An open Letter to United Bank Limited (UBL): By Hammad Siddiqui

I was a UBL Gold Card holder with excellent credit history but I didn’t know before that commercial banks in Pakistan can literally threat you, let alone the misbehaving part.

My reason for keeping a credit card is avoiding carrying cash. Having used UBL card for few years, I saw a sharp decline in their quality of service and commitment to customer excellence.

In 2010 I decided to cut and return my card. Despite the fact that I was a good customer, I never received a call from UBL inquiring the reasons for discontinuing the card. Life was peaceful until on 10 September.

I received a statement for Chip Maintenance Fee of Rs 250. The statement also showed an eleven Paisa credit that I must have paid in addition to last payment.

On my calling to the customer care department, to my utter surprise I was told that my card was not cancelled, but was blocked due to some fraudulent transactions! Shocked I was, and immediately wrote a letter to the bank explaining my position. I requested UBL to correct their records. Next was another statement from the bank of Rs 1462.39 – I again sent a written reminder requesting them to correct records.

On 17th October I received a call from Mr Arsalan Saeed who introduced me as an Analyst. He accepted the error and told me that on my instruction, he was cancelling my card. He said that the process would take couple of days and after that I can request an NOC. I waited for two weeks and called the bank on 2nd November. I described the complete story again to the agent who asked me to write again. By that time I was so upset, as a busy person, I was wasting my time to get an NOC from UBL just for Rs 250!

I decided to write them another letter and copy this letter to Mr Atif R Bokhari, President UBL. This was done on 5 November. I again received a phone call today with again going in circles and asking various verifications.

By now I have wasted about five hours of my precious time to get an NOC for something I never did and it is purely an administrative / clerical mistake on part of UBL. I am now preparing an application to submit a formal complaint to Banking Ombudsman and also to State Bank’s Consumer Protection Unit requesting them to intervene  But was a waste of valuable time just for Rs 250!

Hammad Siddiui

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=34837

Posted by Web Desk on Nov 8 2012. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.