Customers’ grievances with banking and IT issues raised

One reader complains about incurring double charges on a credit card transaction, while another has an issue with online trading

Charged twice

On

January 7, I travelled to Doha and used my credit card. When I checked my online statement, a transaction with the date ‘ January 7’ showed up in my January statement. When I checked February’s current statement, I noticed the amount had been charged again, with the same transaction date of January 7. I immediately called Emirates NBD on January 14, filed a dispute form and waited for up to 90 days.

On March 18, the bank ‘ permanently credited’ the same transaction amount, dated January 7. Little did I know that I would be charged yet again in the May statement, with the same amount and date of January 7! I called the bank, very angry and confused with the fact that they had been playing with my statements, and no surprise — I had to go through the dispute case again. Only this time, the bank never followed up my call requests.

On August 27, I received a letter from the bank claiming that the transaction was valid, with one of the proof pages appearing to state gibberish — it was worse than reading through a doctor’s prescription.

Additionally, Emirates NBD had based their claim on a letter sent from Qatar National Bank with the wrong transaction date. My claim was on January 7, not April 27. During this last dispute claim, I had already informed the bank that the claim was valid and I did travel to Doha — my only issue was that the bank charged me twice ( each on a separate month’s statement). This was very clear to them from the beginning and yet they still got that wrong.

On September 25, I went to the branch and had to go through this whole scenario again to file a dispute case for the original one and was told the waiting period would be similar, if not more. From Mr Vasileios Papadopoulos Dubai

The management of Emirates NBD responds:

We

are pleased to inform you that our Group Customer Experience team has been in touch with Mr Papadopoulos and provided him with the necessary clarifications relating to his disputed transaction.

We would like to confirm that the disputed transaction request received in January, 2014 was reversed to Mr Papadopoulos’ account on March 18, 2014.

However, the merchant has claimed the transaction once again in April 2014 with an additional proof of the mentioned transaction. This was the reason for the customer’s dispute request being rejected by the bank.

Upon receiving customer’s escalation, we have re- assessed the case and arranged to credit his credit card with the disputed amount giving the customer the benefit of the doubt and the matter shall be taken up with the merchant internally. We have contacted the customer and explained to him the dispute process and informed him about the action taken.

We would like to thank you for your continuous support in offering us the opportunity to further assist our valued customers.

Mr Papadopoulos responds:

Thank

you Gulf News, for the support and guidance through this dispute. I can confirm the bank has credited the amount to my account and have sent an email acknowledging that.

I would like to thank the team for all the hard work and effort put into this matter.

( Process initiation: September 29. Response from organisation: October 2. Reader confirmation: October 6.)

Issues with IT

Several

months ago I started my stock market trading with Mashreq Securities. Unfortunately, they did not live up to my expectations and I lost over Dh1 million as a consequence because of their inability to solve their IT problem, which was the root cause of the problem.

Every time I did any stock trading, their system logged me off.

And each time I called, they said that they were working on the problem and would get back to me, but never did. They also advised me to call them for my orders but they hardly picked up the phone. What if I had a sore throat or couldn’t speak Arabic or English and just depended on their system?

This problem went on for over three months until it reached a margin call. By then, all my savings were exhausted. When I decided to seek help of other authorities, that was when the management of Mashreq bank resolved the problem within a working day.

By this time, 18 staff members were already involved with my problem and despite knowing my issue, all they did was send me emails to sell my stocks within 24 hours or they would be forced to sell them for me, whenever trading reached its margin call.

Eventually, they set up a meeting with me wherein they offered to reduce their commission from 8 to 2 per cent for my future trading. My questions are, how could they so easily have resolved the IT problem within a working day although I begged them for several months when I still had the means? Were they just doing this for a margin call? For a single transaction, their IT was logging me off at an average of 15 to 20 times. From Mr Saleh Al Hashemi Dubai

The management of Mashreq responds:

Our investigation has revealed that Mr Al Hashemi was facing online issues on the Online Trading platform, which we have addressed and ensured a constant follow- up was done with the customer.

Our Brokerage Team made sure our customer was kept updated with all developments until the technical issues were addressed.

In total, over 80 calls were made between the customer and our side, to maintain communication.

Records show that Mr Al Hashemi placed successful orders through our Online Trading Platform and we have not been informed of any issues since then.

Mr Al Hashemi’s complaint with regard to the same issue was reviewed and dismissed by Emirates Securities & Commodities Authority ( ESCA).

Moreover, senior representatives from Mashreq Gold & Mashreq Securities have met with Mr Al Hashemi where we have made an offer to our customer to trade on a reduced interest rate for six months as compensation for the inconvenience, which the client faced. He has accepted and signed the interest rate revision form on July 22, 2014.

( Process initiation: August 28. Response from organisation: September 2.)

Editor’s note: Do you have similar issues that you would like to raise with us? You can write to us at readers@ gulfnews. com.