I have had a problem with Mashreq Bank since the past 24 months.
I have a Mashreq Smart Saver card and I am constantly using it. But since the very beginning, I have not been getting any bank statements — neither via email nor via post. Every month, I call the bank’s customer care centre and find out my minimum payment, in order to pay my credit card bills.
Upon enquiring several times at Mashreq’s customer care centre, and after a number of calls, they informed me that my email address was wrong in my profile, and they could not change it as it was related to my old account, which I had opened for a loan. After I opened the account, they rejected my loan, saying my company was not registered.
Since then, I have been visiting branch after branch to close my account. The representatives always tell me to call their customer care number, while those on the customer care hotline say I must go to a branch to resolve this issue.
My account was opened in Fujairah and they have never responded to any phone call I’ve made — I have made at least 20 to 30 calls to them. Last month, I visited Musaffah branch in Abu Dhabi and requested to speak to a manager. They asked me to pay Dh350 as a pending amount in my account, which was never intimated to me earlier. I paid the amount and upon doing so, they said they had already sent an application to close my account at the Fujairah branch. Since then, there has been no news at all.
Now, my credit card statement issue is not resolved and I am struck with another problem, which I never knew about. I request Gulf News to raise my issue with the management of Mashreq so it can be resolved.
From Mr Mohammad Anwar Mohi Al Deen
Abu Dhabi
The management of Mashreq Bank responds:
Thank you for referring Mr Mohi Al Deen’s concern to us for our investigation and feedback.
We have scrutinised the issue and discovered that Mr Mohi Al Deen’s email address in our records was a different one from the correct address.
Due to this inadvertent data entry error, the customer was not receiving his eStatements. We sincerely regret the inconvenience he faced due to the above.
Mr Mohi Al Deen has been contacting our Call Centre on a monthly basis to know his credit card payment amount, the calls referred by him in his letter. We have corrected our records as on September 20, and confirmed to Mr Mohi Al Deen that his eStatements will now be delivered without fail.
As a policy, all dormant accounts in Mashreq are closed in the Branch where they were opened, known as the ‘Parent’ branch.
Since Mr Mohi Al Deen’s account status was dormant, our Call Centre representative advised him to visit his ‘Parent’ branch to complete the account closure process. Our Branch was also trying to reach the customer but since the customer’s email address was incorrect in our records, the branch representative could not reach him. This resulted in accumulation of charges amounting to Dh675 in his account for not maintaining the minimum balance.
We are glad to confirm that we have exceptionally waived off all the charges and arranged to close the customer’s account as of September 22.
We have contacted Mr Mohi Al Deen, apologised and informed him of the corrective actions taken and he is satisfied with the quick resolution. We thank you for your intervention in having Mr Mohi Al Deen’s concerns resolved.
Mr Mohi Al Deen responds:
I appreciate the way Gulf News has sorted my issue and I thank the team for this. I felt it was resolved in a very professional way. I also appreciate Mashreq Bank’s team for taking immediate action and reconsidering my issue.
(Process initiation: September 19. Response from organisation: September 22. Process completion: September 25.)
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
