ICICI BANK Fixed Term Savings Bonds.

cradoc

Anyone thinking that our Customer Service in British Banks is generally poor,please check this.
We went to renew a 12 month savings bond with ICICI,on their promise of high interest rate to act now.
Registering on site failed.So on phoning to register,were told all was now set for new Bond.Nothing showed,so phoned and emailed,only to be told that we would not receive the rate promised,but would have to re-apply with the rate now substantially reduced.
Anyone thinking of investing with this Bank.Beware.You just cannot trust what they say and their website is unreliable.

Mtec

Well we already opened a Fixed Rate A/c a few days ago @ 7.2%.

Went to open an ordinary savings a/c and sent off a £1 again as requested in the email, some days later had it returned to me stating that your cheque has been returned for the following reason:-
You have an existing HI Save A/C with us. As per our policies an individual can hold only one Hi Save account with us.

Well thats news to me coz it say's here in the FAQ's :-

7. Can I have more than one HiSAVE Fixed Rate Account ?
Yes, you can have more than one HiSAVE Fixed Rate Account.


It also say on the front page of the HI Save savings A/c:-

Existing HiSAVE customer can also avail of the one year HiSAVE Fixed Rate Account - Without Early Access at 5.75 % AER / Gross effective from November 14th, 2008. Click here to know more.

So go figure, they clearly have no clue what they are doing.
They may have good rates but it doesn't fill me with confidence and as such I'm not risking any more money with them.

Agree with #1 website extremely slow and unreliable.

KingL

Not quite sure what you are saying here.

This is how it is:

-You can have one Hisave (instant access) account.
-You can have multiple Hisave Fixed Term accounts
-You must have a Hisave (instant access) account to have a Hisave Fixed Term account
-When you open your first Hisave Fixed Term account, they will automatically open a Hisave (instant access) account

It sounds like when you opened the Hisave Fixed Term account at 7.2%, they automatically opened a Hisave Instant Access account for you. Later on when you applied to open a Hisave Instant Access account, they bounced it because you already have one and you are not allowed more than one.

That is all consistent with the quotes you have posted. You already have what you want, you just need to add funds to it.

hert1

I have dealt with this bank and i believe Hisave a/c and Hisave fixed a/c are two different accounts. It's like one current acount and other saving account. You can open two Hisave fixed a/cs as long as you have opened one Hisave a/c but you can't open two Hisave accounts (current A/c). HTH.

Mtec

KingL wrote: »

Not quite sure what you are saying here.

This is how it is:

-You can have one Hisave (instant access) account.
-You can have multiple Hisave Fixed Term accounts
-You must have a Hisave (instant access) account to have a Hisave Fixed Term account
-When you open your first Hisave Fixed Term account, they will automatically open a Hisave (instant access) account

It sounds like when you opened the Hisave Fixed Term account at 7.2%, they automatically opened a Hisave Instant Access account for you. Later on when you applied to open a Hisave Instant Access account, they bounced it because you already have one and you are not allowed more than one.

That is all consistent with the quotes you have posted. You already have what you want, you just need to add funds to it.

That’s what I thought and assumed would happen when I opened the Fixed rate, but I only have the Fixed rate a/c showing when I log in and no transfer money tab.
I phoned icici and was told that I don’t have the transfer tab because I don’t have a savings a/c set up, only a fixed rate a/c.
I asked, so what was the point in setting up the DD to fund the a/c if I can't use it etc?
Anyway to cut the story short:
They offered to set it up then, but I didn’t have the time and said I would apply online later.
The story now follows as post #2 and I still only have the fixed rate a/c showing.

#3 and #4 what you both say makes perfect sense but is not the reality in my case.

KingL

Give em a call and have them 'em set it up on the phone then

(despite appearances to the contrary, I kinda suspect that you do actually have it set up already - the User Interface isn't great and it might just be hiding somewhere non-obvious). Either way I'm sure they can fix it relatively quickly with a phone call.

Mtec

KingL wrote: »

Give em a call and have them 'em set it up on the phone then

(despite appearances to the contrary, I kinda suspect that you do actually have it set up already - the User Interface isn't great and it might just be hiding somewhere non-obvious). Either way I'm sure they can fix it relatively quickly with a phone call.

I just got off the phone, had to explain umpteen times re the above post #2
He could not explain the returned cheque stating only one a/c, which I tried to explain, does suggest that the a/c already exists.
The guy confirmed, there is no other a/c set up.
He asked me why I wanted the instant access a/c. I told him I might want to fund the a/c and then open another fixed rate when sufficient funds were available. He said I could already do that by clicking on the service request and it would be funded from my linked a/c via the dd.

I said I know but would still like to open an instant access a/c, and asked him is there a problem, because he seemed very reluctant to open one for me.

He repeated my name several times then asked for a few security details then after a short delay (10 secs) said he could not access my a/c because of some background maintenance and could I ring back in a couple of hours.

Ok can I have a ref no. or a name, would it be him I would speak to or someone else? If someone else I would have to explain the whole thing again. He said it would be someone else coz his shift finishes in about an hour.

Sorry but I’ve lost the will to live now, and if they can’t sort something like this out, what chance if you had a real problem?

At least it was a free phone number........................or was it?

JasonKirby

I have been trying for 2 months to open a 1 year fixed rate bond account with ICICI.

My problem has been getting them to authenticate my ID, I have sent 3 lots of ID (certified copies of my passport / driving lisence), the first two times they sent a standard email asking for proper ID to be sent, which I did.

They eventually sent an email confirming that they had authenticated my ID, requested a cheque to open the account which I did & they cashed it. They confirmed receipt of the cheque by email and said another email would follow.

Today they emailed me a "HiSAVE Application - Last Reminder" email saying that they had not received ID that they asked for.

The most frustrating thing is that the interest rate has dropped from 7.2% to 5.5%, which has cost me thousands of pounds in potential lost interest over the next year. If I had known what a nightmare it would be then I would have opened the next best account in October (TheAA) as this would have been smoother and my money would be invested by now.

I have opened an Anglo Irish account with the same ID process and they were happy with my ID (sent once).

My advice - leave this bank well alone, their customer service line is useless, the operator just reads their email back to you and is not empowered to help you.

AAARGH!

neilsedaka

I have found the ICICI service to be as good as or better than that of most UK banks that I have experience of.

Apreciar

neilsedaka wrote: »

I have found the ICICI service to be as good as or better than that of most UK banks that I have experience of.

I second that.

neil324

Another customer here with no problems so far.