I would like to raise my concern regarding Dubai First’s practice of activating products without rightful authorisation from its customers, and repeatedly charging us for the same, despite repeated requests to opt out of the service.

I opened a credit card account with Dubai First in December 2014. I contacted the bank’s call centre on January 5, 2015, to inquire about the billing details, and placed a request to opt out of the credit shield and accident insurance services. In my January statement, the unauthorised credit shield and accident insurance were reversed to my account.

In May, following an offer by the bank’s representative, I opted for a loan-on-phone offer for six months. However, to my shock, upon receipt of the succeeding statement, dated June 22, I noticed that the credit shield and the accident insurance fees were reflected again. I contacted the call centre and after numerous attempts through an endless loop of options on its automated routing systems, I managed to speak to a representative.

I was informed that these insurance charges were pre-enrolled on my account and this was part of the bank’s ‘vague’ terms and conditions. This is an unfair practice, as it was not clearly mentioned on the application form. Later, I received a call from another representative, who unsuccessfully spent about 20 minutes explaining to me the ‘good and useful features’ of the credit shield and accident insurance. Unmoved by his explanations, I still opted out of the service, and eventually, I was told that the credit shield and accident insurance fees would be reversed within six days.

Finally, I paid the full amount due, without the credit shield fee, considering that the charges were forcefully billed to me and that the same would be reversed, as I was not liable to pay for the services that I had never opted for nor consented to.

However, shockingly, I was again billed the credit shield and accident insurance fees and finance charges of Dh27.85 in the July statement, as penalty for not paying for the credit shield and accident insurance fees the previous month.

I again contacted the call centre and after numerous attempts, managed to speak to a representative. To my dismay and shock, the representative informed me that there was no request for the cancellation of the credit shield insurance reflected in the system. He informed that he could not cancel the insurance and also refused to reverse the charges, since the charges, once billed, could not be reversed, even if they were wrongly charged to us. However, he acknowledged that the same charges had been reversed in the January 2015 statement. The representative informed me that a complaint had been recorded and a bank’s representative from the insurance division would contact me soon. On asking for the complaint request number, the representative informed me that the bank does not have a system to generate any complaint or request number.

Dubai First is expected to follow a certain code of conduct. Transparency and the need for customers to be informed in a clear way should be a priority. The bank must treat its customers fairly. In this situation, the bank failed to exercise these values and kept charging the wrong fee despite the reversal in the first statement itself.

First, there was no disclosure of information on the pre-activated insurance products and they charged a customer without consent.

Second, they enrolled and charged a customer for products without consent.

Third, they keep charging the wrong amount, despite acknowledging the customer’s request to discontinue the services.

Through Gulf News, I seek assistance.

From Dr Pawan Kumar Gupta

Ajman

The management of Dubai First responds:

At Dubai First, we are committed to provide the best of service to our card members and protect their interests. We have been able to retrieve all conversations of the customer with our service agents and unfortunately, haven’t found any request for reversal of charges prior to July 2015. The request for insurance cancellation was placed on July 13, 2015, and the charges have been reversed promptly as a goodwill gesture to the customer. These charges were levied post acceptance of auto-enrolment clearly displayed on the credit card application form that the customer had signed. To ensure open and upfront communication on the automatic enrolment, this is clearly displayed on the credit card application and the charges are published in the schedule of charges available on our website.

We thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Dr Gupta responds:

I am really thankful to Gulf News’ team for helping me and resolving this matter with prime importance given to my case. Dubai First has verbally communicated to me that the insurance charges would be reversed within three working days. Their customer support team has been supportive after the intervention. I hope that such an issue won’t come up again, and the charges will be credited to my card account.

(Process initiation: July 27. Response from organisation: July 30. Reader confirmation: July 30.)

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.