Santosh Desai calls out ICICI Bank for “terrible experience”

Santosh Desai, MD & CEO, Futurebrands India, called out ICICI bank in a LinkedIn post. He stated, "Wanted to share a truly terrible experience with ICICI Bank. My 82 year old mother-in-law was scammed out of Rs 9.4 lakhs by someone claiming to be from the bank who asked for details for an updated KYC. The transactions took place over a few hours and were, even at first glance, looked extremely suspicious. There were absolutely no safeguards in place, no protection offered to someone who was clearly vulnerable."

"Despite going through all the necessary formalities in terms of filing a complaint, the bank has been supremely indifferent in addressing the issue. Letters to senior management who are meant to look after frauds of this kind elicit no response whatsoever and local branch people have no authority to help," he further said. 

Moreover, Desai also pointed out that in spite of having instructed the bank verbally and in writing to block the account from further withdrawals, another Rs 40,000 was extracted by the same scammers just earlier this month. "This was not some complicated scam- and given how frequently we are asked for KYC updates, the chances of being duped like this are extremely high. That the bank has no way to protect someone like her who is widowed and depends on her pension is appalling. That no one cares enough to even try and address the problem says something is rotten at ICICI Bank," he stated.

Others too mentioned their experiences with ICICI bank. "Few years back, while I was working abroad, I started getting messages stating money being taken out of various ATMs in Delhi. I called my family. They said they haven't withdrawn any money. So I panicked and told my wife to go to the Vasant Kunj Bank and sort it out. They didn't help her at all. In fact, they were rude. Then I told her to go to the police station and lodge a complaint. My wife did a few rounds without any result. So I told her to take the money and deposit it in our HSBC account. With my wife passing away... I also passed the issue away as another aspect of life," said Sujit Das, Executive Vice President - Creative, Turmeriq Integrated Marketing Solutions Pvt Limited.

Nancy Kurian, Director - Admissions and Marketing, Oakridge International SchooI has faced a similar scam of Rs 35,000 and she did get the temporary balance for 3 months. "Upon following up on investigations with ICICI, they said that since the transaction has been done through me, I am not eligible for any reversals. I had filed cyber complaint etc and shared lots of evidences of the scam but everything was ignored. There was a news which read that the scammers have been arrested of making 6 Crs however banks will still not take any action.ICICI is horrible with its services and I will shortly close my banking services with them. Just to add the customer service lady was very rude to address my concerns too."

"So even if there is ample evidence to prove that we were scammed, bank doesnt want to do its job to take any action against these unethical transactions. This is our country. I would urge you to put this out on other social media channels and TAG ICICI and the finance ministry & the cyber crime depts," she added.