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Bank charges

I opened a Kunooz Value Plus savings account with Dubai Bank last year and made regular payments into it.

In October 2010, I withdrew an amount and my balance went below the Dh1,000 mark. Since then there have been no transactions relating to this account. On March 13, 2011, I went to deposit Dh2,000 in my savings account and was surprised to learn that Dh75 has been deducted each month from October 2010 to February 2011 — around Dh375 in total. I found this practice unfair and deceitful for the following reasons.

1. At the time of opening the account, this was not stated in the account opening form and it was not explained to me.

2. Even their website which markets Kunooz Value Plus account does not state this.

3. Each month when the Dh75 deduction was made from my account, there was no SMS alert or warning sent on my mobile phone.

4. No monthly bank statements were sent to my P.O. Box mailing address either.

When I expressed my disappointment to the customer service manager at the bank, he stated that nothing could be done as this is the policy of Dubai Bank regarding account deposits less than Dh2,500. They only send an SMS and mail your monthly statement to your postal address whenever you deposit or withdraw money from the bank. Since I had made no transaction from October 2010 to February 2011, they had systematically been deducting Dh75 each month without the knowledge of the account holder.

In my opinion, even a deduction from an account is a transaction and Dubai Bank was obliged to ensure that the customer was notified.

From Mr Faroukh Summiullah Sunny
Dubai

The management of Dubai Bank responds: Dubai Bank takes the concerns of our customers seriously.

When any customer at Dubai Bank opens an account, they must agree that they understand the terms and conditions of the bank, one of which is the acceptance of the charge schedule, which is posted at every branch and on the Dubai Bank website. We encourage all our customers to thoroughly read through this documentation to fully understand their accounts.

After looking into this specific case, however, Dubai Bank has found that the customer did not receive SMS notification of the service charges nor the statements from November 2010 to February 2011 due to technical reasons.

We have initiated immediate action to rectify this and Dubai Bank would like to thank Mr Faroukh Sumiullah Sunny for bringing this issue to our attention and as a gesture of goodwill, we have arranged to reverse the SMS charges accrued during this time. 

Mr Sunny responds: Thank you for all your efforts. I am assuming the last line of Dubai Bank's response was meant to read that they have arranged to reverse the service charges accrued during this time and not the SMS charges. I will double check that when I receive my next bank statement.

In any case, I congratulate Gulf News for covering this issue in the right spirit. It would be very prudent if Dubai Bank rectifies the lapse and ensures that no other customer gets affected on similar grounds. 

Dubai Bank responds: Dubai Bank has reversed the service charges of Dh375 and resolved the matter to Mr Sunny's satisfaction. He has been advised accordingly. We would like to thank Gulf News for bringing this matter to our attention.

Mr Sunny responds: I would like to take this opportunity to thank Gulf News for acting as a community arbitrator and covering this issue in the right spirit. On the same note, I commend Dubai Bank for taking immediate corrective action and reversing all the bank charges.


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