Saturday, December 20, 2008

Travails of a picked pocket :(

Exams and a bit of shopping done it was almost time to start back to Chennai from the Capital City. Rushed from Pallika Bazaar to Collector's place for a quick bite and to pack up my bags. Collector took a while, but, managed to cook up something good for me. It was kinda getting late for the train and I had to rush back on the Metro from Karol Bagh to the New Delhi Station via Rajiv Chowk. Rajiv Chowk was crowded as always, I dunno if I lost it on the escalator or at the exit of the Metro... But someone had picked my pocket and I had about 30 minutes to catch the train to Chennai.

As soon as I reached the platform of the train to Chennai I started calling up my banks. I had the customer care numbers of both my credit cards so I started off with them first. Both Deutsche Bank and HDFC took less than two minutes each to block my cards. I'm used to Deutsche bank's great service, but, I must admit I was and am surprised at HDFC's quick work... the bank is slow in everything else :-/

I didn't have ICICI's customer care number, neither did any of my friends or anyone in my whole compartment... Called Anuj in Chennai who took a while to get me the number. As I started calling ICICI bank the train started off... I had to listen to the stupid music while on hold for almost 6 minutes and it was more irritating than the noise the train was making. The executive was asking me stupid questions instead of blocking the card. By the time the thief who picked my pocket had swiped my card at a cinema hall!!! The executive refused to move a finger against the culprit as long as I didn't give him an FIR number. I pleaded with him to do something but to no avail... I tried explaining that I was on a train to Chennai and he couldn't have been more inconsiderate... In the noise the train was making he also tried advising me against storing my card number on my phone!!! :-/ It took me almost ten-12 minutes and the call got cut off without signal as the moron at the other end was still advising me!

36 hours later: Me at Chennai... I called all my banks. HDFC and Deutsche bank have already dispatched replacement cards... ICICI tells me that the moron at the Delhi Call centre had only blocked my card and not dispatched new card. The call centre guy at Chennai tried to convince me that I could lodge an FIR about what happened at Delhi in any Chennai police station and also gave me a false promise that all the money would be refunded!

No wonder people have problem trusting ICICI bank with their money and they have to pay Sharukh Khan to endorse them!

24 hours later (that's like 2 working days) I'm in for more shock when my HDFC card arrived. I still can't believe that the bank which take 5 days to credit a cheque dropped at their own bank can act so fast...

1.5K down the drain and a lesson about trust learnt from the 'Hum Nahin Hain na' bank: ICICI!