Dear Mr Pramit Jhaveri ,
Last October an incident happened with me , on a fuzzy evening I went to the nearest ATM near my home - Deutsche Bank ATM where I provided my card to my cousin who went inside ATM to take money as I was on a concall with my office & guided some poor chap who required my help . Since you cant enter an ATM while talking on phone, I remained outside.
Turns out that there was no guard / money at ATM ,the machine gave an error after pin was entered and never dispensed the money. Also, there was one more guy who had the same experience.
Well, I finished call put my phone in my pocket & strolled to nearby Axis Bank ATM where we withdrew 1000/- INR and went home. Turns out some nasty surprises were waiting for me. I got a message from Citibank that 10K have been withdrawn from my account , flabbergasted I reported the incident to Citi on 7th October.
What happened next ? Ah well..to tell a long story short -
Citi reversed my money in 2 days (that was fast) & said they are investigating the issue.
Then they said the transaction was valid & reversed it again.
I disputed & said show me the CCTV footage -> no response.
Called their Citiphone officers (sic) muliple times & they said to check with Deutsche Bank, I commented why they were not taking end to end responsibility, they said its out of their scope.
Then I checked with Deutsche Bank and they said they will not entertain my request for CCTV footage.
Citiphone officer advices me to lodge FIR & I duly oblige.
Dec 2013 - Citi reverses money again & as per Simmy Sebastian (Citi escalation executive) on email, money is debited to my account & investigation continues.
5 months later (28 March 2014) Citi reverses money again :D with NO CONCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION & charged an overdraft of 3899/-.
Well Done Citi..
Now this pissed me off. I just survived humiliation at paying a bill because I thought there was money in my account when there was not. After fighting 38 minutes (at dead of night) with Citi IVR and their agent Chirag, I finally wrote an email to you , the acting Citibank CEO/hotshots describing the whole affair.
Here is the full email (which I expect you should have gone through by now, if not..then my faith is dwindling) -
(I have redacted my email address from all of the following email communication)
---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Rishabh Dangwal Date: Sat, Mar 29, 2014 at 2:06 AMSubject: Attention !! // 020-486-450 // New Ref# SDN14026864 // Citi Transaction & Customer Service Failure at Grassroot level // WORST SERVICE & FEEDBACK.To: "[email protected]" , [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], Executive Response , "[email protected]" , [email protected]: "[email protected]" , "[email protected]" , [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], Rishabh Dangwal
Mr Pramit / Mr Ashish / Mr Anand / Mr Vikram,
Gentlemen,
Let me bring incident 020-486-450 (New ref# SDN14026864 ) to your attention where Citibank has shamelessly ripped off all the rules of customer service. We all hate typing emails at 2 AM at night, ain't it ?
Short Summary :
On 7th October 2013 , a mis-transaction of 10000/- was done on my Debit Card at Deutsche Bank ATM for which Citi was *UNABLE* to provide any conclusive feedback for 5 straight months.
I was provided an immediate credit & it was agreed on email with Simmy Sebastian (Email attached) that Citi will provide me CCTV footage of ATM as an evidence before reversing any credit.
As discussed with *countless* Citiphone Officers (sic) they recommended to get in touch with Deutsche Bank (which I did) , raise FIR with police (which I did, again) but everything went futile & today (28 March 2014), Citi has reversed the transaction *WITHOUT INFORMING ME IN ANY FORMAL MANNER* & *WITHOUT PROVIDING ME CCTV FOOTAGE OF THE TIME OF INCIDENT*, & even penalized an overdraft of 3899/- .
Now points of concern are -
Citi *NEVER* informed me that they are closing investigation at their end and reversing credit, I barely survived humiliation when I thought I had money in my bank account when there was none, thanks to Citi as transaction was reversed.
FIR has been raised with police, CCTV Footage acts as an evidence in this regard. Citi didnt provided it & concluded it, then shall I sue Citi for causing hindrance in investigation ?
Citi failed to provide me the CCTV Footage & failed to meet the commitments & left me in a dire financial situation without explanation & information.
One sided followups were being done with NO PROACTIVE UPDATES on this matter.
I will be escalating the matter to RBI Ombudsman for failure of Citi to provide a conclusive feedback & failing at all echelons of customer service, its a huge disappointment at all grounds. I should infact also inform my colleagues at Orange Business Services (France Telecom) to migrate their accounts , its bad PR & its well justified if you ask me.
Right now, I had a word with Chirag Jain (Citiphone officer) at dead of night & in a 38 minute call I was unable to get to a senior person who can take responsibility & can be accounted for some justified action .
Infact I am so frustrated with onesided followups that once its solved, I would close my account with Citi & encourage my finance head at Orange Business Services to do the same, somehow I believe from this incident that how broken is the customer service at a world renowned bank like Citi.
PS : I know you all might be busy, so I have finally decided to blog about it at Prohack (www.theprohack.com) where I can make note of the progress which Citi makes once an issue is reported to head honchos of a company. If this doesn't works out right now, I would then know if I can trust Citi again or not.
I am attaching all the relevant documents of
Followups done with Citi
Agreement done with Citi wrt CCTV footage
FIR
Followup with Deutsche Bank
as a proof and testament of my words, lets see if Citi can finally provide me resolution.
I still want to believe & hope Citi stands for its customer values, requesting your urgent attention & complete cooperation in sorting this matter out.
Best Regards, ,
Rishabh DangwalNetwork Security Specialist
,
Orange Business Services (France Telecom)RHCE | CCNA | ITIL | CEHWebsite: www.ThePROHACK.com , www.RISH.co.in "Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes ?''
Trust me, if this isnt sorted out now, then I would recommend to NEVER TO OPEN an account with Citi since if a CEO cant sort a mess out, then of course a customer service is no good.
More over , its a huge fail in customer service that a guy is forced to address his concerns to CEO of Citi because the lower rungs of service and escalation fail to provide *any viable resolution*.
The best part Mr Pramit ?
Well..that ATM closed out, & I pointed it to Simmy/lots of other Citiphone folks that at max 2 months of video is stored in the ATM CCTV hard drive, and if you dont act fast, *YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET THE CCTV FOOTAGE*. Turns out they are not having any and are now bullying me by keeping me in dark.
Well Mr Pramit, if Citi can charge me to withdraw money from any other ATM, then I expect some services from Citi that safeguards my interests. It makes me shudder how one-sided this whole affair has been, if only you have an idea, a complete fail of all the echelons. If Citi can provide me CCTV footage since its a criminal case & stop taking independent conclusive actions without informing customer. Its a breach of customer trust and is an epic fail in code of conduct.
I still believe you guys have sensible online services, but customer service is one area in which Citibank India fails spectacularly.
I hope something could be done on it ? Aint it? Noone wants to type an email at 2 AM at night and blog at 2:40 AM about his horrible experience. If Citi wants that , then no thanks, I will close my account as soon as its sorted and will encourage my colleagues to do the same.
What a waste..
Rant aside..
I do hope something can be done in this regard. Wave your magic wand sire, I will be waiting for some concrete action..
Best Regards
Rishabh Dangwal
