Lower rates

I requested the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) for equated monthly instalments (EMI) on my outstanding credit card bill. I was told that the interest rate was more than one per cent and the minimum tenure was one year, for the EMIs. Ten days ago, I came to know that they offer even less tenure and lower interest rates, and so, I tried communicating with them to clarify this matter. I have called them three times in the past week but there was no communication from them, which I feel, is inadequate service.

If one listens to the telephone recording at the time of converting my outstanding to EMI, I clearly asked the bank representative to tell me the minimum tenure and lowest interest rate possible, but I was falsely misguided. I feel this is a deliberate attempt to make customers pay a hefty interest. I request the bank to take some action and ask Gulf News to bring this to light, as there may be many more customers like me, who are not even getting a call back after so many requests.

After the email, NBAD called me and the representative listened to my problem carefully. I made a complaint about the lack of communication provided to me, and requested for the conversion of my EMI to a lower rate of interest, since I had asked for it several times, but was not given proper information. After raising the complaint, I got a call, saying that my request had been cancelled and I would have to continue with the plan.

I agreed to all terms and conditions at the time of conversion. For this, my contention is that if I am not fully aware about all my options for conversion of EMI, I would agree to the terms. But it is their duty, as part of fair service, to tell customers all the options available. I even asked the sales officer three times about this. I was clearly misguided.

In my NBAD card usage history, I have never made a late payment or defaulted. If there was any outstanding balance left, it was due to the lack of communication from their end — not mine.

If I take an NBAD credit card, I take it for the benefits that come along with it, including converting outstanding amounts to EMI.

If one looks at the records of my call history with NBAD, they would find that I have been chasing them for five months and they never bothered to call back. I think this is a deliberate way of asking the customer to make late payments.

From Mr Abhimanyu Jitani

Dubai

The management of NBAD responds:

Mr Jitani called our contact centre on October 12, 2015, and requested to convert his outstanding balance into an Easy Payment Plan. The contact centre agent informed him to pay 30 per cent of his outstanding balance as only 70 per cent of the outstanding could be converted to an Easy Payment Plan. He also informed him that he would forward his request to the concerned team, who would get in touch with him to confirm and process his request. The telesales agent tried to reach Mr Jitani, but couldn’t get through to him and the plan wasn’t booked. Mr Jitani was charged with interest, therefore, he raised a complaint asking for the reason for not booking the plan, and requested for charges to be reversed.

After reviewing his complaint, charges were reversed only as a service gesture, since Mr Jitani did not pay 30 per cent of the outstanding as informed by the contact centre agent.

On December 15, 2015, Mr Jitani requested for an Easy Payment Plan on the outstanding balance. The request was processed and the interest rate and tenor was offered as per the customer’s profile. Mr Jitani accepted the offered interest rate and tenure, however, he raised another complaint on February 22, 2016, that his Easy Payment Plan was booked at a higher interest rate and tenure. We contacted him and explained that the interest rates offered can depend on a customer’s profiling. During this conversation, we agreed with his request and cancelled his Easy Payment Plan and waived the unbilled interest and cancellation fee.

On receiving this complaint, we were concerned that Mr Jitani remained unhappy with the matter, therefore, we have since contacted him again and have now resolved the matter amicably.

Thank you, Gulf News, once again for forwarding the complaint to us. Our Customers Experience is very important to us and we are thankful for the opportunity to respond.

(Process initiation: March 27. Response from organisation: March 28. Process completion: April 20.)

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.