Clearance letter issue

I had a personal loan from First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and I decided to do a loan transfer to Emirates NBD. I received a liability letter from FAB on August 24, 2017, along with the loan account and credit cards. On August 29, I visited the FAB branch at Madinat Zayed, Abu Dhabi, and presented the Emirates NBD liability cheque and guarantee for the credit card. In the letter, it clearly mentioned that they could issue the clearance letter. The bank representative said they had taken the request to close the loan and credit card account, and they would be able to do so in three working days.

As there was no update from the bank, I logged a complaint with the call centre. A few days after my complaint, the bank closed my personal loan and froze my account, which had a balance of around Dh75,000. They froze this amount for almost 45 days for no reason. I was expecting the bank to issue my clearance letter within the next few days, but nothing happened.

After three weeks, I called the customer service number to follow up on my clearance letter and they informed me that only my loan account had been closed. The credit card was still active and I would need to raise a request to close the credit card. Even though I had already requested this, and it was a mistake on the bank’s end, the customer service centre pushed me to log a new request and I agreed. Again, there was no response from the bank and on September 25, 2017, I received a message from FAB, stating that my request had been closed. I checked with customer service again and they informed me that they did not receive any request to close the credit card and asked to log a new request for credit card closure. I raised a complaint and requested for escalation to the management, but no one contacted me.

Then, I went to the Central Bank of the UAE and they advised me to register a complaint online. One week after complaining at Central Bank, they issued the clearance letter on October 5, 2017, which was wrong, as all the credit card details mentioned in the liability letter were not included in the clearance letter. I tried to follow up with the complaint I registered with Central Bank, but I am unable to register the complaint again.

I visited the branch again and they said they could not reissue the clearance letter as it had been issued from the main branch. They said they could send a request to the main branch to reissue the clearance letter. As there was no update, I logged a complaint with their call centre and on social media. I visited the branch and complained to representatives at the call centre at least 25 times and I still did not get my clearance letter. As of today, we are approaching 58 days and my Emirates NBD loan is about to start. But I did not receive the loan released from Emirates NBD, because FAB is not providing the clearance letter.

I kindly request Gulf News to look into my issue and to help me out.

From Mr Ajeesh Kollikkathara Mohammad
Abu Dhabi

The management of FAB responds:

FAB supports the growth ambitions of its stakeholders and goes beyond financial products and services, and as such, we are grateful for all customer feedback as we strive to consistently deliver the highest standards of service. The bank has been in contact with Mr Mohammad, and the matter has been resolved.