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Laws regarding online bank a/c and credit card closure.

catcat

TF Select
What are the existing laws regarding the online closure of
1. Bank accounts
2. Credit cards

In particular, is it mandatory to provide an online closure for either category? I seem to have read something at some point, but don't exactly remember.
 
So, RBI has a ruling for Credit Cards where companies are required to provide multiple channels to close a Credit Card, but for Bank Accounts there isn't any such rule.
For Bank accounts the easiest way is withdraw all the money from the account and leave it.
RBI has a rule that account balance cannot be negative, so banks won't be able to charge any maintenance fee if the account balance is zero. ( Some banks like HDFC still don't follow this)
 
Okay, now facing a different issue. Can an account not being KYC complaint be a reason for not closing an account?
Context - Paytm suspends my Paytm payments account without warning for not having KYC. Tried to do KYC 6 times, and each time the video verification did not succeed for nonsensical reasons like "Poor video connection". The latest was when the KYC person said "earphones use kijiye" to which I replied that earphones are not available, and then the person proceeded to disconnect the video kyc.

I then raised a ticket to close my account, where they asked for a cancelled cheque, which I provided.

Now they're providing nonsensical excuses like "You have a merchant payment setup at xyz...", which I didn't find in the app. However, I removed all benefeciaries from my paytm payments bank acccount, which it seems was enough to clear that stage. The next person called and said that she could not close the account because it was frozen, but she said she'd ask the team to fix it.


Independently raised a complaint to the nodal officer, complaining that excuses were being invented to prevent account closure. Now the nodal officer is behaving obtusely and is asking me to get KYC done (while ignoring that the complaint was about clousure. Did not even say that account could not be closed for non KYC... just plain ignored.)

Any suggestions? Have around 5000 a/c balance. Should I wait 30 days and approach the ombudsman?

PS: never had issues with video kyc with anyone else. Got it done in the first or second attempt everywhere else.
 
Raise a complaint with RBI Ombudsman, 30 days wait is only for non response, if you are not happy with the response then you can complain it now too. Clearly mention they are not closing account and also not doing KYC.
 
Thank you. Have asked this in another thread in another context - is it better to go to the Ombudsman or the consumer courts? I have gone to the ombudsman once, and have never gone to the consumer court.

I guess one can't go to both?
 
Thank you. Have asked this in another thread in another context - is it better to go to the Ombudsman or the consumer courts? I have gone to the ombudsman once, and have never gone to the consumer court.

I guess one can't go to both?
Better to go to RBI Ombudsman, it is pretty good. Didn't it resolve the first time you complained to them? What was your issue about?
 
Better to go to RBI Ombudsman, it is pretty good. Didn't it resolve the first time you complained to them? What was your issue about?
It was technically a success, but no relief for me.

Basically, had taken a HL from SBI. A debit of 12,000 was there in the account, which SBI absolutely refused to explain. Went to the BO, which compelled the bank to reply that it was property insurance. Wasn't able to get the money back because somewhere in the fine print I consented to it.
 
It was technically a success, but no relief for me.

Basically, had taken a HL from SBI. A debit of 12,000 was there in the account, which SBI absolutely refused to explain. Went to the BO, which compelled the bank to reply that it was property insurance. Wasn't able to get the money back because somewhere in the fine print I consented to it.
Sorry to hear that. When taking home loan they make it so troublesome that we become negligent and miss the TnC, even if we read it, at that point we need the money to close the transaction so we accept all charges and insurances which are not mandatory.
 
It was technically a success, but no relief for me.

Basically, had taken a HL from SBI. A debit of 12,000 was there in the account, which SBI absolutely refused to explain. Went to the BO, which compelled the bank to reply that it was property insurance. Wasn't able to get the money back because somewhere in the fine print I consented to it.
Even if the TnC mentions it, if you think the TnC is not fair you can approach the Consumer Courts and they often rule in favour of the customer if there is truly unfair trade practice or deficiency of service, their TnCs do not absolve them from these charges despite mentions.
 
Ombudsman is your go.
An alternative way I can suggest is tweet(or "X" whatever its called now) to paytm and tag big authorities like ceo, rbi etc. It might work. They may resolve the issue on urgent basis
 
Already done that, finally the nodal officer replied saying that I need to give them a KYC doc, and a selfie with that doc.

On another note, the Video KYC was successfully completed. But the 🤡s that they are, they've said that the'll send a QR code to my residential address within 10 days, and I need to scan that. They seem to be on self-destruction mode. (They'd actually taken my offline KYC in 2015). I actually had paytm shares in my portfolio, but have sold them - a bad KYC processess means that either they lose access to cheap funding, or they'll attract regulatory action. Either way, not a good sin.
 
For Bank accounts the easiest way is withdraw all the money from the account and leave it.
This is bad practice. As long as the account is active, they can charge the periodic charges( sms, dc etc). technically they can report it also. Just because you didn't avail a service, doesn't mean they didn't provide it. Why take on unnecessary mess for small change? You never know when you'll need their services in future.

Go to branch, close it, get noc.
 
Wasn't able to get the money back because somewhere in the fine print I consented to it.
See in case of dispute, court always favours the party who didn't formulate the contract I e. You. But only when it seems that they intentionally tried to deceive you. Either by burrying in fine print, making it unnecessarily lengthy filled with jargon.
Being careless to read the contract won't be an acceptable excuse though.

What you can always do is use social media to point out to others how issuer unethically charging you extra.
 
Okay, now facing a different issue. Can an account not being KYC complaint be a reason for not closing an account?
Context - Paytm suspends my Paytm payments account without warning for not having KYC. Tried to do KYC 6 times, and each time the video verification did not succeed for nonsensical reasons like "Poor video connection". The latest was when the KYC person said "earphones use kijiye" to which I replied that earphones are not available, and then the person proceeded to disconnect the video kyc.

I then raised a ticket to close my account, where they asked for a cancelled cheque, which I provided.

Now they're providing nonsensical excuses like "You have a merchant payment setup at xyz...", which I didn't find in the app. However, I removed all benefeciaries from my paytm payments bank acccount, which it seems was enough to clear that stage. The next person called and said that she could not close the account because it was frozen, but she said she'd ask the team to fix it.


Independently raised a complaint to the nodal officer, complaining that excuses were being invented to prevent account closure. Now the nodal officer is behaving obtusely and is asking me to get KYC done (while ignoring that the complaint was about clousure. Did not even say that account could not be closed for non KYC... just plain ignored.)

Any suggestions? Have around 5000 a/c balance. Should I wait 30 days and approach the ombudsman?

PS: never had issues with video kyc with anyone else. Got it done in the first or second attempt everywhere else.
It seems your complaint worked,RBI is working on it🤣
 
It seems your complaint worked,RBI is working on it🤣

I had a bad feeling about this. I even tweeted asking people to close their accounts in December. I had closed my Paytm postpaid some months back (basically din't want another credit instrument). I then proceeded to sell my shares, which were trading at 600+ at the time.


What seems to have happened is that the RBI had been tightening already, and this was an unprofessional and knee jerk reaction to earlier process flaws.
 
I had a bad feeling about this. I even tweeted asking people to close their accounts in December. I had closed my Paytm postpaid some months back (basically din't want another credit instrument). I then proceeded to sell my shares, which were trading at 600+ at the time.


What seems to have happened is that the RBI had been tightening already, and this was an unprofessional and knee jerk reaction to earlier process flaws.
Great timing for withdrawal of shares.
 
More tamasha. This time from ICICI bank.

I have multiple accounts at ICICI bank (2 savings + 1 current which an employer made me open). Since one of those accounts havs a hefty debit card fee, I visited a branch (45+ days before the debit card was to be levied) to cancel that savings account + the current account.

They've kept delaying my closure saying "accounts linked to demat". TBH the branks folks are polite & helpful, but also clueless. I had taken the precaution of transferring all the funds out of the savings account. But by an oversight, the savings account to be closed was accidentally set as the primary account for gpay. Someone sent me money, and ICICI bank promptly debited the debit card fee.

Sigh! Another long fight.

I know I will prevail, because I have a photo of the stamped closure form.

But why do banks suck so much, and make it so difficult?
 
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