It happens again and again. A person either has not accepted the credit card that was provided to him even when he had not requested the credit card, or he was charged for some amount where he did not make the transactions. Mistakes can happen, even though in cases of a financial nature, one would expect a much greater deal of carefulness on the part of the bank. However, what really takes the cake is when the bank refuses to come clean, or behaves in a manner that is totally against accepted consumer service behavior:

Paresh Karia (30), the owner of Jeetendra General Store, a grocery shop near Sonapur Lane in Kurla (W), was in for a shock when he received an ABN Amro credit card statement for June showing Rs 44,900 as due. Karia claimed that he never received the credit card. Karia said he approached the bank several times, but they did not reply. The bank allegedly did not even respond to his advocates’ letters. According to him, the bank has even started sending notices and making calls. “In the last two months, I have received over 15 calls from the bank’s recovery department, threatening me and demanding repayment of the dues and the late fees.”
He said, “In April, one of the bank’s telemarketing executive called me, asking me to apply for the bank’s credit card. At first, I refused, but the executive kept calling me, after which, I took the card. In May, the executive took my signature on the form, and took documents like PAN card and my HSBC Bank statement.” After 15 days, Karia received a confirmation call from the bank to verify the documents. However, Karia refused to give the details on phone and asked the executive to come down to his shop. “The next day, I received a parcel from the bank,” said Karia.

From time to time, the RBI and various Consumer forums have asked banks and other financial institutions to behave, and many times charged penalties, but these incidents keep on happening. It will come to a time when courts will actually start hauling executives of the banks before the court, like a court almost did to the ICICI Chief.

This is about a seemingly big fraud that India’s largest private sector bank is playing on its customers, giving a designation for something, and then doing something that is directly opposite, just so that they can squeeze their customers even more.
I used to work in Chennai, and had an ICICI account over there (that was a salary account). Later, I used the same account for linking to the ICICIDirect stock trading facility. Some time later, I switched jobs and cities, and moved over to the capital city, Delhi. While migrating many of my details, I asked the local ICICI bank about what I should do about my existing account, and they informed me that I can use my account as is, except that checks that I issued would involve an additional charge because of the different city status. Okay, so I stopped using the ICICI Bank account for this purpose, and used my alternative salary account instead for check issual.
However, this always was a bit irritating since the stock trading account being ICICI meant that a lot of inflow and outflow would go through the ICICI account, and not being able to use the money for checks meant a small inconvenience. Imagine my pleasure some time later when I learned that ICICI Bank was now issuing payable-at-par checks. I started using these for regular transactions in Delhi, and imagine the shock when I saw a multi-city charge to my account. Upon asking ICICI Bank about this charge, guess what they told me about the ‘payable-at-par’ checks ?
“Multi-city cheque payment charge is a charge for clearing a payable-at-par cheque at an outstation location (i.e. outside your city).”
Further, this is their definition of what payable-at-par means:
“Please note that ‘Payable at par’ means a cheque is payable at any location in India.”
Very strange. So were they claiming that their earlier checks would not get paid if I gave them to somebody in Delhi ? I don’t see what benefit their customers are getting as per their definition of ‘payable-at-par’, it is only ICICI Bank that can claim that they are also issuing payable at par checks, and yet get away with charging a penalty to their users.
I tried using their complaint site at https://infinity.icicibank.co.in/salesEARWeb/web/rbi/jsp/index.jsp, but it built using Javascript, and the complaint option did not work (maybe they do not want to see complaints)

Looking to buy a Mutual Fund ? Most investors into Mutual Funds buy on the basis of recommendations from friends, from the broker / agent, or from some research. But if you want to buy a Mutual Fund, there are a lot of variables such as
- the industry into which the fund is investing,
- the aggressive / cautious nature of the Fund,
- the past history of the Fund Manager,
- the level of customer service orientation of the fund house
In a lot of cases, people overlook such information and then later are not happy with the performance of the Mutual Fund (for example, they bought an aggressive Fund that is more risky, and were shocked when it fell more than a cautious fund at the time of a crash).
There is a link on Economic Times that seeks to explain some of these concepts:

It is important to be well informed before you invest in a mutual fund on the premise that the fund will deliver. And when it comes to a fund in which you have already invested, it is even more crucial to be well up on numbers and facts. Sectoral allocation is also important. Excessive exposure to one sector can mar the returns if the sector underperforms. It is also important to compare the stock exposure norms and sectoral allocation over a sustained period of time. This gives you an idea as to how the funds have been deployed and the risk associated with such portfolio diversification.
Two key ratios you must keep in mind are portfolio-turnover ratio and expense ratio.
Portfolio-turnover ratio is a measure of churning the fund has undergone while the expense ratio tells us about the cost of managing the funds.
Higher portfolio turnover is seen in opportunities fund and in more actively-managed fund. Value funds are expected to show a low-portfolio turnover.

Read the whole article, and search for more information regarding such investments. Even though learning about Mutual Funds and their details could take some more time, it is worthwhile since you should make your investment when you are an informed investor. This will also help you to make decisions about investment or withdrawal in a better manner, and make you more money overall.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/3279973.cms

ICICI Bank is the largest private banks in India, and caters to a large number of people in terms of banking accounts, loans, etc. However, there have been many cases in the past where the bank has been penalized for harassing a person (do a search in Google and you will find many such cases); and it is not only ICICI, but many other banks who have been fined for such behavior. Such harassment by banks has started attracting the attention of the RBI and courts (more so, the various consumer forums), who have started fining the banks and using harsh language against the banks. Refer the details of this case (delivered in end-April 2008):

LUCKNOW: In a major judgement, the district consumer forum (DCF) here has directed the ICICI Bank to pay Rs 5 lakh as “exemplary compensation” to Dr AS Pradhan, a city-based doctor, for subjecting him to severe mental torture by forcing him to repay a loan which was never disbursed to him. Pradhan had applied for a Rs three lakh loan in the ICICI Bank in November 2003 for purchasing a second hand car.
He was asked to pay margin money of Rs 10,000 and complete the formalities with a promise that the loan would be sanctioned in a month. But as the sanctioning of loan got delayed, the person from whom Pradhan was supposed to purchase the car sold it off to another party.

And you can guess the rest. The bank did not disburse the money to the Doctor, but still had the gall to demand the money. In the end, the Doctor was forced to pay the money to the bank. It is only the consumer court that came to his help and gave him relief. At some point of time, the court systems in India are going to start ordering criminal charges where force has been used, and that will be an even bigger public relations disaster for the various banks.
They have to face a legal and judicial system that slows down recovery of their debt, but using force is not an answer. Additionally, doing it in a mistaken case is even worse.

Suppose you have never needed a PAN card till now, and now you find that you are starting to earn some money (your first job, and boy, does it feel good to start earning some money of your own). You need a bank account, you want to invest some of this money for the future, and suddenly everybody starts asking you to make a PAN card. A 1. PAN card, what’s that and why do you we need it ?
What Is PAN? - Permanent Account Number (PAN) is a ten-digit alphanumeric number, issued in the form of a laminated card, by the Income Tax Department.
2. Why Is It Necessary To Have PAN? - It is mandatory to quote PAN on return of income, all correspondence with any income tax authority. From 1 January 2005 it will be mandatory to quote PAN on challans for any payments due to Income Tax Department.
It is also compulsory to quote PAN in all documents pertaining to financial transactions notified from time-to-time by the Central Board of Direct Taxes. Some such transactions are sale and purchase of immovable property or motor vehicle or payments in cash, of amounts exceeding Rs. 25,000/-to hotels and restaurants or in connection with travel to any foreign country. It is also mandatory to mention PAN for obtaining a telephone or cellular telephone connection. Likewise, PAN has to be mentioned for making a time deposit exceeding Rs. 50,000/- with a Bank or Post Office or depositing cash of Rs. 50,000/- or more in a Bank.

But, worry not, you can easily generate a PAN card for your own use. You need to apply through the relevant PAN application form, and here is an Online site that lets you do the same (link). You can do the following at this site:
1. Apply for a new PAN
2. Reprint of older PAN
3. Transaction Status Inquiry
4. Changes or Correction in PAN details
5. Status Track for PAN application