Over charged
I have an issue with Emirates Islamic Bank (EIB) wrongfully charging my credit card without giving me any information about it, while I was travelling abroad. Moreover, I have tried to communicate with them through their call centre as well as through emails and the only response I got was that they will reprimand the call centre person who didn’t provide me with the correct details. My question is — if it isn’t my fault and if they haven’t informed me, then how can they charge me for their mistake?
As I was travelling, I wanted to use my EIB card. However, I was never told that if I used their card abroad, I would be charged 2.5 per cent extra per transaction. Had I known this, I would never have used this card. However, when I returned, I received the shock of being charged extra.
When I complained about it over the phone, I received confirmation that the sales agent who took my international travel use request over the phone never informed me about the usage charges. So far so good. Then, I am told that although I wasn’t informed, the bank will not reverse the charges at all. How fair is this? To me, it is the worst kind of customer service — to penalise a customer for the mistake of one’s own staff! I demand a full reversal of charges, or else, I will be forced to take further action.
Secondly, I do not receive any transactional details on my online account. So, I was shocked to find out that despite a transaction of Dh18,000 being reversed, with another purchase of Dh17,900 that I had converted to instalments, my outstanding was still around Dh20,000 whereas this is not valid. Moreover, I had a 100 per cent debit option in my account and so only Dh2,000 were withdrawn. The system shows a different amount, so what is going on there?
I was also informed that for the first three months of using the card, I would get back 50 per cent on whatever fuel purchases I make on my card. However, I do not see this happening in my account as well.
I have not got any response from the bank. I want to know — is it legal and ethical to charge customers without informing them? Is it acceptable to say that every customer must go online and read all the fine print on a daily basis to see what changes have been made, instead of their own staff explaining everything properly?
From Mr Mohammad Ali
Dubai
The management of EIB responds:
Thank you for bringing Mr Ali’s concerns to our attention.
We would like to clarify that forex charges are standard for international transactions and a full list of our charges is available on our website.
On the second query, the customer made two transactions from UNIVERSAL TRAVELS (Mussafir) for the amounts of Dh17,956 and Dh18,006 respectively. The transaction amounting to Dh18,006 was reversed on the same date while the transaction amounting to Dh17,956 was converted to a six-month instalment plan at zero per cent charge.
Mr Ali was charged monthly membership fee of Dh950 due to a system error, which was subsequently reversed to his card on July 7, 2015. We have apologised to the customer for the error and he has confirmed that he is now able to view his transactions through online banking.
Lastly, on the issue of cashback on fuel purchases, Mr Ali has already received the requisite 50 per cent cashback for his fuel purchase on June 18. Only transactions performed within 60 days of card issuance can qualify for this offer and we have clarified the same to the customer.
We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that Emirates Islamic is committed to providing the highest-level of customer service to our loyal clientele.
(Process initiation: July 27. Response from organisation: August 3. Process completion: August 24.)
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