Grievance Redressal for Credit Card Holders

From the initial days of Credit Card operations in India, there have been reports of tussle between Card issuing banks and credit card holders regarding the debt repayment. The reserve Bank of India has issued several guidelines to the card issuing institutions for the reddressal of grievances of the card holders. These include:

a.A time limit of 60 days needs to be given by the bank to the customers to prefer their complaints.

b.The card issuing bank shall constitute Grievance redressal machinery within the bank and the name and contact number of the designated officer shall be mentioned on the credit card bills.

c.The grievance redressal procedure of the bank/NBFC and the time frame for responding to the complaints shall be placed on the bank’s website. There should be a system of acknowledging customer’s complaints for follow up such as complaint number /docket number even if the complaints are received on phone.

d.If the customer does not get a satisfactory response from the bank, within 30 days period, then he has the right to approach the concerned banking ombudsman to redress his grievances. The bank shall be liable to compensate the customer for the loss of his time, expenses, financial loss etc.

Apart from the above RBI guidelines the customers have the right to file criminal complaints against the banks and the recovery agents if their acts amount to criminal offenses like intimidation, abuse, use of force assault etc. Also the customer can approach the consumer courts to redress his grievance.