The bank which professes to hand out Dh1 million in prizes cannot pay out my Dh1,000 winning amount. I am unaware exactly when I won this amount, but for proof, I have a statement dated June 29, 2011, showing a certificate worth Dh1,000. The total number of certificates held in this statement were worth Dh351,000. Subsequent statements have been showing me the same Dh1,000 certificate. This winning certificate was, however, never delivered to me!
After I moved to a new workplace in Fujairah, I tried to claim this certificate through a local Mashreq Bank branch. However, their staff members were unable to get any response to emails sent to the Mashreq head office. I gave up on this effort about two years ago.
Finally, since this certificate was won from my holdings at Al Riqqa Branch in Dubai, I visited the branch about two months ago, and after three visits, managed to have the original certificate sent to the branch during the third week of September, 2016.
Now comes the surprise! The staff member who was supposed to hand over this certificate, demanded to know against which, of Mashreq Millionaire’s certificates, this winning amount was from? I obviously didn’t have the answer, but they insisted that unless I was able to tell which certificate caused me to win this amount, I could not take the prize money.
Some of the holdings were already encashed. I was left with Dh110,000, which I also encashed, out of frustration, in September, 2016. Now, my account shows this lone Dh1,000 certificate but I still don’t have it with me!
I hope writing to Gulf News will help resolve this issue.
From Mr Mohammad Yahya Hafiz
Fujairah
The management of Mashreq Bank responds:
Thank you for referring Mr Hafiz’s concerns to us for our investigation and feedback.
We have a complete record of all our monthly winners and their investments are in safe possession.
There are some set rules, which our branches follow in terms of issuance of winning certificates, but then, there are always exceptions when customers have encashed old certificates. We do regret that Mr Hafiz had to approach Gulf News for such a small request, which could have been handled by our call centre. However, we thank you for your intervention in having Mr Hafiz’s concerns resolved.
We have communicated with Mr Hafiz and requested him to collect his Mashreq Millionaire certificate from our Fujairah branch.
(Process initiation: November 14, 2016. Response from organisation: November 16, 2016.)
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.
