Ever heard of people who do not hold any credit cards or loans from a bank, but still get calls for not paying dues?
Now you will. A late-entrant in the Indian market, British bank Barclays did just that with Gaurav Nirmal, a manager with a large retail firm.
This Mumbai resident had been receiving calls and SMSs from Barclays asking him to pay up his credit card dues since March 2008. “I have been receiving collection SMS on behalf of their customer Khalid Hassan,” Nirmal told DNA.
“This morning I got a message stating, ‘Reminder to pay up the outstanding…’. I used to get angry earlier, I tried explaining to the customer care person about the problem. They just kept the phone down,” he said.
Nirmal is not alone. Vijay Bhaskar (name changed), Ajit Jaiswal (name changed), Amit Kumar, Abhishek Agarwal and many others based in Mumbai and Noida have been getting similar calls and messages on their cellphones.
“Initially, they used to send four-five messages a day. After that, I changed my mobile number. For seven to eight months there were no calls. But since December 7, 2009, I have now been getting calls on my office landline,” said Bhaskar, a computer professional working in Mumbai.
Ajit Jaiswal, also an IT professional, has been getting “system-generated” calls from the cards department asking for Satyanand Jaiswal. All of them tried getting in touch with the customer service cell via calls and emails, but to no avail.
Aniket Kulkarni (name changed) got around 10 calls a day asking for Deepak to pay his credit card dues.
DNA contacted Barclays to verify the claims and probe the matter. Without giving appropriate details, a Barclays spokesperson responded: “Thank you for drawing our attention to the matter. We will investigate and appropriately resolve it. We will directly communicate to the concerned individuals. We appreciate your support.”
What’s gone wrong? It is learnt that while transferring its collections list — people who have outstandings — to an outsourced party, the bank’s tele-marketing list got merged with the same.
So, the numbers mentioned in the tele-marketing list are specified against the names in the collections or recovery list.
This is not an old issue. In August 2008, columnist Sucheta Dalal had contacted the bank when the problem first surfaced. The bank responded that they had started an internal investigation. Dalal had even written a column about it in the magazine Moneylife.
Last week, Barclays told DNA that the numbers of some notified people had been put in the Do Not Call registry, and that the bank had resolved the issues.
However, if you are among those getting calls and SMS asking to pay dues you don’t owe, here’s what you need to do.
Firstly, ensure that you inform the Barclays about it. Your number reflecting against another defaulter’s may have repercussions on your credit history, especially with the credit bureaus.
Credit bureaus collect information about borrowers from their member banks, and this pooled database is used by most of them before deciding on a loan application. In India, where names are written in more than two ways, banks use different parameters to know the identity of a person.
Apart from photo ID and address proof, some might make use of phone numbers. So, in case Barclays has fed in your number against a defaulter, the same might reflect as the most updated contact information with the credit bureau, harming your chances for a loan.
Inform the bank by contacting its grievance redressal department or officer. According to Rule 2.1.3 (c) of the Banks’ code of commitment to customers issued by the Banking Codes & Standards Board of India, banks have to display at their branches “1. Name of the official at the branch whom you (customer) may approach if, you have a grievance. 2. Name and address of the Zonal/ Regional Manager whom you can approach if your grievance is not redressed at the branch.”
The grievance redressal policy is to be displayed at the banks website as well. Do remember that if within 30 days of writing to the bank, your complaint has not been resolved, you can approach the banking ombudsman. The details about where and in which format you can approach the ombudsman are mentioned on the Reserve Bank of India’s website.
Also, register in the Do Not Call registry with either your mobile phone provider or the Telephone Regulatory Authority of India.
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