Late payments

Dunia Finance is withholding my auto clearance, which I have paid for entirely. The reason for them not releasing the clearance is because I still owe them the credit card bill. I wasn’t even aware that they had issued one for me during my auto loan application.

I had three late payments for my car loan and the collector came to our office for the payment. During this instance, no one informed me about a penalty on late payments that I would have to pay. This late payment fine had been posted to my credit card and I was not even aware about it and so hadn’t authorised it. The fine was accumulating interest and I only found out about it after three years.

I have not received any calls from them informing me about this; they have my contact number and know where to reach me. I had not received any statement from them, until they updated the correct e-mail in their system.

Now they are asking me to settle the amount — interest of the late payment — before they release the clearance.

As a consumer I have the right to know if a credit card is issued on my name. I also have the right to know about the fines before posting them in the so-called credit card.

After three years, I received the statement from them for the first time and immediately rushed to their branch to settle this matter.

I have already paid the late payment charges and requested them to waive the interest of the late payment fee. This request was declined and they refused to issue clearance of my auto loan till I settle the outstanding balance.

I hope Gulf News can help me settle this.

From Ms Magileen Panugalinog

Sharjah

Ms Veena Viswanathan, Customer Services and Quality Head, Dunia, responds: Thank you for sharing our customer Ms Panugalinog’s query with us.

We have contacted Ms Panugalinog and would like to confirm that the matter has been resolved satisfactorily. We are unable to disclose specific resolution details in the interest of protecting and maintaining the confidentiality of our customers’ personal and account-related information.

Ms Panugalinog responds: Thank you so much for your help. I want to thank Dunia for sorting out my issues, even though it took almost four months for them to waive the credit card balance.

Uninformed customers

I have been a credit card holder of Mashreq bank for a long time and very recently, my card was upgraded to Platinum Elite Visa from Master with a host of additional benefits, including free valet at major shopping centres and Dubai International Airport, as per the booklet issued by Mashreq that was sent along with the card.

On May 25, I went to Dubai International Airport to send off a friend. I was shocked when I was refused free valet by the company, which was shown in Mashreq’s booklet. They told me that they do not have any agreement with Mashreq for the service.

On my query at the bank’s call centre, I was told that they have already cancelled the contract for this service but without any information to the customers. Is this not cheating?

From Mr Malek Liaquat Ali

Dubai

The management of Mashreq responds: Thank you for sharing Mr Ali’s concern with us. We sincerely apologise to Mr Ali for the inconvenience caused. We have updated Mr Ali with the new benefits of the credit card. Mr Ali was satisfied with the solution we offered to him. Thank you for seeking clarification.

Mr Ali responds: Thank you very much for your prompt intervention due to which Mashreq very quickly reacted and sent their apology, which I accepted.

Cancellation charges

In February 2013, I had applied for my iPhone package cancellation and etisalat asked me to pay Dh950 for cancellation charges. Despite paying the amount, etisalat didn’t cancel the package in their system and kept charging me monthly subscription charges on my account. I have been following up with etisalat since the past three months but with no success. I went to their Khaleej Centre branch in Bur Dubai where I had applied for cancellations and spoke to a representative who confirmed it’s etisalat’s mistake and all the charges will be reversed in my account.

After several complaints, etisalat deactivated my iPhone package after three months but still didn’t reverse the charges.

It was a painful process and I was even told informally by the etisalat staff that it was their mistake but they had still input in their system that they had to recover the money from the customer. I have all the documents to prove etisalat’s mistake and also bring these inefficiencies to the Gulf News’ attention.

From Mr Manoj Laheja

Dubai

The management of etisalat responds: Kindly note that Mr Laheja’s issue with etisalat was solved.

Editor’s note: Do you have similar consumer complaints? Send them to readers@gulfnews.com