In this post, I just wanted to share a recent and really bad experience that I had with Kotak Mahindra Bank. In the end, I closed my account with these guys but not before I was out Rs. 12,000 for their so called “reasonable charges”. You read it right. I opened an account with these guys and ended up paying them for it. I mean how ridiculous this even sounds. The idea of having a bank account is that I save some money in it; keep it there and the bank pays me some interest against it. But not with Kotak Mahindra Bank. With this particular bank, you will have to pay to keep an account in your name and for being their customer. By the end of all of it, I was so frustrated that I almost yelled at them at the top of my voice.
Kotak Mahindra Bank
With all the new banks coming up every other day, it is definitely turning into a competition and banks have started to pitch to people for being their customer. That is how I fell for this trap. I was offered an account with Kotak Mahindra Bank by one of their agents. This was about a year ago.
I happened to be thinking about opening a new savings account at that time anyways; so after listening to all the benefits that guy listed for me, I decided to open an account with Kotak Mahindra. One of the several advantages that he listed for me, one was that it is a zero balance account; and the interest rate too was better than the market. There was no such requirement of maintaining a minimum balance (a condition that had never made any sense to me) so I just gave that guy Rs. 1000 at that time to open up the account. He actually himself suggested this amount to open the account.
Charges
All the formalities were done and my debit card, cheque book and all other paperwork arrived a week later in the mail. As luck would have it, I completely forgot about this account. The envelope remained unopened for more than a year and I never got to use the account at all; until recently when I decided to start putting in a few thousands in it each month as savings. I visited the bank, talked to the manager himself there to find out if the account was OK and if I could still use it. He assured me that my account was in good standing; my debit card, cheque book etc were all still valid; and I could use them anytime I want.
After this conversation, I came home and for the first month, I transferred about Rs. 15,000 in to this account. The very next day, I got a message on my cell that Rs. 11,000 were deducted from my account as Bank charges because I failed to maintain a minimum balance.
Misguiding the Customer
This made no sense to me. I went back to the bank the very next day and spoke to the manager again. This time I was told a different story. He said that I was required to maintain a minimum of 10,000 as balance in this account which was new to me. When I asked him why their agent and no one else told me this at the time of opening the account, he just shrugged his shoulders.
When I asked him why he did not tell me this yesterday; and rather assured me everything was fine, his answer was that he assumed I would already know about it. There was never a call, no message or any other sort of communication from the bank ever that I have to put in some money in to the account. They just took the money out and sent me a message. When I asked the manager why I was never notified, he again did not have an answer.
I immediately told him that I want to close this account. He on the other hand again assured me that he will speak to his superior and get the charges reversed. I thought I was going to get my money back so did not close the account at that time. A month passed and nothing happened, no money was transferred back in to my account. I called the manager a couple of times and he said he was working on it and I will get the funds back.
Robbing the Customers
I waited a couple of weeks more. However, what did arrive a month later was another message that more money was taken off my account as minimum balance charge. It got me totally furious. I deposited 15k in the account, they took out 11k already; and now they were taking more money out from the remaining 4k because my balance was still not 10k? I immediately went back to the branch but another surprise awaited me. This time a different manager was waiting for me. When I asked about the previous one, I was told that he quit the bank 10 days ago. And when I asked about my money, they simply refused saying that these were all valid charges and will not be reversed.
When I asked about the last charge because that was only put on my account after the manager did not let me close the account; they refused to reverse that as well.
That account is now closed and nightmare over but I am out several thousands and still furious. My word of advice, stay from Kotak Mahindra Bank as far as you can. Do not open an account here and do not do any kind of dealings with these guys. Day time Robbers is what I call them.
