my free credit report Credit card woes take top slot in complaints register

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Complaints about credit cards form a major part of the grievances rece! ived by banking ombudsmen in financial year 2008 (April-March), according to RBI's annual report on ombudsman schemes.

RBI introduced the Banking Ombudsman Scheme in 1995 to provide an 'expeditious' and 'inexpensive' forum to bank customers for resolution of their complaints relating to banking services. The nature of grievances ranged from the issuance of unsolicited credit cards and unsolicited insurance policy to the recovery of premium charges and annual fees, despite the cards being offered for free, and from the issuance of loans over phone, disputes over wrong billing and settlement offers conveyed telephonically to non-settlement of insurance claims after the demise of the card holder.

A general feature of the customer complaints across the board was the problem in accessing credit card issuers and poor response from call centres. Further, the central bank report on ombudsmen scheme said the card ! issuers often attributed their mistakes in billing, accounting! and rep orting to technical snags. However, the report said on pursuing the complaints with card issuers, the charges debited were reversed in most cases without exception.

Misrepresentation and misleading information provided by direct sales agents as well as non-fulfillment of such oral promises made by these agents or bank officials at the time of marketing of products lead to a number of complaints. Complaints relating to failure on commitments made ranked second among those received at the offices of the banking ombudsmen.

The cases handled by ombudsmen reveal that bankers need to deal with customers in a more transparent manner, particularly in making them aware of the terms and conditions of the sanction and the specific connotation associated with them right at the beginning. Rationality in product pricing by banks and their dealing with default! situations are other areas which require added focus, as complaints on these fronts continue to come to the ombudsmen, the report said.

During FY08, ombudsmen received 47,887 complaints against 38,638 received in FY07, a rise of 24%, and disposed of 89% of the total complaints (84% last year), with only 11% carried forward the next year.

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