While most of these banks use either Visa or MasterCard (or one of the variants of these two)...... has anyone experienced something similar with American Express? I have AmEx for past 6 years and also have V/MC from other banks. I would rate AmEx as one of the top in Customer Care. They normally find ways to not to charge customers unnecessarily and try their best to retain them and ensure delight by offering various options. Also I feel the Customer Care executives there are more empowered than the other banks.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Guite

My Citibank credit card due date was Monday 28th, I paid through netbanking from my ICICI bank account on Saturday 26th. At the very least payment should have been processed on 28th, the next working day. However I received SMS from Citibank that they have received payment on 29th. I thought netbanking transfers are almost instant.

Who is responsible for this delay- Citi or ICICI? Am I looking at interest being charged on all transactions till next billing, due to this delay?

Not sure how the payment is sent. But if it is NEFT, then:

- NEFT has a man-in-the-middle loop. All NEFT transactions go to RBI's NEFT clearinghouse in Mumbai, where somebody manually approves it (I suppose most cases are automatically approved and only few transactions in a day set off the various tripwires).

- This results in NEFT transactions being processed in groups once an hour, and I believe 12 times a day.

Second point to note: In January 2013, all of 25, 26 and 27 were bank holidays. This means that all NEFT transactions triggered from the second half of 24/1 onwards were processed on 28/1. This possibly caused some backlog at RBI's end so it is likely that your transaction was processed only on 29/1. Neither Citi nor ICICI is to be blamed here (if anyone, it is you - who forgot about the three bank holidays and triggered the CC payment so dangerously close to the due date).

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by Guite

Who is responsible for this delay- Citi or ICICI? Am I looking at interest being charged on all transactions till next billing, due to this delay?

You made an online payment and worried about late payment fee?
My ICICI credit card due date is 5th of every month.

I deliberately drop a cheque in their drop-box on 5th late evening with a back-date of 3rd.

Till date I never got charged any late payment fee. Iam continuing this practice for more than 2 years

Why I do that? Two reasons

1. I almost every month forget paying this card ( which isnt my primary) till the last minute

2. I make it a point to make payments ( always in FULL) only on the "Due Date"

[shipnil]

Originally Posted by Guite

Who is responsible for this delay- Citi or ICICI? Am I looking at interest being charged on all transactions till next billing, due to this delay?

Many members have answered here already but let me give my take as I have also experienced this once.

For NEFT, most of the time the amount is credited the same day. But as per the terms and conditions, it may take 48 working hrs for the credit to happen. I once did a payment from HDFC to ICICI credit card and it took time to reflect. While talking to both the customer care's I got to know this. So a safe bet is to initiate the NEFT 2 working days prior to your due date. After that experience I am doing the transfer with this buffer.

In fact to avoid getting bad entry in Cibil, I do the payment in two steps. First, I pay the minimum amount due on the same day when I receive the E-statement. Bank will report to Cibil only if you do not pay minimum amount. After I complete this transaction, I set a standing instruction for remainder amount on a day that is 2 working days before due date mentioned on statement. This way I don't have to remember when I have to pay the CC bills.

Regarding the interest part, if you fail to pay by due date, the interest is charged for the period, when you did transaction to the date when you paid up. So for each transaction the interest charged would be different assuming you did those on different days.

[sa_kiran]

Originally Posted by Guite

My Citibank credit card due date was Monday 28th, I paid through netbanking from my ICICI bank account on Saturday 26th. At the very least payment should have been processed on 28th, the next working day. However I received SMS from Citibank that they have received payment on 29th. I thought netbanking transfers are almost instant.

Who is responsible for this delay- Citi or ICICI? Am I looking at interest being charged on all transactions till next billing, due to this delay?

There is an intermediary involved in this payment, the likes of BillDesk. It is not a direct NEFT account to account transfer. At what time did you transfer funds on Saturday? NEFT batches run from 8 am to 1 pm on Saturdays and Sunday is a holiday. If you transferred after 1 pm, the transaction should have been completed on 28th, completing on 29th is not surprising (though I'm not sure why it should not be completed on 28th).

Citi will tell you that you should have done the transfer at least 2 working days before the due date, blah blah blah. So, talk to the people and ask them for interest waiver, Citi does it most of the time.

[Guite]

Thank you all for the responses.

Originally Posted by bblost

Yesterday my sbi online statement showed a fine of Rs 550 for late payment. ... There is a Rs 550 reversal charge as well.

Checked today, no fine/penalty so far. Not that I am unduly worried about it.

Originally Posted by coolclouds

In your case, I don't think Citibank will apply any late payment fees.

Glad to hear that. Even if I don't make any fresh purchase on it, there are some running EMI on thsi card.

Originally Posted by abhijeetsng

Netbanking transfers in ICICI are instant if you are transferring within ICICI Bank.

Yes, within ICICI it is instant.

Originally Posted by binand

Neither Citi nor ICICI is to be blamed here (if anyone, it is you - who forgot about the three bank holidays and triggered the CC payment so dangerously close to the due date).

Hey who put that intermediary while I was looking the other way.

Originally Posted by mobike008

I deliberately drop a cheque in their drop-box on 5th late evening with a back-date of 3rd.

Talk about close shaves!

Originally Posted by shipnil

For NEFT, most of the time the amount is credited the same day. But as per the terms and conditions, it may take 48 working hrs for the credit to happen.

Will keep that in mind.

Originally Posted by sa_kiran

Citi will tell you that you should have done the transfer at least 2 working days before the due date, blah blah blah. So, talk to the people and ask them for interest waiver, Citi does it most of the time.

So the bottomline seems to be that one should keep a margin of two working days. Will do that henceforth. Lets see whether Citi charges any interest.

[rkg]

Of late iam observing a certain drop in the service levels of HDFC cards.

In the past 20 days , I was not getting SMS alerts even after a day of transaction. It suddenly stops sending SMS alerts and start the alerts again after a day or so. Is it a problem with HDFC or with other banks too.

It happened twice, once an online transaction of air tickets no SMS.

Yesterday i did two transactions in the evening, till now no SMS.

[sa_kiran]

Originally Posted by rkg

Yesterday i did two transactions in the evening, till now no SMS.

There could well be problems at HDFC Bank. But, how is your cellular network? If the network is not available when the SMS was sent, it goes into a queue, many a times never delivered!

[binand]

Originally Posted by rkg

In the past 20 days , I was not getting SMS alerts even after a day of transaction. It suddenly stops sending SMS alerts and start the alerts again after a day or so. Is it a problem with HDFC or with other banks too.

I suppose all the fiddling TRAI has been doing could be a contributory cause here. I prefer email alerts anyway, which also come straight to my mobile.

Still, both SMS and email are unreliable modes of communication. Backlogs can build up, there is no guarantee of delivery etc. So I also login to my card account (again, via my mobile) and check the previous day's transactions.

[rkg]

I do not know if it is a network problem. But my guess is it isn't. Because i got SMS yesterday morning even before i could sign the charge slip.

[amitk26]

Originally Posted by rkg

Of late iam observing a certain drop in the service levels of HDFC cards.

I get Citibank and SBI alerts with out any delay but there is delay sometimes in ICICI bank so I guess it is the problem on the delay/load limits these big banks hae on their server infrastructure.

[Guite]

As posted in this thread post #871, I have been expecting delivery of HDFC credit card. Delivery attempt has been made twice and failed. I don't know where they attempted the second delivery, anyway it was returned. I received the following e-mail at both office and personal mail boxes.

Dear Customer,

Greetings from HDFC Bank Credit Cards team.

Your HDFC Bank Credit Card has been returned by our courier as "undelivered " post their unsuccessful attempts for delivery at your mailing address registered with us.

In case there is change in your mailing address please send a duly signed letter confirming the new address to enable us do the needful. The letter can be sent to the following address

HDFC Bank Cards Division
PO BOX # 8654
Thiruvanmiyur PO
Chennai 600 041

We look forward to the continued opportunity of serving you and wish you many happy moments of card usage.

Thanks and regards,

Asst Manager
Cards Despatch

This appears authentic: situation referred to is true, Chennai address is correct. However two things make me suspect otherwise:-
From field is information@hdfcbank.net. Note that HDFC bank domain is hdfcbank.com
Return field is HDFC-BANK@mailwash9.pair.com. Why is it not going back to someone@hdfcbank.net or .com

So, is this mail authentic or phishing?

[sa_kiran]

Originally Posted by Guite

This appears authentic: situation referred to is true, Chennai address is correct. However two things make me suspect otherwise:-
From field is information@hdfcbank.net. Note that HDFC bank domain is hdfcbank.com
Return field is HDFC-BANK@mailwash9.pair.com. Why is it not going back to someone@hdfcbank.net or .com

So, is this mail authentic or phishing?

hdfcbank.net redirects to hdfcbank.com. Don't take chances. Call up and tell them about your address. Or contact them through netbanking.

Courier companies play dirty games, they don't attempt, but report as attempted. This happened with me when I had booked some vouchers from Citibank. In this case, it was Bluedart. If Bluedart can do it, every Tom, Dick and Harry will do it.

Edit: I checked the statements that I received from HDFC Bank. From address is emailstatements@hdfcbank.net

[mobike008]

+1 on Courier companies playing games. Many a times, they just report unavailable at address without even making a visit attempt.

@Guite, if you have any issues with HDFC credit card, PM me and I can resolve your issue

With regards to sms alerts from HDFC bank. I get it so instantaneously that it makes me wonder on these cutting edge technologies. This is both for my HDFC credit card and HDFC ATM withdrawals. Never missed a single one till date

Also, I normally get a instant call from their risk if i make a purchase above 30K (Previously it was 20K)

[rkg]

Originally Posted by mobike008

With regards to sms alerts from HDFC bank. I get it so instantaneously that it makes me wonder on these cutting edge technologies. This is both for my HDFC credit card and HDFC ATM withdrawals. Never missed a single one till date

Also, I normally get a instant call from their risk if i make a purchase above 30K (Previously it was 20K)

I too was getting SMS alerts instantly till Jan 13. In the first week of Jan once i did not get any alert for online transaction.

Again yesterday, no alert for two POS transactions.

I too got the phone call once while making 16K payment at POS. But later did not get any call for a online transaction for reasonable amount which should have prompted for a call