Dear Manish,
I am an NRI, settled overseas for overseas, recently came to India on personal visit.
I had a Standard charted bank credit card back in 1997 till 2001 (bearing no: 4129038080164369). In the year 2001, I went to the bank and cancelled my credit card and settled the outstanding of somewhere around 40k or 45k.They gave me some settlement discount and I paid them cash and the very manager cut my card into pieces. They said they will send No Dues Certificate by post and also that, credit card outstanding was settled in full and final.
I don’t exactly remember if I had received this letter and all these years there was no correspondence from SCB.
In 2009, after say around 8 years of my settling the outstanding at SCB bank, some collection agency people started calling my home in Hyderabad and started threatening and mentally harassing my mother, asking her to pay the outstanding of 1.7 lac or some odd amount approximately, (I don’t exactly remember the amount).
This was so annoying for us as they also took my New Zealand mobile number and started calling me in odd hours. This was sheer mental harassment both for my mother and for me. Hence, I called up SCB call center, this was early 2010 and spoke to the supervisor and explained the matter. He then started seeing my credit card history on his system and acknowledged: that an amount of 40k or 45k was paid in 2001 and since then there were no transactions in the card. I told him again that it was my full and final settlement amount that I paid and cancelled the card so there’s no point of any further transactions.
After long discussions, he said he there might be some mistake and will look into the matter and fix the issue. And after that there were no calls and again no correspondence from SCB.
Now (year 2013), 3 years after I spoke to SCB call center, I came back to Hyderabad, India, on a personal visit and on 21st October 2013, I received a letter from advocate stating they have been appointed by SCB and have right of collecting the payment of debt from me for the credit card, which I actually cancelled and paid in full and never used after 2001.
Their letter says that I owe 7,71,774.9699/-(Seven Lac Seventy One Thousand and Seven Hundred and Seventy four rupees and ninety six paise) on my credit card and asks me to attend a conciliation camp for settlement of the amount on 09-11-2013 or they will take legal action and recover the outstanding.
I am extremely disappointed, and troubled by the way a professional bank like SCB fails to address the issues. It’s been 12 years that I have cancelled and settled the card. And now, this legal notice and no correspondence as such from the bank till date.
I called up the call center on 27th October 2013, to get clarifications:
1. The CSR who picked up the call, Sandhya kept me on hold for one hour, and no response.
2. Second time I called, CSR Hamsa, gave me reference n.o 201310197463 and said that a manager will call you and no one called till date.
3. Third time on 30th oct’13, CSR Vidya said they have sold the account to sana fin lease and SCB can’t retrieve my history and tell me what went wrong.
I even sent them a mail yesterday to head.services@sc.com, and I received a mail saying they have sold that account to M/s. Shaha Finlease Pvt ltd and asked me to contact them for repayment of dues.
My credit card was issued by SCB bank and now, the very bank refuses to address the issue inspite of their fault!!
I have cancelled and settled the card in 2001 and after 12 years, they send me a legal notice for the amount I haven’t used at all??
I have lost complete trust in SCB, hence, I am writing this letter to you.
As an NRI and living overseas for long, I am less aware of legal issues and how to deal with them.
Request you to please help so as to what should I do, where do I complaint and how should I solve the issue in my short visit.
Waiting for your kind advice
Thanks and Regards
Rahul Kashyap.