Author: Jagoinvestor

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Check your Income tax refund status online & Learn how to use RTI

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Do you have any idea about your income tax refund status ? Have you filed your Income tax return long back, but have no idea when will you get your tax fund?

This is one issue faced by millions of tax payers in India. They file an income tax return where they claim back their income tax refund, but have no idea what happens to their cases after that!

Income tax refund status online

For months and years, they keep waiting for the refund status, but they have no idea when they will get their money back. Ideally they should get it back in few months, but in many cases they wait for as long as 3-4 yrs.

In this article, we will see how you can find out your income tax refund status online and how you can use RTI application to find out the status of your tax refund and speed up the process of getting it back.

How to find income tax refund status online

If you have filed income tax return asking for your tax refund, and you have no clue about the current status, the first thing you do is track its status online. All you need is your PAN number and assessment year for which you have applied for refund. Here is what you need to do

Income Tax Refund Status Online

You can also track your income tax refund status by contacting the help desk of SBI at 080-26599760 or contacting the Aaykar Sampark Kendra at 0124 2438000

File RTI application for income tax refund status

If you are not able to do much and you feel that just finding out online status is not helping you and you want to now get 100% clarity about your tax refund status, the next step is to file RTI application against income tax department.

We have earlier seen how one can use RTI to find EPF withdrawal or transfer status and how their issues were solved within weeks and months of filing a RTI against EPFO. So your next step is to file RTI in your tax refund case also. But you should wait for at least a year before you file for RTI against the income tax department.

Note that the RTI application has to be addressed to CPIO officer. Now the next question is how to find out the CPIO information. It’s actually not organized in a clean manner, but you need to start by going to this website https://www.incometaxindia.gov.in and then on that page you need to choose your state (your jurisdiction) from the drop down and click on “go.”

It will take you to the next page where you need to click on “CPIO/CAPIO” and play around to find out the exact place where they have dumped all that information. Below you can find a RTI template which you can use.

Download this RTI template for income tax refund

What should you ask while filing RTI

  • You should ask for name and designation of the officer who is supposed to process your income tax refund claim
  • Also ask for the officer official address and his contact number
  • Also ask for how long the refund is pending with the officer and the reason for the delay
  • Ask if some senior authority has instructed for delay and the certified copies if any
  • Also ask for the name, telephone number and address of the higher officer with whom you can file the first appeal

These above mentioned 5 things if asked in RTI, will be enough to move the earth below the concerned authorities feet and they might act faster on your case, because in most of the cases there are no valid reasons for delay. The delay is created just because of lethargy and at times in expectation that someone will visit them and bribe them to process the request!

Note that only the concerned person can file the RTI, no one else on his behalf can file it. In case you have tax refund for different years, better file separate RTIs for each. Do not mix them into one.

Tips while filing for Income Tax Refund

There are few well known mistakes people do while filing returns, because of which income tax refund delays happen. Let’s see those points and make sure you don’t do them.

1.Make sure your give permanent Address

A lot of salaried people, who live on rent, give their present temporary addresses while claiming tax refund, and when after 1-2 years their tax refund cheque arrives, in many cases the person has moved out of the current location. This causes the cheque to return back and the person is not there on the given address.

So make sure you always give the permanent address where you or your family lives and there are almost no chances of cheque returning back.

2. Give accurate Account Details, IFSC code

There have been cases where the account number given was inaccurate by 1-2 digits or the IFSC code was wrong, and that created the problem. This small thing can result in lot of frustration later, so double-triple check these details.

3. Try to do E-filing of your tax returns, if possible

As far as possible, try to file your income tax returns online and apply for tax refund, because the tax refund is much faster if e-filing was done. In case you are filing offline manually, make sure you fill form 30, contact your CA if you want to delegate this totally to someone else!

Conclusion

If you have been waiting for your tax refund from years, it’s the time to file a RTI application for it and find out why your income tax refund has been delayed for so long.

10 Things to Complete before you become NRI

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Are you leaving India in next few months or planning to move abroad sometime in future? Then you should be clear with a few points you should complete before you become an NRI. A lot of NRI readers come up with various issues they face, because they never thought about completing few tasks which could have saved them from lots of worries and paperwork. Lets look at 10 things which a person should complete before he/she becomes a NRI (Non resident Indian)

10 things to complete before your become an NRI

10 things to complete before you become NRI and Leave India

1. Take a Term Insurance

One of the big issues NRI’s face is taking a term plan through a Indian insurance company. It’s always a good idea to take a term plan and then leave the country, otherwise later it gets really tough to get a term plan, for which you will have to visit India and also it also gets quite difficult to opt for online term plan.

So before you become a NRI (Non Resident Indian) , complete this step. The premiums you will pay will be lower.

2. Take Health Insurance

Just like term plans, it’s tough to get health insurance once you become a NRI. After becoming a NRI, you will have to visit India for  health checkups and there is more documentation and hassles in the process. Health Insurance is something, you should take anyways , so why wait? Just take it anyway.

3. Open PPF Account

NRIs cant open a fresh PPF account, so before you become a NRI and leave India, open a PPF account. You can open PPF account in ICICI bank, SBI bank or at the Post office. NRI’s can always invest money in their existing PPF account which was already opened by them before leaving India.

4. Convert your Saving bank account into NRO account

A lot of people leave India only to realize later, that they need to open a NRO account in India, and then get into the whole process. Rather than doing it later, why not convert your existing saving bank account into NRO account just before leaving India?  NRIs can deposit all the Indian income into their NRO account and also make payments like EMI payments, and other kind of investments from their NRO account. All it takes is 2 photographs, and a copy of your passport and visa.

5. Connect your Loan Account with your banking account for online payment

A lot of people who become NRI (Non Resident Indian), have a home loan running, for which they have to still pay EMI’s . At times, they want to prepay home loan as fast as possible, because they earn more money outside India. But then the issue is – how to make prepayment when they are outside India? The best option here, is to connect your home loan account with your bank account, so that you can make prepayment to your home loan using NEFT transfer.  Its a good idea to do this before your leave India and try some prepayment just to make sure it works. It might happen that you might need to visit the bank for this, so better complete this before you leave India.

6. Prepare a Power of Attorney 

There can be many things which require your presence in India after you have become an NRI, like if you want to make any real estate transaction or want to operate your bank account etc. It’s always a good idea to have a bit of foresight  and see if you might want to prepare a power of attorney. Power of attorney is a legal way of giving power to someone to act on your behalf. Just choose some trusted family person or a friend. You can also make a power of attorney which expires at some stipulated time.

7. Make your mutual funds accounts online

A lot of people still want to transact in mutual funds after they become NRI, but they have no easy way out at that time. It’s always a great idea to make sure that you open a online account for mutual fund investing while you are in India. For this, you can open a online account with Jagoinvestor team and have all your transaction online

8. Open a NRE account 

If you want to invest your earnings into India and want to get it back in the foreign country (repatriation) , then you would need a NRE account. You can not deposit the local money like interest from FD, rental income etc into the NRE account. So if you have this kind of requirement, then better open a NRE account. The Fixed Deposits rates on NRE accounts are quite attractive in Indian Banks.

9. Sell your shares and open a new NRI demat account

Once you become an NRI, you will not be able to sell off your existing demat account shares which you bought before becoming a NRI. You can open & operate a NRI demat account. So before you become an NRI, a good idea is to sell off the existing shares and take back the money or the another option is to open a NRI demat account and transfer your existing stocks to this new account.

10. Update your KYC 

There are different processes for residents and NRIs for various kind of financial products. Like, if you become an NRI and want to do something with banks, mutual funds, life insurance policies (traditional or ULIPs), you will first have to update your KYC and only then can you do something. So its always a good idea to update your KYC, before you become an NRI. This will save you with lots of hassles.

Conclusion

If you follow these 10 things before you become an NRI, you will have a really peaceful time abroad and will not have to get involved into the mess of completing the things, most NRIs miss. While you might be excited to go abroad, better not miss out on these points.

Are you planning to leave India and become NRI Soon ?

6 credit card myths – which can kill your financial life someday !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

One of the most used financial products is the Credit card. We all spend so much time to get best credit card, but I have never seen someone, who has spend his time to fully understands the importance of the CVV number, One time password, Signatures on the back of credit card or how secure their credit card is overall ! .

There are so many credit card frauds going on, and yet  each of us thinks, that our credit cards are fully secure and it cant happen with us. However, this is really far from the truth, because of the 4 big myths people have about their credit cards and we will bust them today for you, so that you become a more powerful and informed investor!

Credit Card myths

Myth 1 – My Credit Card is secure, because no one knows my PIN/Password

When you make a transaction through a credit card in India, at the end of the transaction, you are asked to enter one more final PIN number, which makes your transaction more secure and gives you an additional layer of security. RBI had come up with this additional password requirement just last year. While you needed credit card number, expiry date and your CVV number to make a transaction earlier, now as an extra security layer, you need this additional PIN too.

However note that this is limited to online transactions on Indian websites only. When you make a transaction outside India, this additional step is not compulsory. This means that someone having every other detail of your credit card other than your PIN can also do transactions even if he does not know your PIN . You must have realized this yourself, if you have done any transaction outside India.

Myth 2 – No one knows my CVV number, so I am secure

One of the biggest myths about credit card is that, if no one knows your CVV number, its impossible to do the transaction. Take a small breath, while I tell you this.

“CVV is not always mandatory on all websites to make an online transaction.”

Yes, you heard right!. You can make a online transaction on few websites out of India with only the Credit Card number, the expiry date and obviously the name of the credit card holder. If you don’t believe me, here’s a small example.

Try to book a domain name at godaddy.com. I was almost numb, when I booked a domain name some time back, only to realize that the domain name was booked, but the site never asked me my credit card CVV number and I was like – “What ?! Seriously ?!” . I then found out, that asking for CVV number is just optional for credit card merchants. While some countries make it mandatory, others don’t. It’s just a choice!

So make sure you are safe, do this

  • Scratch your CVV number on the back of your credit/debit card
  • Always make sure the swiping happens in front of your eyes! , I know, it can be a little embarrassing for you, but its just an extra mile security, see if its possible for you
  • Better do not use Credit Card at all , use Debit card instead!

Myth 3 – My credit card can’ t be duplicated.

Yes, your credit card can be duplicated and it happens in India. A card (credit or debit) might be using something like EMV chips or Magnetic strips, and that’s where the problem is at. While EMV chips are more secure, the magnetic strips are not!. If your card has magnetic strips, it can be duplicated.

Here is how it works …

Your card has a lot of data inside it and it sits on the magnetic strip. When the card is swiped, all the data is extracted from it, for verification purposes. Now some expert hacker with bad intentions, can extract all this data from the swipe machine and make a new card using a technique called Cloning. There are machines called “skimmers” , which helps in extracting the data from the swiping machines to a new card. If you are still wondering if this all happens in India, here is a story excerpt from Hindu website

According to the police, the machines were used to swipe cloned cards by one Rahul. The cloned cards were arranged by Pankaj Deewan, Yogesh Mahajan and Yasin through their contacts. The amount transferred to Dheeraj alias Rohit’s account was shared by the machine holder and cloned cards holder at 40:60 ratio respectively.

Following this, the police launched a hunt and subsequently arrested Dheeraj, Pankaj, Yogesh and Yasin. They purportedly told the police that the domestic cards were cloned by one Kamal and international cards by Devender Chauhan of Agra with the help of a professional hacker. The cards were cloned by obtaining information of genuine customers and then copying the same on a plain card having a magnetic strip. According to the police, the accused used skimmer (a device used to copy data from credit/debit card) for the same.

And if you still don’t believe all this, here is a video you might want to spend time on

If you need more , read this incident on Credit Card cloning here

Myth 4 – The signature on the back on credit card does not matter much

One of the most misunderstood and unknown facts about credit cards is the signature on the back of the card. Let’s understand the rule today and lay this to matter to rest. If a credit card does not have a signature on the back, it’s an invalid card. As per the agreement between card issuer and merchant (the shops and hotels which give you the facility to swipe the cards), the merchant is supposed to check the signature on the back of card with the signature on the bill, and only if they match, the merchant should allow the card to be swiped.

However almost all the merchants avoid checking it, as if it does not matter at all. This is violation of terms and conditions and if you have lost a credit card which was SIGNED, and some transaction takes place, you are not suppose to be charged, because the merchant should have checked the signatures on card with the signature on the bill. What this means is that if there has been ever a fraud on your credit card, and you are asked to pay the money (Like this Incident) , just ask your card issuer to check the signature on the bill with your specimen signatures with them and if they do not match, they are not suppose to pay the merchant at all and let merchant take the loss for not doing their duty of checking the signatures.

Credit Card signature and CVV

This explains why you should sign your cards on the back and not leave them blank, because if someone steals your card and puts his signature on the back, then the transaction can be done successfully even if the merchant does his duty of checking the bill signature with the signature on card and in that case you are bound to pay the money to card issuer.

MYTH 5 – By paying minimum balance, I do not have to pay Interest

As you have used your credit card and now it’s time to pay your bills of Rs 15000. But you don’t have money to pay back the bill. You are in tension because if you don’t pay your bill you will be charged penalty. So to avoid penalty you pay minimum balance of Rs 3000 and now you will not be charged penalty. So now the left over bill amount is Rs 12000.

You must be happy that you will have to pay Rs 12000 only but let me tell you that you will have to pay Interest of 3 to 4% on this 12000. So even if you pay your minimum balance to avoid penalty but you cannot avoid the interest charged on the left over amount.

MYTH 6 – Too many credit card will improve my credit score

Many people think that if they opt for more than one credit card then there credit score will increase eventually. But this is other way round. If you opt for too many credit cards you won’t improve your credit score but you end up being more dependent on these credit cards, which is not a good sign. Managing too many credit card becomes burdensome.

Tips to Secure your Credit Card

I hope, now that these myths are busted, you are a more informed and powerful person who the rules of the game of credit cards . To summarize, lets put out some tips to secure your credit card

  • Do not share your one time credit card password (IVR) with anyone ever
  • Scratch your CVV number and remember it in your head !
  • While making any online transaction, make sure the website starts with https://
  • While making any transaction offline like on petrol pumps , hotels etc, make sure its swiped in front of you as far as possible.
  • Make sure the card is swiped on a machine which is issued by authorized banks and not some machine which looks suspicious , it can be a “Skimmer” machine which steals your data.
  • Put a signature on the back of your credit and debit card, so that unauthorized transactions are not done and you are protected a card holder
  • If possible, better use a credit card which has a small limit like 10k or 20k for shopping.
  • There are virtual credit cards these days, you can use them for online transactions

If you ever had any incident that was mentioned here, please share it with others and if you have some thing to teach others, please share it here with everyone.

Women and Money- Lets JOIN HANDS to empower and encourage women investors

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Do you know that only 1% of world wealth is owned by women , while women constitute 40% of the global workforce ? – World Bank . This is a little disturbing fact, and question now is, when women are working so much, giving a lot, have equal capability, then why they have so much less owned on their name ? When it comes to the area of money, Men are so much involved in personal finance, but women are not and that creates a big imbalance. Here is a small example to show how women suffers in her financial life because of this imbalance in understanding and knowledge of money

women and money personal finance in india

We at jagoinvestor want to start our 2013 with a vision of increasing financial literacy among women in India and we are looking at how we can reach 1 million women and teach them importance of financial literacy in their life. Now how is this related to you ? When we say “women” here, it also includes your wife, sister, mother, daughters and if you want to increase your financial life quality, you need to make sure that they learn about money. 2 years back, when I wrote about women and their personal finance knowledge, it was shocking to learn that 84% of educated, urban women dont have any knowledge or very minimal understanding of personal finance concepts.

Lets see why Women are not interested in personal finance matters

  • From decades and generations, it has been dominated by men and only men, women are not even consulted or informed ever
  • Women feel that their income is secondary to men, hence whats the use of managing it
  • Women are so involved with children, cooking and other household work , that they don’t get time
  • Women feel personal finance is complex and do not like numbers

But what happens when Men is not around ?

The best way to make you imagine what happens to women life if she does not have any idea about managing money is to ask you to imagine about your own case, Just imagine in your absence  what is going to be the scene ? You have never encouraged women at your home to learn about money , neither they took any interest, but someday they might have to take charge and that day it will be very frustrating experience for them. We are trying to do some work in the area of financial literacy for Women and once we create something useful for women investors, we would like to share it with you all, so that women at your home can use it and take the first step towards financial literacy, but we need some help from you on this.

We have created a small survey which needs inputs by women, we want to know what they feel about this subject, how much ready are they and what is stopping them to learn about money. If you are a women reader of this blog, please fill up the survey. However if you are a male reader, we need your support, please ask your wife, mother, sister and daughter to take up the survey and spend 5 min on this, tell them they have to do it for you and their future. Just carry your laptop to them and insist them to spend 5 minutes and complete the survey. And if they complete take them out for dinner on our behalf (Bill paid by you of course) … Following is the survey questions

Direct link to the survey

And Happy New year to all the readers !

Why you should fill the Insurance Policy form yourself ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

If I ask you to fill an application form that has 10 Objective questions and 10 subjective questions, would you consider filling it up yourself? NOPE!

Similarly, while taking a life insurance or health insurance policy (term plan, ULIP, Endowment, Health Insurance), we are lazy to fill up the form ourselves. Why? Obviously because it’s too much of work . So, agents take up the task of filling up the form and now the power is in their hands. Some agents, whose whole focus is on their commissions, make sure that no information is disclosed which can lead to policy application rejection or increase in premium etc. just to make sure the policy is issued quickly (hassle free). They will chose ‘NO’ in for all the questions like “are you a smoker?” -NO, “Do you have any illness?” NO, “Did your parent die because of any serious illness” NO, etc etc… and you don’t even bother to check it out. You just put your signature as you are already in hurry to submit the documents for tax claim in your office.

Insurance Policy Form

Claim Rejection due to wrong Information in Form

This is a serious issue and your claim will be rejected because the information provided in the proposal form is wrong, because you never followed the procedure to buy insurance properly. So make sure that you fill up the form yourself or in worst case let your agent fill it up, but check each and every point before submitting it to the insurance company or let your agent fill it one by one and tell him what to fill at each place i.e. dictate your answers.

Let me share with you some cases where agents filled up the form and what were the experiences of different people

Case 1 : I have sbi life saral shield term insurance plan of 15L for 30 yrs term for which i m paying 4953/- premium. After reading this article, i have gone through my policy document in which they have given scanned copy of filled up form. actually agent has filled up the form. i m a smoker but in the form it shows non-smoker.  – Alpesh

Case 2 : Recently, I tried to purchase a term plan through an LIC Direct Marketer. He wouldn’t let me fill the form and insisted that I just sign at various points on the form. When it came to filling up the information about family, his comment was: “Let’s just say old age as the reason for your parents’ demise. LIC won’t bother to check if the age is 60 and beyond.” That comment broke the deal. I didn’t buy the policy. – Vinaya

Case 3 : Funny thing. I just signed up for a term policy today with Kotak. The agent filled in the form on his own. And then was hesitant to correct it when i pointed out that my parents have high BP. Also, I’m in between jobs right now. But the agent insisted on writing my previous employers name & address under “current employer” – saying that he cant write it as ‘in between jobs’ or ‘unemployed’. – Richa

You can see that in all these cases, the agent tried to fill up information without even discussing it with client. May be they are used to it and are very sure that even clients don’t pay any attention to it, but at some point of time it’s going to hurt you very badly.

How many of you have/did not fill your proposal form or never checked your proposal form and what information was given in that? Note that it’s your proposal form, so whatever is mentioned there is given by you and only you, irrespective of who filled it.

Kindly share your cases and experiences

One Idiot – A fun & nice movie by IDFC on Financial Literacy

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

IDFC foundation has released a small 30 minutes movie called “One Idiot” to spread financial literacy for today’s generation which feels that life is all about spending and looking “cool”. The movie is directed by Amol Gupte, who had also directed the movie “Taare Zameen Par”. The movie ‘One Idiot’, shows how a bunch of students who are in their early 20’s make fun of a guy who looks dumb and does not believe in showing off, only to find out later one day that he is actually a multi millionaire, living and enjoying his life. The overall message of the movie is that you have to be prudent and responsible when it comes to money and start your systematic investments however small they are and over a long term, you will be on path of financial freedom.

Direct link to Movie

I watched the movie few months back when someone from IDFC had asked for my comments on the movie. Overall I think you should watch this movie and also share it with your children who are in school and going to enter their working life. Watch the movie and share what you liked about the movie ? Do you think its able to give that message of “saving and investing that money is important from starting” .

4 things to do, when you are forced to buy a Policy with Home Loan !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Have you even seen cases where when a person wants to get a home loan, and the bank or the lender says that taking some kind of ULIP policy or some other kind of insurance product is mandatory if you want the loan to be approved? Most of times, banks impose this restriction in the final stages of loan approval process because that’s the time when most of the customer will not reject the option and will forcefully go for it, because they don’t want to lose the home loan for this tiny roadblock.

Policy Forced Selling with Home Loan

If you are thinking about 50 lacs of home loan, you will not get stopped by this 40,000 per annum premium policy. Here is a case which was discussed on our jagoinvestor forum.

I recently planned to buy a home. So, after market research I approached SBI bank. But the manager informed by saying that ‘I need to take SBI Insurance along with home loan’ else will not sanction SBI home loan. Please let me know whether is it the case with SBI home loans?

Cross Selling is Unfair – IRDA

Some customers falls for these kind of gimmicks, but in reality there is no compulsion to buy any kind of product with home loan. It’s just a marketing gimmick and a way to exploit people. IRDA itself has clarified in its circular that this kind of bundling or forced selling is not fair and should be stopped. However banks still continue to ask customers to buy the insurance along with home loans and ill treat them.

Tying is defined as two or more products packaged together where at least one of the products is not sold separately while Bundling occurs when products are packaged but are also available separately. There could be various issues of concern for the consumer that arise from cross-selling. Packaging two or more products could become unfair to the consumer when it impedes his or her choice or makes price comparisons difficult or impossible.

One of the major concerns is bringing in transparency to prevent unfair commercial practices. At the same time, cross-selling facilitates service providers to use existing channels to reach out to those who are looking to buy insurance products. It is, however, necessary to ensure that the consumer is not put to any kind of disadvantage because of the packaging.

J. HARI NARAYAN
CHAIRMAN (IRDA)

So what’s the way out? It might be, that if you are careless on documentation front, the bank might sell you the policy and you come to know about it very late; like it happened in this case where Axis bank sold life insurance along with home loan to this guy. While you always have an option to go to consumer court over the issue, that comes a little later.

What way you can settle this at the bank level itself? The main idea is to communicate to bank officials that you are not a easy bait and are an informed investor who knows his rights as a customer. Below are a few things you can do in a situation when bank tells you “Sir – Insurance is compulsory along with home loan, else it will not be processed”

What to do when forced to buy insurance along with home loan ? Lets see 4 tips which you can use when you are told by your lender that some kind of policy is mandatory to buy along with home loan.

Option 1 – Directly tell them, you know the rules

One of the simple things you can do is tell them straight forward that you know the rules on this, you are aware about the RBI circular that these practices are not fair and ask the bank for an explanation on how they are still doing it. Also tell them, that you have yourself helped another friend of yours to get a home loan without the bundled insurance when XYZ bank asked for it. You can tell them that you have already filed for RTI to IRDA and asked for this, if they want you can bring the RTI reply from IRDA. This first tip itself should be enough for your home loan provider to come to the right path.

Option 2 – Reject the Offer and Wait – They will come back

When you show desperation, they know you will do anything for getting a home loan and that’s one reason why they put forward such idiotic restrictions of taking policies. Another thing you should do in these kind of situations is that you can just reject the offer totally and tell them that you really are not so desperate to get the home loan, you can wait for some months or you already know other bank officials who have not put forward such kind of restrictions . In all probabilities, they will just come on track or if not that time, they will be back to you later saying – “Sorry Sir, we take back that restriction .. blah blah… ”  This is exactly what happened with Muthu Krishnan which he shared on this blog some time back

IDBI tried to con me in similar manner. I told them that I don’t need their loan. After two days, they called back and offered loan without insurance which i accepted. Though you are absolutely desperate for loan, do not show it to the banks. The banks are very desperate to disburse loans as it is their livelihood and not ours. They will come around to our terms.

Option 3 – Ask them to give it in writing

The next option is to look at the bank official and ask him to give in writing that “Buying the Policy is mandatory along with Home Insurance” and also tell them you are thinking of inquiring about this with banking ombudsman because you have already filed a case for your friend and got compensation for this. If they are not ready to give it in writing, tell them that you don’t need home loan from them anyways, but you will still file a complaint with Banking Ombudsman to see what can happen and politely ask the official if he can also share his Name, designation and Employee id for additional information.

Option 4 – Take the Policy and return back in Free Lookup period

This is the last option, but if you feel that other options are great but you are victim of family pressure and at this time just need to go ahead even though you are disgusted by this force game, just go ahead with policy and pay the premium for first year. Then be a little alert and make sure the moment you get policy documents, just initiate the process of returning back the policy within the 15 day free look-up period . For those who do not know, the free look up period starts from the day you get the policy in your hands, not from the day you bought the policy. This helpful tip was shared by one of the person who shared his case with ICICI mis selling.

Conclusion

Any kind of loan should not be bundled with other products. Most of the bank officials try to pressurize the customers just to meet their deadlines and targets. So do not fall for forced selling and act like an informed and powerful customer.

Have you come across a situation like this? Can you share?

File RTI against PSU banks and get all information you wanted ever !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

We have already done an article on how to use RTI for any kind of EPF related issues because EPFO is an govt organisation and comes under the purview of RTI . But a lot of people do not know that even PSU Banks come under RTI and if you have any issues with them, you can always file a RTI against them and get any kind of information you want.

So that means SBI, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Punjab national Bank, Carana Bank, Vijaya Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and all other PSU banks (govt owned) will come under RTI . So the next question is what kind of situations can arise, when a person can file a RTI application. Lets see this – Prashant from Agra, had an issue with Canara Bank over the bank locker

My brother’s bank account is at canara bank, and he had taken a LOCKER there. He made his wife as joint account holder and with attorney. Now when she took locker keys to her home without informing we gave the manager an application that in case locker is secretly opened plz inform us. But after few days the lady mailed him(to manager) some application/or anything on his email.

when my brother n mother went to operate he stopped us.. and shouted at us in front of everyone as if we are thieves(account is in name of my brother). Manager is even not ready to show that email or copy of the same. Neither did he informed any of the 3 phone numbers given in application by us previously (he assured us to do the same). He yelled us out of bank(account is 12 year old in same branch) saying that he will FREEZE LOCKER. My brother the rightful owner wants to open his own account having keys to the locker yet not allowed.

Now in this issue, you can see that bank has not treated Prashant well and also not giving him the information properly. The bank people are also mishandling his locker. At this moment, Prashant can just file a RTI application and ask all those queries which he wanted to know. And within next 30-35 days , he should get the reply from the bank.

Let me share with you all 2 more real life incidents on how people used RTI against their PSU banks and got their work done !

1. How Kranti Used RTI against his Bank 

My ATM is locked due to some unknown reason. As usual customer-care directed me to contact branch. In branch a lady checks some info and said that this can not happen here, ATM will be unlocked by Mumbai main branch and advice me for new ATM card. At this time I have questioned them that in this case you will deduct charges from my saving account. Reply of lady was awesome, she simple blast on me and said that you people want everything free of cost. At that time I feel that there is no point in arguing with that lady and way back to my home.

After one week of try,suddenly I thought of applying RTI on this issue. I have met the branch manager and ask for how to apply RTI on this issue. Suddenly after listening name of RTI, bank manager came into action and directed same lady to solve this issue asap and said that if his issue is not resolved, he will file RTI. Surprisely my ATM is unlocked within minutes of action. In my case only name of RTI works wonder:)

2. How Elahi used RTI against SBi

RTI is very powerful and highly useful tool. Here is my experience with SBI. I have housing loan with SBI and they had charged extra interest of Rs. 73000 to me. So I filed RTI to get the detailed information of change in interest rates and to conform that my housing loan interest rate will be (SBAR – % concession.) After getting this information, I filed complaint with Branch and RACPC pune, giving them detailed interest calculations of interest for 4 years and asked them to refund my money. Waited for 3 weeks. SBI customer charted says that “Branch has to solve the problem withing 3 weeks elase wive written reply to customer telling why it is not solved and how much additional time is needed.”

After 3 weeks I pointed SBI to this clause ans asked for explaination through email. Then wheels started moving faster. Got my cresit within 2 hours. But it was not as per my calculation. I again explained them my claculations and after 3 credits they got their calculation right ! I got my money back completely. RTI works wonder. And every government and semi-govt. organisations have citizens charter. Use it for your purpose.

Note that Right to information (RTI) will only help a person get some information, after that he will have to follow up on that matter, but in today’s world, even if you get the correct data about something, its a big thing.

When to use RTI against PSU bank ?

  • When the bank is not giving you correct information about your home loan related items like interest rates, prepayment, documentation issues.
  • When you are not satisfied by bank behaviour, its service, the terms and conditions etc
  • When bank asks you some unjustified things like opening a FD for locker, buying some policy before locker can be opened !
  • When you feel that bank has done something against their own terms and conditions and is not entertaining you.
  • When you need any information from bank which you cant get directly !

Below is a video on RTI done by Sailesh Gandhi for Moneylife. Have a look at these video’s and understand how to effectively use Right to information in your life.

Branch Heads are also the CPIO’s !

When you file a RTI letter, it has to be addressed to Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) or Central Assistant Public Information Officer (CAPIO). Now all the major branch heads of PSU Banks are also CPIO’s and you can directly write the RTI letter to the branch head, but address them as CPIO’s . So in the place of address, mention the branch name and the name of the bank with full address. Some of the PSU banks also allow giving the RTI applications by hand to the Branch heads, but I would suggest try it on your own risk, sending the letter by registered post will be much better.

Steps for writing the RTI application against Bank

1. Download this RTI Template for Banks (Taken from Wealth Club)

2. Put the address and branch name of your Bank

3. Write down all the other details like name, address, email, phone and other details if any.

4. Put the information required at the appropriate place in the template. Make sure the question is brief and too the point.

5. Buy a postal order for Rs 10 , favoring to CPIO, Branch name, address (this you need to fill yourself).

6. Make sure you write the postal order number in the RTI letter, change it with your order number.

7. Take a print out and send the RTI letter via registered post or Speed post to the same address as Bank branch.

8. Wait for next 30-60 days for the reply and if you dont get it , escalate it further !

Note : You can also watch a detailed video course called “How to Use RTI in your financial life” (4 part video series , 19 min total running time) under our courses section of Jagoinvestor Wealth Club, incase you are a member.

Conclusion

So in this article, you have learned how you can also file RTI applications against a Public sector Bank in India and get all those information which you are not getting in proper manner otherwise.

End your 2012 with a BANG , Join Action Month

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

How do you want your 2012 to end? We always have to much of pending tasks in financial life. We know that the time required to complete most of the tasks is pretty small one and if we just dedicated 1 full day, most of those tasks will be completed within no time, but we keep delaying it.

Action month is back !

yearl We are conducting an Action month called “How do you want to end your 2012” for our wealth club members. We wanted to do this action month for our wealth club and then realized that why not include everyone, as its such a big event after a long time, hence we thought of sharing it with everyone. Last time we had a hugely successful action month and hundreds of readers completed so many tasks in their financial life within few days time. Go to the main Action Month page on Jagoinvestor Wealth Club. Listen to the Action Month Audio to understand what it is all about This time its your turn to complete those pending things and also do a yearly review. The theme of this action month is “How do you want to end your 2012” . We want to make sure that when 2012 ends, you complete most important pending tasks which you have been delaying from long and also have a clear view about where you stand in your financial life.

How to be part of this Action Month ?

Step 1 – Register for Action Month Action Month is CLOSED now Step 2 – Review your 2012 and complete pending things The next step is to review your 2012 and see if you are on track or not and then list down the pending items you want to complete before 2012 ends. When you register, you get a support excel sheet also. Wealth Club members already have access to yearly review checklist sheet. Step 3 – Action Month ends and share your success story Once you complete your action month, you can then share your actions and what all you did, It would be a great thing to let others know of your success and how you ended your 2012 and have planned your 2013. Go to the main Action Month page on Jagoinvestor Wealth Club.

For all the Participants

The registrations are open for only next 4 days and this action month will run for only till 31st Dec 2012. Note that all the updates about what you are doing in action month has to be done on the main Action month page on Jagoinvestor Wealth Club. Also the best sharing at the end of the Action Month will get a surprise gift from us.

Are you following these 6 rules of great financial life ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Everything in life has basic ground rules, which we should never forget. You can consider these ground rules as the pillars of your decision making activity. Even our financial lives have some ground rules to follow in order to have a great and enriching life. Over the last 5 years of writing this blog and having interacted with thousands of people, I can clearly conclude that more than making right decisions in financial life, you should focus on avoiding bad decisions. I have seen so many people who have been careful, not messed up things and their financial life quality is really awesome. They have not lost wealth due to foolish mistakes and live a clean financial life overall and while they feel lag behind others, I can say they are ahead of others in many ways. Yes – They have not taken awesome decisions, but the best part is they have not made terrible mistakes either. Lets explore more on this today

Pillars of a great financial life

6 pillers of great financial life

Now I am going to talk about 6 areas of financial life which are like pillers. If you are clear about these ground rules and start some serious work on all of them, your overall quality of financial life should go up. But having said that, its a long term activity !

1. Rule of Earning

“Do not depend on a single income. Invest and create a second/ third source of income”

So many people just never focus on this. A person in a job has just taken it as his fate, that his only source of income will be his Salary. For him alternate source of income other than his salary is like a distant dream which he can only see, but could not achieve. The same happens with a businessman at times. He depends solely on his business income. Why? Why not also have some other passive income from other non-core business area.

Atleast start thinking in that direction ? Lets Explore some extra income source. I dont say, it need to be some grand income, but lets make some start atleast, if not in action taking, atleast in thinking about it, I personally tasted some passive income from my first book royalty, while it was not a big one (opposite to what people think) , it atleast gave me some good feeling. Other than our business income, I had some source of income from other stream. Thats important ! . It can be a small income, not a grand one . Thats okay ! . Whatever is your specialization, you must be god gifted into some or the other thing in life, start sharing about it with world by writing about it, you never know when you start making fans for yourself and it might bring some opportunity to you in life. Nandish has written a nice piece of “Giving your Gifts to the world” on our Jagoinvestor Wealth Club, check it out . If you are damn good about something , why not offer consulting or accept freelance projects in your own capacity.

Forget all that, at minimum, If you are a person who comes home early, why not take some tutions to make few extra bucks. Its not about earning a little more, its about the habit of creating an extra income. You never know when, in the future when you might have to look at it seriously! . So the point is, go ahead and put a small seed in your head about “Creating Alternate income” .

2. Rule of Spending

“If you buy things that you do not need, you may soon have to sell things you need”

People are over spending. There is no doubt about this. Just look at your own expenses & write them down. Question each of your expenses, do you really need them? Is it out of necessity or just a desire which you can avoided altogether or atleast minimized? The answer will be in front of you. If you have not yet tracked where your money is going and if you are our special member at Wealth Club, you might want to download this Budget Template.

One of our Bangalore clients told us last year that he has seen a lot of his friends, who buy a car on the first day of getting the job! and mostly they dont need it. Its either to show off, or just that short term desire of own it, without thinking about long term aspects of it. Its just unplanned!. Then there are people buying 25 shirts, when they only need only 12. There are people, who don’t have the `haisiyat` of driving an Alto Car, but they have bought a Honda City just to show off !

It just violates the rule of spending!.

Slowly but surely, this will take them towards disaster. It will come as surprise (to them) one day. Spending is a core activity of your life. You earn so that you can spend it, nothing wrong with it, but there is a difference between spending and over-spending. Understand it today to make your future more robust.

3. Rule of Savings

“Do not invest what is left after spending, instead spend after you save/invest”

This is directly related to rule 2 above. If you do not control your spending, you can never be able to save much and then you will never be able to give your best for your wealth creation. Fix this clearly & prominently in your head. For most people the formula is

Saving = Income – Expenses

If you rely on the natural flow of life, you can never save. Life will give you all the reasons why you can only save amount X . At times Nandish tells me – “Manish , you know what, if you do not define the purpose for your money, money will find its own purpose” . This is very strong point , for a moment, just slow down and think about it. you will realise what it means. You need to control the flow of money and you have to create that flow yourself.

I just ask to most of the people to do this 1 min experiment. I tell them – “Imagine your employer says that from next month, you will get a salary cut of 10% and all you will get is just 90% in your income. For most of the people, will they not be able to live the same life as they lived till now ? If the answer is YES , then why are they waiting for ? Why not give that small salary cut to yourself as your gift to your financial life. You will enjoy this salary cut in coming years. trust me.

So your next task today is tell your family, yourself and your relatives that from now on you will be living on just 90% of your salary – PERIOD! . Start doing it and slowly you will see that magically – you will be able to manage things – Try it! It works! .Your assets , your net worth , and every bit of wealth comes from those tiny savings you consistently do for years. That’s the most important ingredient part of your wealth creation. If you do not focus on optimizing it, nothing else will work out!

4. Rule of taking Risk

“Never test the depth of the river with both your feet”

There is a very thin line between risk and calculated-risk. Calculated risk is the risk which is taken after due thought, and by accepting the future consequences and a thought full evaluation of how the odds are stacked.

If you invest a big sum of money in stocks, just because markets are going up and you do not want to miss the train, and just because that guy on CNBC said you should , then you are taking a risk. You will not be able to sleep at night for sure.

However if you look at the current market and tell yourself that – “Markets have not moved up from last 5 years, and this kind of situation in past have been proven to give great returns in next 5 years and you are economically ready to loose up to 30% of your money, and thats why you choose to invest in stocks, then its a calculated risk! . You have put some reasoning , thoughts and accepted the downside of that decision and hence you are taking that risk !

Taking risk is not a bad thing at all. It’s the only thing which can help you grow at exponential rate. Those who don’t take risks, just die a simple life most of the times. The best things in the life are on the other end of the Risk , its on the opposite side of it. So take risks, but always make sure they are calculated one ! . Over the long term, one an average, you will do great. Its proven already, I am just reminding you!.

5. Rule of Investing

“Do not put all your eggs in one basket”

Warren Buffet is not a very big fan of diversifying. All the money he has today, comes from stocks, but there is one simple rule he has followed – “Put all your eggs in one basket, if you know you are an expert of that basket and closely keep an eye on it”.

Most of us are not like Warren Buffet! . So lets not copy him. What if you have put most of your money in one single asset class or a property or a particular branch of a bank? or just a single stock. Things can go wrong, and when it goes wrong, you will cry out loud, but no will will be able to help. You will be helpless and will regret like anything.

As a best practice make sure that your wealth is not in a single place. Remember that portfolio diversification is mainly a tool of minimizing risk, not for maximizing returns, so don’t ask a stupid question like – “Will diversifying my money to different places increase my returns?” – The answer is “It might… or it might not!/. But properly done, it will surely minimize the risk of losing your wealth in future.” .

6. Rule of Expectation

“Control your expectations, and control your happiness – they are same thing”

One very dedicated reader of this blog – Pattu, who teaches at IIT Chennai, told me once that he does not expect equity to give him more than 8% of returns in long term and he always invests his money in equity, assuming that he will get 8% or better in long run. Anything more than that would be a bonus for him. I am sure that he must be happy all his life and will never be disappointed with equity returns.

In financial life, we expect agents to work in our favor, we expect financial products to give us amazing returns, we expect financial planners to charge less, but give an awesome experience (Like we give to our paid clients) , we expect life insurance companies to pay our family, even if we make some mistake while disclosing some important information, we expect our credit card to  forget the penalty for in-case we don’t pay on time, we expect government to decrease the tax rates.

If you look, we are an “expecting” machine in our life. I can say from my tiny experience of life till date, happiness and expectations are just the two different words for the same thing. If you want to get in control of your happiness level, just control your expectations in life. Stop the expectations from others, better control yourself and your expectations, because thats all you can control. not others.

Practice these 6 rules in your financial life

If you can master these 6 rules in your financial life, your quality of life will improve. Each decision of yours should originate out of these 6 piller rules.

What do you say? Which rule did you like the most? Share it with us in comments section…