

First and foremost, SBI card is actually GE card for which SBI charges them a royalty (for using the SBI name)

I guess you mean the other way around. its actually a joint venture. Anyway, Hearing your story, it looks like you have a lot of bad karma from last janma to redeem for, before you start redeeming your reward points.. .

[Spitfire]

Only piece of advice i have is "STAY AWAY FROM ALL CREDIT CARDS". The banks have made it an unethical way of making money from hapless customers.

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by Spitfire

Only piece of advice i have is "STAY AWAY FROM ALL CREDIT CARDS". The banks have made it an unethical way of making money from hapless customers.

But you can do this:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifti...s-smartly.html

[kb100]

IRDA is clear that Insurance of any kind needs to be "SOLICITED". You will find this disclaimer in anything in print with their name on it including brochures, ads etc. What it means is they need to approach you, EXPLAIN everything and then get your concurrence (sign off). In other words any other means of selling insurance is BANNED by IRDA. Some banks have already been penalized for this. It is post this that many of them have appointed call center teams to call and sell insurance over phone.


Therefore if anyone charges you for anything that you have NOT SPECIFICALLY asked for - take them to the Banking Ombudsman and IRDA and you will get a lot more than gift vouchers!!

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by spadival

I think thats fair enough.. isnt it? This is pretty standard T&C on most international credit cards.

Not sure about other cards, but the cads I have (Bank of America, Chase, HDFC) all have Zero liability if you report within 2 - 3 days of loss. Have a salary account with HDFC, so HR specifically asked them to give that in writing to us. Card is HDFC platinum (its free for Sal account holders).

HDFC Bank - Leading Bank in India, Banking Services, Private Banking, Personal Loan, Car Loan

OTOH, HSBC offered a card once that did not have any protection till loss is reported, declined it because of that.

[ntomer]

Originally Posted by spadival

Huh?? I have been able to redeem a variety of stuff - 1 year subscription to Readers Digest (And India Today - which has since ended). The Readers Digest one subscription also ended, so I renewed it using the rewards point. I ended up getting 2 copies because RD obviously dunno what they are doing !!

Other stuff I got - Pen tyre gauge (Okk okk), Leather bound diary (rubbish), 2 Shoppers Stop vouchers worth Rs 500 (very good), pearlpet jars that my wife wanted (excellent). and a zillion other things I cant remember.

I mainly use my ICICI platinum card for the ease of paying the bill. And I have received many goodies over the years from them. Once they had this promo where if you spent 50K in a quarter, you get 6 bags; I got those.

Apart from that, I have redeemed reward poins umpteen times for Shopper Stop vouchers, Big bazar vouchers, Domino's vouchers, gillete shaving foam/deo/blades.

Earlier they also used to have HP fuel vouchers, in which you used to get fuel worth Rs. 50 for every 65 points but now that have been removed.

\N

[svsantosh]

Hello tBHP'ians, (nice thread, i am sure my story will raise many brows)

Not sure what made me do it,but not so long ago i had around 25 credit cards. My colleagues used to call me 'the card' guy. My list included

5 Citibank
5 HSBC
1 SBI
1 Manhattan
8 ICICI (dont ask)
2 HDFC
1 ABN AMRO
1 AMEX

It became more of a addiction than necessity. But please read my experiences below.

1) I always used to open the Khata with a small 100-200Rs swipe to make the card active.
2) Make sure i call them after a week and threaten to cancel the card if they dont make it life time free. (always worked & works still now)
3) Never take the card out of my cupboard locker ( i needed to store them away from me) until i had the cash on hand and wanted to rotate the funds.
4) Never in my 5 years of my tryst with credit cards have I payed 1Paisa towards to interest or revolving credit.
5) I actually had a huge card holder to maintain all my cards.
6) I had a excel file with the all the card numbers and CVV#s with all emergency contact numbers in case I lost them. (My GF used to tease me that I need 5 hours just to complete the Lost card procedure)
7) After loosing the high of being drowned in cards, I spent 1 ENTIRE saturday in mid-2007 to cancel most of my cards. Have a few citibank (since its my salary a/c) and 1 ABN amro (only card in India to have a min100Rs fuel limit to avoid surcharge, for my bike, all other banks have a 400Rs min limit)

I currently use my experience with credit cards to help people who have lost their and brains and are stuck in debts, (many of my friends,sadly). i will visit the "how to use cards smartly" and try to help some guys there.

Cheers
Santosh

[LLL]

Originally Posted by spadival

Huh?? I have been able to redeem a variety of stuff - 1 year subscription to Readers Digest (And India Today - which has since ended). The Readers Digest one subscription also ended, so I renewed it using the rewards point. I ended up getting 2 copies because RD obviously dunno what they are doing !!

Other stuff I got - Pen tyre gauge (Okk okk), Leather bound diary (rubbish), 2 Shoppers Stop vouchers worth Rs 500 (very good), pearlpet jars that my wife wanted (excellent). and a zillion other things I cant remember.

I see only 2 options - pantaloon voucher and belt set. check the attached image.

[spadival]

Originally Posted by LLL

I see only 2 options - pantaloon voucher and belt set. check the attached image.

I get a multiple options > 50 atleast. Whats your card? Write to your account manager about this (using the option on the website). They usually respond in 2 days time.

Couple of times, I wasnt around at home to receive the gift that I had redeemed. So the courier sent it back. I didnt expect them to put the points back onto my account because it was my mistake, but they did reverse the redemption and put the points back on !!

[bblost]

I once ordered a couple of vouchers from icici.
They came with a note behind them saying cannot be clubbed together.

took me 2 months but successfully returned the vouchers and got back my points.

[LLL]

Originally Posted by spadival

I get a multiple options > 50 atleast. Whats your card? Write to your account manager about this (using the option on the website). They usually respond in 2 days time.

Couple of times, I wasnt around at home to receive the gift that I had redeemed. So the courier sent it back. I didnt expect them to put the points back onto my account because it was my mistake, but they did reverse the redemption and put the points back on !!

I have icici platinum.

[nishantgandhi]

IMHO, SBI sucks big time. I too was conned into applying a free for life Platinum card. But what actually arrived was a Gold card with a lower limit than my Citibank Silver card. And it took me quite a few hours to get that cancelled. However, that did not stop SBI from sending me statements for few months

I have found Citibank and HDFC to be (still) decent of the lot. Citi has free for life cards clearly listed on their website. Check it out. Else, HSBC is also a good option primarily because of their 0% fuel surcharge across all petrol pumps in India.

IMO, please stay away from ICICI, SCB, ABN Amro and SBI for credit cards.

[spadival]

LLL, I have an HPCL Gold card. So you should have more options than I do !!

I have a Barclays card too. Generally got it because I have a soft corner for hard working call center employees ... Anyway, Barclays got my name wrong on the card in spite of me filling the name correctly on the application. That irritated me no end. So I never ever used it and I never received a statement.

[dilipkumar7278]

Guys
My father was using 5 credit cards(1HSBC,1SBI,1HDFC,1SCB,1ICICI).Unfortunately he passed away last august.We have submitted the necessary documents to all (Death Certificate).But now they insist on paying the balance outstanding amount. ICICI people have even thretened to take legal action against us.
Are we liable to pay them as we did not sign any documents or have not committed anything. Moreover the mental harrassment through regular phone calls is also there..Please advice
Dilip Kumar

[bigman]

Originally Posted by dilipkumar7278

Guys
My father was using 5 credit cards(1HSBC,1SBI,1HDFC,1SCB,1ICICI).Unfortunately he passed away last august.We have submitted the necessary documents to all (Death Certificate).But now they insist on paying the balance outstanding amount. ICICI people have even thretened to take legal action against us.
Are we liable to pay them as we did not sign any documents or have not committed anything. Moreover the mental harrassment through regular phone calls is also there..Please advice
Dilip Kumar

Sorry to hear that.

Don't quote me on this but usually if your father left you anything in his estate then in most countries it is accepted that his debts be settled using his estate before you inherit anything.

I would be inclined to check with a lawyer as to what the legal situation is in India (maybe we have a legal eagle on team bhp who can help). Sometimes there are other priority debts which must be paid off credit cards need to be settled.