Clearing cheques

I am using UAE Exchange Wages Protection System (WPS) services to process my company’s staff salaries. My staff salary cheque of Dh32,050 for the month of May 2014 has been handed over to the branch on June 4, 2014. On June 7, I got a call from UAE Exchange’s Mirdif City Centre Branch to either deposit cash or a new cheque into the UAE Exchange branch account, as the bank had rejected my old cheque by saying ‘writing mismatch’ and that it could not be presented. The representative also took the responsibility of bearing all consequences if the bank presented the cheque.

Instructions were implemented on the same time, and a new cheque was deposited and cleared. Post that, instead of handing over the old cheque back to me, the same was sent to the bank for realisation, which caused the cheque to return in my company account and created a bad history in UAE Central Bank records.

Post the cheque return at initial stage, all the Mirdif City Centre branch senior staff have apologised and admitted their fault and even took initiative to log a complaint in the bank as well.

Only post feedback from the bank side confirming that the fault is from the UAE Exchange messenger, they changed their agenda, stopped answering my e-mails and denied accepting their mistake.

When the matter was escalated to the top management of UAE Exchange, despite multiple reminders, only one e-mail stating they would not accept any fault and the matter is closed, was received. Taking further initiative, I approached the head of the Advisory and Dispute Resolution (Arab Corridor), who stated that there is no mistake from UAE Exchange’s side and they would not issue any apology letter, ignoring the damage to my reputation and credibility with my bank and UAE Central Bank.

From June 7 till today I am trying to send a number of e-mails and have even discussed multiple times on the telephone with the same persons, who promise to review and get back to me. Unfortunately they never turn up.

UAE Exchange has not released my return cheque as well till now and has not responded to any of my complaints.

From Mr Raheel Shaikh

Dubai

The management of UAE Exchange responds:

At the outset, UAE Exchange Centre LLC presents its highest regards and wishes your fine entity further progress and prosperity.

We would like to inform your good office that we at UAE Exchange strive for perfection and take pride in ensuring customer satisfaction at all times and are committed to providing the highest level of service and customer care.

Upon a thorough review of the situation, we have concluded that Mr Raheel Shaikh has registered his company with UAE Exchange as a corporate customer. The SmartPay service of UAE Exchange was used by him to process his employees’ salary. Mr Shaikh had submitted a cheque for the salary disbursement of his employees for the month of May 2014, which was deposited at the bank for collection. It is pertinent to note that all SmartPay services will be processed only once the disbursal amount has been credited to the designated bank account of UAE Exchange.

We were thereafter informed by the collection bank that the cheque cannot be processed due to a ‘mismatch’, and the same was intimated to Mr Shaikh. In response to the intimation from UAE Exchange, and to avoid delay in salary disbursement to his employees’ and a potential fine from the Ministry of Labour, Mr Shaikh deposited another cheque for the disbursal amount. The new cheque was cleared by the bank, and Mr Shaikh’s SmartPay transaction was completed. However, the bank has returned the first cheque to UAE Exchange along with a form of return of cheque stating ‘insufficient funds’.

Thereafter, the cheque has either been returned for the reason of a ‘mismatch’ or ‘insufficient funds’ — this is not UAE Exchange’s responsibility, as this entirely relies on the confidential information shared between the customer and his bank.

Mr Shaikh responds:

Thanks for the follow up. Yes, Gulf News’ intervention has brought about the fruitful result of getting a response from UAE Exchange, as I never received any explanation about the whole incident prior to this.

My concern here is to ask the UAE Exchange about any intimation or notice from the bank that the cheque could not be processed, because as per the bank’s investigations into the matter, they never informed UAE Exchange about any mismatch and it is just a misunderstanding among their staff members.

UAE Exchange responds:

We would like to inform Gulf News that we have a written intimation from the bank confirming the return of the first cheque and the deposit of the new cheque on the evening of the same day and if Mr Shaikh wants any further clarification regarding the same, he may communicate with his bank.

(Process initiation: July 22. Response from organisation: July 27. Process completion: August 11.)

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