NEW ICICI Feedback Poll - Are the problems all cleared up?

Elmer_Dudd

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH....ICICI are driving me up the wall.:mad:

I had murder opening the account 2 years ago and have only kept a few pounds in there since because of problems operating it successfully.

I tried to put a small amount in there last month to see if the awful DD system they were using was now working properly (I had had problems with it since day one) and saw that my money went into my Hisave account from my linked bank account and promptly went straight back out to my linked bank account (I hope it has anyway!) 3 days later for no reason!!!!:eek:

Phoned them in India-clash of accents-very difficult to communicate properly-was asked if i was overdrawn at my bank-told them No-said they would get in touch in 3/4 days time without any explanation of what had happened.

In the past they have hardly ever answered emails or letters to the MD and they have just lost another customer after this last !!!! up!

Elmer:cool:

DocProc

Elmer

A strange problem. It would seem the DDs paying your funds into your HiSave just aren't clearing.

I trust you've spoken to your linked bank?

What did they say?

obsessed_saver

I had a DD problem with ICICI as well. Their system doesn't seem very good. I had a standing order to take money out of my linked account and it was running fine for a couple months. Then I realised I couldn't afford to save that regular amount in a particular month so I proceeded to cancel the standing order at ICICI at the beginning of October. At the end of October, ICICI took the money from my account anyway. I resorted to using my current account's Direct Debit indemnity to quickly claw the money back (after one working day) as I had to pay my credit card bills etc. I had "extra" money in my ICICI account for a week or so and I emailed them to inform them what had happpened. In the end, it got sorted out automatically as ICICI's system realised the money was taken back. I had an email of apology from ICICI, but I cancelled ICICI's DD from my current account and now operate the account "manually". Seems ok since.

masonic

Elmer_Dudd wrote:

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH....ICICI are driving me up the wall.:mad:

I'm sure this will be of no help to you at all, but I had awful problems with ICICI's DD system from day 1, which never went away (I just transferred using BACS for a long time). However, I recently changed my linked account and have had no problems since.

billinge

I applied to open my ICICI HiSave Account on 16th Feb, it's now the 27th Feb (which in my book is the 7th working day), and apart from the initial email telling me they would process within 2 working days and let me know how to proceed, I've heard nothing from them. I've even emailed them asking what's going on, still no reply.
If they can't even open the account, I'm very worried about how they'll operate it.

DocProc

The following article shows what can be done these days to speed account opening along:-

From http://business.timesonline.co.uk/....

The Times
February 27, 2007

Web ID verification cut 10-day wait to 20 minutes
Tom Rowland

TD Waterhouse had a problem because its business is potentially vulnerable to identity fraud. The private share trading company has about 350,000 active UK customers buying and selling shares online, via its website and by telephone.

But it is hard to sustain the image of a star of the fast-moving financial circus when in order to combat potential ID frauds you are forced to introduce grindingly slow identity verification checks.

The checks were certainly necessary. Identity fraud is up 30 per cent in a year in the financial services industry, says Cifas, the UK’s fraud protection service. Also, in 2004, the firm had to cope with the new anti money-laundering regulations. All UK businesses were obliged to make identity checks after March 2004.

The account-opening process the firm had to adopt involved waiting for documents to be received by post before photocopying. It took ten days to open an account.

It was inflexible, slow and frustrating and acted as a positive discouragement to new customers. Worse, in all that time it was possible only to take a cursory look at an applicant’s passport and driving licence, so it was not particularly effective.

Waterhouse UK went to BT and asked it to develop a customised version of its web-based identity verification system, developed jointly with GB Group, a data services specialist. Now Waterhouse claims to do more in-depth checks in real time, so that many customers can start trading on the day of their first visit.

The BT system takes electoral roll data, credit files, telephone, driving licence and passport databases and cross references it with mortality files and specialist referencing from 20 financial sources to provide a virtually instant check on line.

Gavin Dufton, senior business analyst at TD Waterhouse UK, says: “We could almost hand pick the databases we wanted to check to suit our needs.” The firm recently signed up a record 1,250 new customers in a single day using the new software.

If a new customer completes all the checks successfully they can start to trade in just 20 minutes, says Kevin Doherty, senior manager in charge of financial crime prevention at TD Waterhouse.

He adds: “They can be referred at any stage if the data does not match. If an applicant has recently moved and his new address is not reflected in the electoral roll, for instance, he might fail.” It does not mean the firm has to turn the business away.

“We can now send out a form that allows the failed applicant to visit his or her local bank which can then confirm their identity and address.

“People should not be rejected as applicants on an automated point-scoring system, we need to intervene and find out why at every stage.”

Mazzie

What a nightmare I have had trying to get this ICICI Hi-Save Account up and running. I have just read that their customer service problems are supposed to be somewhat sorted out, but as far as I am concerned they are definitely NOT sorted out.

First of all, I applied to open a joint account at the beginning of November 2007. I sent in the required documentation for both my husband and myself in the same envelope. After a couple of weeks, we received an email saying that they had received my husbands documentation, but had not received mine. I called them on the phone and also wrote to them and asked them how it was possible that they had received his documents and not mine when they were in the very same envelope.

After a few days of trying to get this sorted out, I received an email from them telling me that they had now received my documents and they were sorry for the inconvenience and that our account was now open. I sent them a cheque for £100 and it was taken out of our linked bank account on December 7th 2007. We received our passwords in the mail and I signed in and checked our account and it said we had a zero balance and that there were no funds in clearing either.

By this time is was December 11th 2007 and I contacted them again and was very annoyed with them on the phone. By the end of the day, the funds were showing up in our account, but it said they were in clearing. By December 12th it showed that they were cleared. On December 8th I made two very small transfers from our linked bank account to our HiSave account, this is because I am beginning to get worried about their service. It is now December 18th and those two small deposits haven't even been taken out of our linked account yet, nor are they showing up as funds in our HISave Account.

I have contacted them again, this time by email through our account and received an email back saying they would investigate. I am ploughing on with this for a number of reasons even though I will likely be very bald by the time I get the account running smoothly. One of the reasons is that I have been doing my homework and this bank definitely does have the highest rates around. Another reason is because I want to open a Term Deposit with a larger amount of money, but if it takes this long to get money from my linked account I am wondering just how long it is going to take to get a larger sum into our HiSave Account.

Even though I am moaning about them, I will carry on regardless because when the account is running correctly then there should not (fingers crossed) be any more problems. I am ever hopeful, what can I say!

Just to let you know, that ICICI Bank UK is not the only one with Customer Service problems. I also have an ICICI Bank HiSave Account in Canada (I have dual Citizenship and maintain addresses in both Countries) and I had similar problems as this getting that open too. Although they were not as severe problems as they have been here I must admit. However, my Canadian HiSave Account has been running smoothly for quite a few months now and I have done many transfers without problems. Therefore, I am hoping that the ICICI Bank UK will be OK once everything is all sorted out.

One thing I am concerned about is the fact that my larger sum of money has been sitting in a lower interest account since November 1st and I am losing some good interest because all this is taking so long.

reginald_2

I tried to open this account but needed validated documents so I wasn't prepared to pay to get them validated especially as I opened accounts with A&L & Bradford & Bingley at same time on line with no validation required. I asked them why this was but they just kept insisting on documennts - Tough

Jonbvn

TBH, given the well documented problems with their customer service, we have disregarded ICICI as a source for any of our savings. Given the fact that we can operate similar accounts with excellent customer service, and only a few points lower interest rate(s), I doubt we would reconsider. After all time is money.......

Gecks

i sent my documentation (oh what hassle it is to get certified documents in this age of online banking!) through the post months ago, only for them to say they'd not received it (i'm sorry, but i've never had a 1st class mail get lost before and i send a lot).

i live in Birmingham so i just took all my stuff down to the branch, only to find that they don't accept provisional driving license photocards without having the counterpart that goes with it. the only other place i've found that asks for that is the DVLA when you're booking your test, maybe because it would very easy to fake in the first place, and is just for admin anyway! apparently they accept full licenses, but what's the difference in terms of ID?

i could go down tomorrow with my passport instead, but i just find the whole situation farcical. they want all this stuff to confirm my identity when they went and lost a veritable dossier of my personal information! no wonder they're cautious with companies like them around :P