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Monday, March 9, 2009

Interest of Tk 8000 for Less than 1 Taka

A Mr. Mojammel Haque has sent his opinion in the Daily Ittefaq on March 09, 2009 stating that, he obtained a credit card from BRAC bank namely “Free for Life” card. He alleged that he had been using the card for several years while paying the monthly bills regularly. He further mentions that in his card there was an unpaid balance of Tk 0.96, which is less than Tk 1.00. As the amount was very small he did not care for paying any bills further. Lately in the month of March he has found that his credit card has a bill of Tk Tk 8069.77. Shocked with this balance he called the Call Center and got a reply that he has to pay the bill and he has no other option. …
The above is the extract taken from “Letters to Editor” page of The Daily Ittefaq. I personally think, the matter which has been published as above, does not provide sufficient information to justify the facts, because the Mr. Haque did not provide when he had an unpaid balance of Tk 0.69 and when he received the bill for unpaid amount. Yet, whatever time period passed in between, I think a bill of Tk 8069.77 is an impossible bill for an amount less than One taka. If the thing is true, we the consumers should go tough against this kind of fees and charges of credit card in our country. Dear readers, if you have any relevant or similar experience with your credit card bills, please share it here. Thanks.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess you would not get a single account holder without such experience. Now, as you have requested to raise our voice against such poor services, I believe you would not find any with you. This is because of the frustration resulted from the poor management of BRAC bank. From my experience I can say that even the senior managers don't know how to solve the problem, reflecting their competence in holding the position of so called "Customer Care Manager" or "Branch Manager". I believe, there is only one bank in this earth, off course it is BRAC bank, where a/c holders are given excuses that Customer care has nothing to do to solve customer's problem since it is the responsibility of back office only to address the issue. I wish I could send them back to school to complete their operations management course by heart before they are to sit to serve & end up damaging the corporate reputation of BRAC, the name - the whole nation is proud of. I would like to believe that all our notes would contribute to wake up the management of this organization to take its service to somewhere close to our expectation. I personally believe that this local entity has the capability of offering services of international standard. It has resources of high quality, lack co-ordination & management only.
Hoping to see a come back from BRAC bank soon.

Anonymous said...

I went to Brac Bank once for a loan. After 6 months I decided to pay it off early because I really didn't need the money. Now what bank doesn't want their customers to pay back the loan + interest early?

Apparently not Brac Bank. To close the loan early I had to pay 10% OF THE ENTIRE AMOUNT AS A CHARGE!!! This is totally absurd. And by reading your previous article, Brac Bank manages to lure in more customers with the help of Sajjadur Rahman at The Daily Star. We need letters and articles like this to point out the atrocity the banks are committing.

Only so long until all the customers start protesting and start writing about the charges they were held hostage for. Think Sajjadur Rahman is going to fix it with another biased article?

The best part. When I wanted to close my account? Tk 2000 "closing" fee. That is more than what I have in the account (granted I withdrew most of it before being notified). So I just left my hard earned money with these b***ards

@anon: What is the reputation that you speak of? Is it the one shown by Sajjadur Rahman at The Daily Star while he gets paid?

Or is the reputation garnered by refusing to pay a single taka to reimburse for the locker heist which Brac was responsible for? the high charges? the misleading statements?

I am confused about the reputation part.

Anonymous said...

Massive fraud by Brac Bank in Bangladesh

Blitz Exclusive

Believe it or not! One of the leading financial institutions in Bangladesh, named Brack Bank, which is owned by one of the largest NGOs [Non Government Organization] in the world, Brac, is into massive fraud thus swindling millions of Taka. According to documented information, Brac Bank is drawing millions of Taka from the Customers accounts by creating secret lien facilities. Such case of massive fraud was discovered when a customer received a statement of his account, where he was surprised to see that the bank has created lien worth TK. 10 million [Almost US$ 150,000] and drew the amount in the name of the customer, even without notifying him. When the matter was brought to the attention of authorities of Brac Bank, they tried to justify such fraudulent actions saying, “It was done for the sake of customer’s safety”.

It is also learnt that, Brac Bank not only creates and withdraws money from the customer’s account secretly through clean fraud, it also levies all interests accrued from the amount of lien on the customer, which is not only unethical and illegal but goes beyond the minimum level of banker-customer trust.

It is learnt that such huge amounts of money drawn from the customer’s accounts secretly are passed by Brac Bank to a number of hidden businesses, which are operated by the mid-level management of the largest NGO named Brac.

While contacted, a source in Bangladesh Bank, on condition of anonymity told Weekly Blitz that, this was the first time they came to know about such massive fraud by any financial institution in Bangladesh.

“The matter should be properly investigated and necessary actions should be taken against Brac Bank”, said the source.

Bangladesh Bank sources further said, in previous time there had been massive fraud and swindling of public money by a number of financial institutions, but the latest case of Brac Bank is not only unique but surely goes even beyond imagination of bankers or customers in the world.

After discovery of such fraud by Brac Bank, many financial experts are opining that, keeping money with this financial institution remains at highest risk for the customers.

Mishu said...

This is true for all banks as we, the people in Bangladesh, are not at all aware about the hidden charges of these banks. Moreover, we are not collectively expressing our opinions, more correctly, our rights so that they, maximum companies, do what ever they like to do. We should make some strong stand against such act.