Stuck to invest
My three colleagues and I have taken a Salama Insurance Investment plan through RAK Bank. A RAK Bank representative visited our office as walk-in sales representative and he convinced a couple of our staff including me to open an account with RAK Bank and together with that to be a part of the Salama monthly saving plan. He convinced us that we need to continue with the monthly instalments for the minimum locking period of 13 months and thereafter we can withdraw the paid up amount with interest. He made us sign on all the documents related to that plan as well.
Now, all of us have completed 13 months and more. When we approached the bank to close the instalment plan and to withdraw the money, they confirmed that the company will deduct 63 per cent as surrender charges from the total paid value. Now the Investment department is asking us to continue for 21 years, which is impossible for expatriates like us.
It was pretty late to realise that we did a blunder signing the documents without reading them properly based on the trust what we had with the representative. What had happened has happened. My intention by writing this mail is for other people to prevent being trapped by these representatives. Appreciate if you can assist all of us somehow.
From Mr Midhun Radhakrishnan Vadukottumethal
Dubai
Mr Ian Hodges, Head of Personal Banking, RAK Bank, responds: Thank you for giving us an opportunity to justify our stance on the issues raised by Mr Vadukottumethal, RAK Bank customer, before you decide whether to proceed with publication.
Please note that RAK Bank markets and distributes products offered by Salama – Islamic Arab Insurance Co. (PSC) (“Salama”).
Mr Vadukottumethal had submitted the duly filled and signed Salama insurance proposal form along with relevant documents including a signed illustration. These documents clearly note the Plan Term and state that the fund value and encashment value are not guaranteed by Salama and are subject to surrender charges, currency exchange rate and the cost of benefits.
After receiving the duly signed proposal form, we arranged for a telephone call to Mr Vadukottumethal to confirm his understanding of the product features, including premium and plan term. The same was confirmed by the client basis which we progressed with processing the application. The policy also allows a free look period of 21 days from the policy issue date during which the policyholder can request for cancellation of the policy in writing without incurring any charges; this is clearly mentioned in the related policy Terms and Conditions which were duly accepted by Mr Vadukottumethal. The policy documents were received by Mr Vadukottumethal on February 2, 2013 within the free look period.
Since receipt of your email, we have contacted Mr Vadukottumethal and informed him of our stance in the matter. In view of customer confidentiality, we would not be providing any further information for the concerns raised by the client on behalf of other clients.
Mr Vadukottumethal responds: We had a meeting with RAK Bank officials. They just came to ask us to continue with the plan instead of closing it now. They have their own justification that we signed the document and we did answer the verification call from the bank.
We agreed that we did sign and answer the call, and we did accept the mistake what we have done believing the RAK Bank representative.
They didn’t mention anything on the mistake done by their sales person who sold the plan to us just to attain his monthly sales target.
In short they have confirmed that whatever money we invested so far will have a 63 per cent surrender charges or else we need to continue the plan till the maturity for us to get full fund back.
We have lost the trust on RAK Bank just because of the sales person’s misguidance, and none of us is interested to continue with the plan even if we lose our money.
We finished the meeting saying they will report to the management on what we discussed. That’s it.
Editor’s note: The follow up letter was forwarded to RAK Bank for further comments. However, its management said that they had nothing further to add.
(Process initiation: August 10. Response from organisation: August 11. Process completion: August 27.)
No clue
I applied for etisalat’s Double Play eLife and the connection was made on March 20. Then, I decided to switch from Double Play to Triple Play, and the service was connected on March 31. When I checked my account in April, I found that the total bill amount due was Dh917.63 and that is just for 11 days of service usage and advance for the month of April.
Then, in May, my total bill amount due was Dh1,659.63. As per my knowledge and information provided by etisalat, the charges from March 20 to May 1 is supposed to be Dh1,066. Also, I would like to inform that I never made any paid phone calls nor did I apply for add-on services.
I have made several phone calls to etisalat’s call centre as well as visited their service centres but they have not been helpful and I have not received any satisfactory reply to my queries regarding my billing.
Etisalat was not able to explain why I was getting unjustified extra charges. Therefore, I kindly request Gulf News’ team to help me resolve this issue.
From Mr Sherzod Rustamov
UAE
The management of etisalat responds:
Kindly note that the customer’s issue was resolved.
Mr Rustamov responds:
Kindly be informed that my case with etisalat has been resolved.Thanks a lot for looking into my case and for helping get it resolved.
(Process initiation: July 25. Response from organisation: August 6. Reader confirmation: August 13.)
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.
