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The bank had paid 8 cheques amounting to Rs. 12,59,881 by debit to the account of the complainant's firm even though the firm had earlier advised the bank to stop the payment of the cheques.
The bank paid the cheques in violation of the stop payment instruction. it had no authority of the account holder to debit the account with the amount of the cheques. The bank was therefore, liable to pay to the complainant an amount equivalent to the amount of the cheques honoured by the bank in violation of the instruction for stoppage of payment. The complainant was entitled to get the payment as a relief whether or not the complainant incurred a loss in the transaction with payee.
The Bank was directed to make the payment for the cheques to the complainant.
The complainant had requested for extension of Bank Guarantee issued in their favour or in case extension was not done, pay the guarantee amount. The bank neither extended the validity period nor paid the guarantee amount to the complainant. The bank had taken the plea that a case was pending before BIFR in respect of the applicant company who was a borrower of the bank and a recovery proceeding was also filed before the DRT for recovery of the bank's dues from the complainant company.
The bank in its argument further contended that the invocation made was conditional and therefore, the bank could not extend the validity period of the Bank Guarantee without the consent of the borrower. However, this view was not communicated to the complainant before the expiry of the Bank Guarantee. It was also observed that the bank did not respond to the complainant's letter of extension or invocation, which was an unequivocal communication from the complainant.
Even if the letter was conditional as contended by the bank, the bank did not intimate so to the complainant within the validity period. Non- fulfilment of any condition between the applicant company and the bank could not be the ground for rejection of the invocation notice. In view of the above reasons, the bank agreed to pay the amount of the guarantee to the complainant.
The complainant had instructed X branch of the bank at Chandigarh to remit Rs.60,50,000 to a Bank at Auckland, New Zealand in INR to which bank agreed vide its e- mail communication. However the bank remitted the amount in NZ $ without consulting her. She stated that she suffered a loss of Rs.2,84,000/- on account of the difference in the conversion rate. She added that due to this a deal for purchase of a petrol pump in New Zealand was cancelled. She requested for refund of Rs.2,84,000/- along with other financial damages.
The bank had initially conveyed to the complainant by e-mail that it could remit the money in INR. However, their Payments Division informed branch that the remittance cannot be made in INR but must be made in New Zealand dollars (NZ $). The bank immediately contacted the complainant over the phone and informed the complainant that her instructions for remittance cannot be made in INR but must be made in NZ$. The bank, pursuant to a series of discussions with the complainant, understood that the complainant had agreed for the remittance of the money in NZ$ at the special rate.
The bank was negligent in remitting the amount in NZ $ inspite of clear written instructions from the complainant to remit the amount in INR. The bank had to pay the complainant an amount of Rs.2,84,000/. The bank was further ordered to pay interest as applicable to NRE savings accounts from the date of transaction till the date of payment of the above amount.
The bank debited the complainant's savings account (receiving salary credits) with sum of Rs.67,416 without his consent or authority. The bank submitted that the disputed debit was made in terms of a letter from his employer and in response to it the bank issued a Pay Order to the employer. The employer’s letter stated that the amount was inadvertently remitted to the complainant’s savings bank salary account and he was not entitled to this amount.
Bank's contention was that the debit, represented salary paid by mistake and therefore, was repaid to the employer, and this transaction was similar to what prevails in respect of excess payment of government pension to pensioners. The facts presented by the bank do not support its claim that, through the bank, the employer is entitled to take back amounts wrongly paid to the credit of the employees’ accounts.
In this case the bank acted as an agent of the employee in receiving funds and passing on the salary amounts to the employee’s account. As soon as the amount was paid to the employee, even though the employer paid it by mistake, it became the money of the customer (the complainant) and bank cannot pay it back to the employer without the consent of the customer.
The complainant availed a car loan from the bank. She was told that loan was sanctioned at 9% interest and the it could be closed within a year of regular payment of EMI without payment of any additional expenses. When she closed the loan account with the bank, she realized that the bank has charged an interest of 11.43% and they had charged an additional 3.31% as pre-closure charges. The bank issued a 'free credit card' as 'gift' to her for whom they charged Rs. 700/- as service charges, which was neither asked for by her nor used by her. She requested for the refund of excess charges collected by the bank.
The bank officials replied that the bank has charged as per the terms and conditions agreed to by her. The bank through their agent misguided the complainant about the rate of interest and bungled on many issues with respect to her loan account. There was severe bungling and gross negligence in the matter and the complainant was put to anguish and mental tension. as she was forced to contact the bank many times for each issue. Bank also did not care to give a timely reply to this office to settle the complaint.
The bank was ordered to pay a token compensation of INR 10,000 to the complainant on her acceptance of the same and withdrawal of the complaint .
The complainant had availed of a Home Loan. One of the terms of sanction of the said loan was “prepayment fee of 2% on the principle outstanding if the prepayments are made through Institutional / HFC's cheque / Pay Order. In case the premature closure of Home Loan account with own funds, no prepayment charges will be levied”. When the Complainant requested for closure of his Home Loan account, and issued a cheque from his Savings Bank account maintained with Bank, the Bank demanded 2% prepayment penalty. The Bank insisted on payment of penalty stating that it had come to know that the source of funds for closure of his housing loan was a housing loan availed from Home Finance Company.
The matter was examined by the Banking Ombudsman based on the documents submitted by both the parties. As the complainant had prepaid the loan by a cheque on his Savings Bank account, it was decided that the Complainant was not liable to pay the prepayment penalty of 2% as contended by the Bank.
Hence, the Bank was advised to release the property documents to the Complainant without insisting upon prepayment fee of 2%.
The complainant had availed of two credit cards from two different Banks. He had closed both the cards by paying an amount of INR 35,000 thereby clearing all outstanding dues. However, 13 years after paying all his dues, he received two separate notices from banks for paying INR 1.24 crore and INR 1.58 crore, respectively as outstanding amount on his credit cards. This also impacted the complainant's credit rating.
The Banks in their defence replied that their credit cards data was inadvertently sold to an asset reconstruction company (ARC) and that it had to be taken up with the ARCs to nullify the outstanding dues and carry out necessary amendments in credit status of the customer. ARCs have been specially established for the purpose of purchasing bad assets or non-performing assets (NPAs) from banks at a negotiable price and help banks to clean up their balance sheets (by removing the NPAs).
The Banking Ombudsman directed the banks to make the outstanding dues as nil and clean up the complainant's credit history with the credit information companies.
The complainant claimed that an unauthorised real-time gross settlement (RTGS) transfer of Rs8.50 lakh has been done from his account using a cheque, which was neither issued nor signed by him. Interestingly, the customer claimed that he did not even receive an SMS alert regarding the debit. When the customer took this issue, the bank reversed Rs6.39 lakh. However, the balance amount of Rs2.11 lakh was not reversed by the bank.
The bank informed him that a request was received by the bank for change of the customer's mobile number. However on further enquiry, it was observed that the signatures on the application as well as on the cheque were different from those in the bank records.
Keeping the above in mind and the fact that the bank had credited Rs6.39 lakh to the customer's account, established that the bank had agreed to the claim of a fraudulent transaction in his account. The banking ombudsman advised the bank to pay the balance amount to the complainant.
The Complainant received an offer from the Bank for an exclusive credit card. It came with an offer that promised the members who pay the joining and annual fee in full (including taxes) will be given a flight voucher to and from in any section within India as a complimentary offer. However despite making the annual fee payment, the Bank refused to provide the complimentary flight voucher.
The Bank did not dispute the fact that the customer had availed a credit card and the offer had been made. However it claimed that the issuance of flight ticket has been discontinued and expressed their inability to issue the Flight Ticket to the Complainant. The act of the Bank in inducing the Complainant by making false promises of giving Complimentary Flight Offer to take up a credit card and thereafter failing to send the Complimentary Flight Ticket, amounts to unfair trade practice.
The matter came up before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. The Commission directed the Bank to pay compensation of Rs.50,000 and costs of Rs.5,000
