I have a salary account with Mashreq bank. It is a zero balance account and I have been regularly transferring my salary to this account every month. On April 30, 2018, I was suddenly charged Dh1,050 against “Account Management Fee Charges”. I was never charged this fee before.
I called up the call centre, and after a very simple conversation, they said it was done for all Gold Members and would be reversed within seven days. After seven days, when I called, they said it would be reversed soon but didn’t promise when.
On May 26, they closed all my service requests without reverting my money. Now, the call centre has advised me to contact my Relationship Manager (RM).
He told me the same thing — that he has received a confirmation email from another department that the payment would be reversed soon. This is also a month ago.
I spoke a few times to my RM, where he showed his helplessness and asked me to step up pressure through the call centre and wait.
The current situation is that the call centre staff is asking me to contact the RM, but he is not answering my calls. The call centre staff and RM assured me that the payment would be reversed but it doesn’t happen and then, they simply pass the buck to each other.
From Mr Shobhit Tandon
Sharjah
The management of Mashreq responds:
Mr Tandon has raised a concern regarding the Mashreq Gold membership charges. Thank you for highlighting his concern to us.
We wish to confirm that Mashreq has sent SMS notifications to all our Mashreq Gold customers who were unable to meet the eligibility criteria for Mashreq Gold, requesting them to fund their accounts and meet the criteria by March 31, 2018 to avoid a membership fee of Dh1,000 per quarter.
As per the discussion with Mr Tandon, he has informed that the SMS was not sent to him, however as per our records, the SMS was delivered.
Considering Mr Tandon’s relation with the bank, we have arranged the reversal of the charge as a gesture and his account stands downgraded from ‘Mashreq Gold’ to ‘Mass’ status.
Mr Tandon has been contacted and informed regarding the same.
We take this opportunity to thank Gulf News once again for bringing this issue to our notice.
Mr Tandon responds:
Thanks a lot. The issue has been resolved and my money has been refunded.
(Process initiation: July 4. Response from organisation: July 8. Reader confirmation: July 9.)
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.
