Review – ICICI Bank Credit Cards

Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India or in short ICICI Bank is an Indian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Vadodara, established in 1994. It is in many ways the first bank in India to end the monopoly of Government banks in Indian market. It was the first private bank in India that was considered as a major financial Institution and over the time got included in Big Four banks of India.

Before ICICI, the concept of ATMs was fairly unknown to Indian public. This was the first and most beneficial strategy of ICICI that helped them gain a major share of the market. They started putting up ATMs all over the cities; so many that they still have the maximum numbers of available ATMs in India. The ease of withdrawing cash whenever and wherever you want, avoiding the hassle of paperwork and standing in a queue at the bank, sounded so lucrative to Indians that within no time, ICICI had branches all over the country. However, over the time and as more and more private banks came up, ICICI had now moved away from “attracting customers” to “trapping customers”.

I, being a typical Indian, did not at all believe in the use of credit cards however gradually learnt its importance as a method to improve credit ratings. With increased Internet usage in our lives, Credit cards do come in handy when you have to make an online purchase. When I first thought of getting a credit card, my friend warned me against ICICI Bank saying that they are just “a bunch of crooks”. I for some reason ignored his warning and went along with an ICICI credit card, majorly because it did not have an annual fee to it.

Unfortunately, my experience with ICICI was so bad that I ended up closing the credit card within no time. Below are just some of the several reasons:

1. Credit Limit: Their credit limit is literally a disgrace. The limit they offer on their gold and platinum cards is less than the limit of limit that other banks offer on their entry level cards.

2. Refuse to Increase Limit: Even if you made timely payments for over a year, they will still refuse to increase your limit.

3. Top-Up Products: They will constantly try to sell you several of their insurance products like fraud charge cover, credit card loss insurance, ICICI Lombard Insurance and the list is endless. If you buy any of these products, you will start seeing a monthly or quarterly charge on your credit card as a premium towards these policies.

4. Hidden Charges: There is absolutely no clarification on their hidden or extra charges. For example, I made an international transaction online but before doing that, I called their customer service to enquire if I will get charged an additional fee for it and was ensured that I wouldn’t. Still, when I saw my credit card statement, there was a service fee included. Their dollar conversion rate too was ridiculous.

5. Customer Service: They have the most pathetic customer service ever. Talking to their agents who are rude and unprofessional to the limit is a pain that no one should ever have to go through.

Irritated after a certain incident, I called in their customer service to close my account. To my bad luck, I had made the mistake of buying an ICICI Lombard policy on my credit card but before doing so, I enquired in particular and made sure that they won’t hold the limit on my card and if I wanted to, I can cancel the policy any time. This inquiry was made in the last part that was recorded when I agreed to the policy. Still when I wanted to close my account, I was told that the policy was holding my limit and if I wanted to stop using the card, I will have to pay that amount off. On top of it, their retention department did not even take my call to offer a rebuttal to stop me from closing the account even though I always made my payments on time; was never over the limit and was never late. The lady I was speaking to was rude enough to tell me, “you can do whatever you want but you bought a policy from us so you will have to pay. If you can’t pay for it then you should have thought about it before you agreed to buy”. Luckily it was a small amount and I just wanted to get rid of that credit card so I just agreed to pay whatever small amount they were torturing me for. I could have asked for that recording but going through all that pain for a small amount did not seem worth it to me.

Since then, I have several credit cards from several other banks with my limit 5 times than what ICICI had to offer. Every now and then I get calls from ICICI offering me their platinum cards but I have made a point in my life now never to deal with ICICI again.