Give it back
On January 29, 2013, I booked two return tickets from Abu Dhabi to Cochin in India through Air India Express (AIE) by using my credit card. Due to the death of the mother of one passenger, her onward sector (Abu Dhabi to Cochin) was cancelled on June 26, 2013, as she travelled on an earlier date and a new ticket was issued to that effect. A refund amounting to Dh707.34 was supposed to be credited back to my credit card within one month.
However, in spite of repeated e-mails to AIE’s customer support and contrary to the assurance from their office at Abu Dhabi from where the ticket was issued, the refund amount has still not been returned after more than seven months.
I request Gulf News to raise the issue with AIE. It is a substantial amount to me and I feel the pathetic treatment of such issues is not expected from such an airline such as this one.
From Mr Abdul Kharim
Abu Dhabi
The management of Air India Express responds:
This is to inform you that the amount has been refunded to the credit card on March 18, 2014. The amount will reflect to the credit card account within seven to eight working dates.
Mr Abdul Kharim responds:
Thank you for your help and follow up. I have received the payment.
(Process initiation: March 6. Response from organisation: March 18. Reader confirmation: March 18.)
No response
I bought four tickets for my family online from RAK Airways, with the flights scheduled in January 2014. But before the departure date, they announced that the airline would be closed from December 31, 2013, with immediate effect.
I have been following up with them for a refund for the past two months and went to Ras Al Khaimah twice, but there is nobody at their offices except a security guard. He doesn’t have any idea about how to get a refund. There is no contact number or e-mail address where when can follow up.
Please can Gulf News look into this matter? I am sure many people will have the same problem.
From Mr Syed Sher Farzand Ali
Dubai
(Process initiation: March 5. Process completion: March 26).
Editor’s note: The complaint was forwarded to RAK Airways for comment. However, despite repeated reminders, they did not respond.
Pending payments
I would like Gulf News’ assistance in solving an issue with my salaried account at Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB).
I applied for a loan in June last year and the loan was approved in August 2004. I submitted the required liability letters from Union National Bank (UNB), which was a personal loan and credit card, and from ADCB (car loan) in order to use the new loan from ADIB to pay off my liabilities.
However, ADIB miscalculated the payoff amount from UNB, as their liability letter clearly stated that they needed a cash payment to cover the cancellation of the credit card for a period of 45 days and ADIB issued a bank guarantee, which was not accepted by UNB.
I had to arrange to make the payment and have ADIB send the cheque again for clearing in October 2013. Once the cheque cleared my liabilities, UNB issued a no liability letter and no objection certificate (NOC) to transfer my salary to ADIB. The letter was issued on October 10, 2013 and had a validity of 30 days, clearly stated on the letter itself.
After numerous calls to the bank, complaints to the help line and follow-ups with my account representative, an ADIB staff member finally went to UNB and collected the NOC letter and submitted it to my office on November 28, well past the expiry date of the letter.
My office requested a new letter to be issued and I contacted ADIB to help me get the new letter, but there was little help and I finally managed to get a new letter done in February 2014 and my salary transferred at the end of the same month.
In order to keep my loan payments current, I have been paying cash at the end of each month at ADIB since the end of November 2013 to January 2014 and have paid a total of five instalments to date.
As a compromise with the collections department of ADIB, they said that as soon as my salary was credited to my account they would backdate the three pending instalments (August, September and October 2013) and add it to the end of the loan tenure, which was done at the transfer of my first salary.
However, the problem now is that in the system, it shows that I still have three payments pending and as such, they have put a bad credit risk against my account and I am not able to receive any additional facilities from the bank. I have tried to contact the bank, talk to the collections department and anyone who would be able to help or assist me, but no one has been able to help me or at least tell me with whom I can speak, to solve the problem.
I have been told by the collections department that it is not a big deal and that all they need is for the credit department to update their system information, but even trying to get a follow-up name or number has not helped me in any way.
I would appreciate Gulf News’ assistance in contacting ADIB to solve the problem.
From Mr Ekram Khan
Abu Dhabi
The management of Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) responds:
Many thanks for giving us the opportunity to investigate the matter.
We have gone through the chronology of events which lead to the frustration of our customer Mr Khan, and we apologise for the inconvenience caused.
Necessary changes have been made in our systems and the customer’s account has been completely regularised. We are pleased to inform you that the customer has already been contacted and notified of the same and is satisfied with the result.
Mr Khan responds:
Yes, the issue has been resolved and my account has been updated with the new information and everything looks normal. I would like to especially thank the head of Complaints Resolution Unit, ADIB, for personally following up on the issue and ensuring that I was kept updated on each step of the process. It was refreshing to have a contact at the bank who showed a willingness to solve a problem that should not have dragged for so long. Thank you Gulf News, for the intervention and I really appreciate the work that the newspaper does to assist those who really do not have a place to go otherwise.
(Process initiation: April 7. Response from organisation: April 8. Reader confirmation: April 9.)
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
