ICICI Bank - Non-existent customer services

typistretired

I had a couple of accounts with them years ago. Closed them when the interest rates became not competitive. I still get emails off them saying my statement is ready for me to view online despite having £0 with them. Another problem I had with them, I had a fixed rate savings account with them so never bothered logging in as I knew there would be no change. When I tried to log in I couldn't so I emailed them. They replied that my account had been locked as I had not logged (less than a year since I had logged in) They unlocked it for me.

hubb

How do I get my £1 back ?

typistretired

When I registered with them they send me an email with ID details of my account have you not received this email?

hubb

I have managed to log into my account ok. I have just under 3 grand sitting in an now low interest Santander saving account. I am wondering if it is worth it to transfer it over. If it's covered by the government I would always get my money back if it went pear shaped wouldn't I ?

innovate

ICICI is covered upto £85K by the FSCS scheme, like any other commercial bank licensed in the UK. It is not a government scheme but is industry-funded.

Your £3K would be perfectly safe in ICICI as long as they remain licensed in the UK. However, wouldn't you get better interest in a current account, such as e.g. The Santander 123 or Lloyds/BOS Vantage, TSB Enhance, Nationwide FlexDirect?

hubb

innovate wrote: »

ICICI is covered upto £85K by the FSCS scheme, like any other commercial bank licensed in the UK. It is not a government scheme but is industry-funded.

Your £3K would be perfectly safe in ICICI as long as they remain licensed in the UK. However, wouldn't you get better interest in a current account, such as e.g. The Santander 123 or Lloyds/BOS Vantage, TSB Enhance, Nationwide FlexDirect?

Yes, just opened a Santander 123 account because of the benefits of cashback. £2 a month fee but it's still worth it.

ToinyB-UK

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
I've had a "easy access" Savings Account with ICICI in the UK for a while now - Everything's fine..... Until you want to take your money out.

It seems you can't transfer money to any account that dosen't have a direct debit set up linking it with your HiSave. This is not only bizarre, but completely unnecessary, as no other bank has this ludicrous requirement.

Not only do ICICI take 6 days to tell you this via their Customer "Service" interface, they take another 14 days to set up the direct debit (which has to be printed and sent "snail mail" !!!). That's the best part of a month before you can even initiate a transfer out of your account. (absolutely no problems transferring money in of course, you just do that with the same simple money transfer mechanism they won't let you use to take money out... !!!)

Every other bank of course lets you do a money transfer in a matter of minutes, just by entering the account details into a website screen.

This bank's "Service" is just an embarrassment to the banking profession. WHAT MAKES THEM THINK IT'S ACCEPTABLE TO MAKE A CUSTOMER WAIT NEARLY A MONTH TO COMPLETE A SIMPLE, BASIC MONEY TRANSFER is beyond me!

Scarpacci

ToinyB-UK wrote: »

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
I've had a "easy access" Savings Account with ICICI in the UK for a while now - Everything's fine..... Until you want to take your money out.

It seems you can't transfer money to any account that dosen't have a direct debit set up linking it with your HiSave. This is not only bizarre, but completely unnecessary, as no other bank has this ludicrous requirement.

Not only do ICICI take 6 days to tell you this via their Customer "Service" interface, they take another 14 days to set up the direct debit (which has to be printed and sent "snail mail" !!!). That's the best part of a month before you can even initiate a transfer out of your account. (absolutely no problems transferring money in of course, you just do that with the same simple money transfer mechanism they won't let you use to take money out... !!!)

Every other bank of course lets you do a money transfer in a matter of minutes, just by entering the account details into a website screen.

This bank's "Service" is just an embarrassment to the banking profession. WHAT MAKES THEM THINK IT'S ACCEPTABLE TO MAKE A CUSTOMER WAIT NEARLY A MONTH TO COMPLETE A SIMPLE, BASIC MONEY TRANSFER is beyond me!

Though I can't defend the slowness of their service, it's not true that that every other bank just lets you do a money transfer. I have encountered many savings accounts which will only allow money to go to a linked account. I'm not sure if it's anti-money laundering or just bank security, but it's not uncommon at all on savings accounts. While bank accounts let you send payments all over the place, but savings accounts usually only pay to linked accounts.

kingrulzuk

No ICICI bank in Scotland hehehehehe

ToinyB-UK

Scarpacci wrote: »

Though I can't defend the slowness of their service, it's not true that that every other bank just lets you do a money transfer. I have encountered many savings accounts which will only allow money to go to a linked account. I'm not sure if it's anti-money laundering or just bank security, but it's not uncommon at all on savings accounts. While bank accounts let you send payments all over the place, but savings accounts usually only pay to linked accounts.

That might be true in some (decreasing) number of cases - but most institutions that have such a system (e.g. Paypal) now support the whole process on-line, it's done in a matter of minutes - 48 hours at the outside. I was able to link my Paypal acount (to the same (new) Bank A/C as I requested ICICI to use) in UNDER 5 MINUTES, including full verification.

I finally got the money from ICICI after 28 days (and even then only after the active intervention of a manager in the UK Complaints dept.). I was forced to take out a short-term loan because I was unable to access my money - which ICICI have now also reimbursed the cost of, so the end result at least has a tangible gesture of apology from ICICI.

Whatever way you cut it, denying access to someone's "easy access" money while you take a month to change and verify a simple piece of information is simply not acceptable.

Just look at it the other way round. If I wished to transfer money from my Bank A/C *into* my ICICI HiSave, I would simply type the Acct No / Sort Code into my bank's on-line Payment/Money Transfer screen and the money would be there the next morning, possibly even in the next few minutes..