Indore (Madhya Pradesh): A woman who had bought a mobile phone from a e-commerce website through EMI could not pay an instalment as the bank had wrongfully deducted money from her account and had not informed her about it.
The woman moved consumer court, and it found the bank guilty and asked it to refund the deducted money and also pay Rs 10,000 as fine.
Niloufer Khan, bought a Samsung Galaxy S-10 worth Rs 73,990 in September 2019. She opted for the EMI option and filled in all bank details and successfully deposited the first instalment. She had a fixed deposit linked to the account in the bank.
However, from May 2019, the bank started deducting Rs 295 from her account claiming to charge her for premature encashment.
Surprisingly, Khan was never notified about the deduction and the bank continued to debit the money till September 2019. Khan came to know this when her transaction for the next EMI failed and the e-commerce company lodged a complaint, reducing Khan’s CIBIL score. When Khan approached the bank they assured her that they would check whether it was a technical error or not.
However, when there was no reply after a long wait, Khan officially approached the customer care section. The bank officially sent a letter to Khan stating that nothing can be done. Khan claimed that the regional branch officers neglected her complaints and misbehaved with her.
The bank refused to take responsibility and said that the complainant had insufficient funds and was trying to defame them. However, the court asked for photocopies of the passbook and other bank statements along with the affidavit. Consumer court found the bank guilty of deducting Rs 2,065 from the complainant's account.
In its recent judgment, court ordered the bank to repay the deducted amount along with Rs 10,000 for mental and physical agony. The bank was also asked to clear and correct Khan’s CIBIL score and issue a certificate in her favour within a month.
