ICICI HiSAVE - Odd experience

danield

I opened an ICICI HiSAVE account at the end of November and have had an odd experience with them recently. Just though I'd share it with the community.

No problems with set up. Took just a couple of weeks (due to the requirement of posting a cheque and them posting the password).

RUNNING TOTAL: 08/12/05 = £1.00

Having set it up, I moved £2500 to the HiSAVE account using DD (recieved money from linked account).

RUNNING TOTAL: 15/12/05 = £2501

On Xmas Eve, I moved another £2000 to the account. Then I enjoyed my Xmas. On the 29th Dec, Ichecked the ICICI HiSAVE account online and to my horror it displayed:

RUNNING TOTAL: 29/12/05 = £6501

The £2000 transaction had been done twice! This was awkward because my linked account didn't have enough money in it to cover a £4000 debit and I was due to paying bills from it starting on the 1st of January.

The odd thing was, when I checked my linked account online, the money hadn't been debitted. I had £4000 in my HiSAVE account that seemed to have come from nowhere!

I thought that there must be some sort of lag and ICICI had put the money inmy account early before recieving it, so I called them up. They informed me that this was impossible. I told them I couldn't afford to have £4000 debitted from my linked account but they were very unhelpful and told me that they would contact me in 2 days despite me explaining I needed something done right away. I also told them that if the money was taken from my linked account, I would be charged an unauthorised overdraft fee, which I would be forced to forward on to ICICI. Still they were no help!

After 30mins of getting nowhere, I had to take the following corrective action:

1. Called up the bank for my linked account. They told me there was nothing they could do with the Direct Debit (even though it hadn't been debitted yet). I increased my overdraft so that the debitted money would be authorised.

2. On my linked account online banking, I noticed I had a Direct Debit which looked as though it was going to ICICI, but the amount was set to 'n/a'. I cancelled this Direct Debit online.

3. Logged on to ICICI HiSAVE online banking and requested £2000 be moved back to my linked account.

4. Logged on to my A+L Premier Direct account which has a £1000 0% overdraft and requested £1000 be transferred to my linked account (to cover the deficit).

Later that day I noticed a transaction in my ICICI HiSAVE account for £2000 (debitted) entitled 'SV INTERNAL BILL PAY'. I'm not sure if this is the money I requested to be transferred to my linked account or something ICICI have done in response to my enquiry.

RUNNING TOTAL: 01/01/06 = £4501

So, it is now New Year's Day (Happy New Year to one and all) and still no money has been creditted or debitted from my linked account. I have £2000 more than I should have in my ICICI HiSAVE account and ICICI have still not contacted me as they promised.

UPDATE: 02/01/06 - Just recieved £2000 into my linked account from my ICICI account, so I now have £4000 in my ICICI HiSAVE that isn't mine!

Anyone had a similar experience or know what's going on here?

I think I'll be closing the ICICI HiSAVE account soon

DanielD

jonesMUFCforever

If its in your favour let it stay there earning for you until they sort it out.

Stonk

ejones999 wrote:

If its in your favour let it stay there earning for you until they sort it out.

Virtually the exact same thing happened to me with ICICI. They had taken a DD twice. Rather than let me overdraw by £3K, my bank refused the second one (and charged me £35), but ICICI credited the money for a few days.

There were certainly discrepancies between the dates of credits to my ICICI account and the corresponding debits from my linked account. They were all in my favour though, so it didn't bother me too much. Therefore, I think this is what has happened to you, and things just haven't shown up in your online banking because it's been a weekend and a bank holiday. A lot of transactions will have queued up and be going in on Tuesday.

ICICI's Customer Service was without doubt the worst I have ever experienced in banking. I used the email route to complain, and they simply did not read what I wrote, time after time (5 to 7 days response time each). Every time, it was as if a computer had read the first 4 words of my mail and sent back an automated reply which had no relevance to what I had written. Eventually I gave up. My bank let me off the £35, so I didn't bother pursuing ICICI for it.

Needless to say, I no longer have an ICICI account. Everything about their operation shrieked "amateurs!". The looooooooong saga of opening the account, the crappy website that instils no confidence whatsoever, the fact that they can take a DD twice, and then the "Customer Service" which was the final straw.

student1_2

I have recently applied for one. but i have since cancelled my application

the customer service is not good

also something seems dodgy about the security of the bank

magentadreamer

I applied and cancelled as well. After reading some of the stuff on here about them I'm rather glad I did. The last think I need is double dd's going out!

anticlaus105

Try setting up a BACS payment from your current account to ICICI. You wont get any extra days worth of interest but at least you wont be DD'd twice. This is what I do.

danield

Thanks for the replies. Glad to hear i'm not the one with ICICI problems!

I emailed them yesterday using the 'Write to Account Manager' function in the online banking explaining the situation. The reply I got was:

"We would like to inform you that the sum of GBP 4000 has been credited in our account as clear funds on 30-12-05, which implies that your link account has been debited on 30-12-05."

Not much help!

On the same day, the following transaction appeared on my statement:

RVSL FOR TRF ON 281205 - £2000

So, £2000 of my £4000 'free money' has been removed. Still, £2000 left to go.

I agree that Direct Debit is probably not the best way to to this. I think I'll be sending the money from my linked account in future.

Hopefully, the other £2000 will be sorted out tomorrow. As soon as it is, I think I'll be closing this account!

Daniel D

innovate

Touch wood :doh: nothing like this has happened to me so far. Mind you, after reading the ICICI threads here, I haven't let them do a DD - I did BACS transfers as anticlaus105 suggests, and they worked fine. I only ever had reason to call them once (password on first use), and I got superb service.

The duplicates when using Direct Debit have been talked about a couple of times now, so it seems ICICI really have a serious problem with them! Obviously it is totally disturbing and unacceptable that they don't appear to be able to handle a simple thing like DD properly.

If it did happen to me, I'd write to the CEO and ask for an explanation / compensation. And if I didn't get a satisfactory answer within a week, I would go to the Sunday Times and other media with my story.

EDITED: any Financial Services Industry experts around? Is there something people can achieve by going to the Financial Ombudsman with their woes?

anticlaus105

Here’s a story...

When setting up my HiSave account, for some inexplicable reason after they sent me an e-mail with my account details and logon id, they changed my logon id number and didn't tell me. When I (eventually) received my password in the post (or number should I say) I couldn't access the system.

After very woeful customer service I eventually found the reason I couldn't log on was the inexplicable and non communicated change of logon id/cust ref. After this it worked fine (haven't used DD much though only 1st 1 or 2 transfers).

Due to this I did however very nearly use my old logon id/customer ref when setting up my first BACS transfer as I simply cut and pasted it from my e-mail. It had been a while and I had forgot about the change.

Thank God I noticed before sending any money. I fear with these clowns I would never have seen it again.

danield

Everything seems to be straight now. They debitted the other £2000 and left me with the money that was actually mine. They also debitted some of the interest they'd paid out at the end of Dec!

Needless to say, I have lost all faith in this company and have transferred all the money out of the account. I'll be closing it very soon. Now looking for somewhere new to put it

Thanks again for all the posts.

DanielD

Paul_Herring

danield wrote:

They debitted the other £2000 and left me with the money that was actually mine. They also debitted some of the interest they'd paid out at the end of Dec!

I think you'll find that what they've done is credit the interest gross then debit the 20% income tax.