A report from the banking Ombudsman report has said that the complaints lodged against credit card companies have seen a frequent increase each year. The number of complaints went up by 74% during the year 2008-09, as per the report.
During 2008-09, as many as 17, 648 clients have complained regarding their problems against issuers. In the same period, there was a fall in unpaid cards to 3.6 million.
A head of a credit card head said, “Credit cardissues arise, as the customers do not understand the product and charges associated with it. In some cases involving third parties, issuers can do little but to go by computer generated records”.
Most of the complaints involved issues such as cases of overcharging, issuing unwanted cards as well as free cards and levying of annual fees for them, rude calls and selling loans and issuing insurance policies.
The banking ombudsman is an answer for these problems but is a time consuming measure.
A client is not permitted to hold back his transactions as against the stipulated terms. A spokesperson for the Axis Banksaid, “The money is paid to the merchant within a day of his claim”.