Post by Queen of the Damned on Jun 26, 2008 8:34:58 GMT -5
" 10,000 reasons for frustration with bank
First published: Thursday, June 26, 2008
Simple question this week: What did Citizens Bank do with Mr. Sridhar Bitkuri's $10,000?
The answer: Not so simple.
Bitkuri, a Schenectady resident by way of Hyderabad, India, tried to transfer $10,000 from his Citizens Bank account to his own personal account with Andhra Bank in India. He'd done it before without incident.
This time he was transferring the money so his mother in India could pay for knee surgery. "I paid the fee, I filled out the paperwork," said Bitkuri, 36, a computer engineer who runs his own consulting business and who has lived in Schenectady for five years.
"It's supposed to be secure."
But every technophobe's nightmare came true on this transaction. He wired the money on May 12, and it never showed up in his Indian bank account.
When he asked both banks to investigate, he came up empty. Andhra Bank in India -- which is a large, international bank -- never received notice of a wire transfer and sent Bitkuri a letter to that effect. Citizens told him that it tried to "recall" the transfer. And that was the best answer he could get.
"When I call them, and I've made thousands of phone calls, they tell me, 'We're still investigating,' " he said. He said customer service representatives have been rude and unsympathetic and one even told him to stop calling.
When he told one customer service representative he was so frustrated he was going to call a lawyer, he said the representative told him: "You have one lawyer, we have a hundred. Go ahead."
I met with Bitkuri and he showed me all the paperwork he had on the transaction, beginning with a copy of the wire transfer receipt. I saw how on May 12, he began the wire transfer and paid a fee of $35. He also provided a letter from Andhra Bank dated June 17 that stated the money had not arrived in his account and there was nothing in its system to indicate a wire transfer had begun.
His money is still lost in the digital ether and his mother is still waiting for surgery.
He kept returning to what disturbed him the most: That Citizens Bank representatives treated him as if his problem wasn't a big deal and that several acted annoyed with him rather than eager to find his $10,000.
He is not the kind of customer you'd think a bank would risk losing.
"I have a mortgage with them. I have a checking account, savings account, and my business account is through them. Everything," Bitkuri said.
Christy Calicchia, Citizens Bank's vice president for public affairs, was courteous and professional to me, but frankly, not helpful. First, she claimed she couldn't discuss Bitkuri's case out of concerns for his privacy. I pointed out to her that a man concerned about privacy probably wouldn't contact a newspaper columnist to help him. But never mind.
The bigger question is what happened to his money and why he was routinely treated as a nuisance?
Calicchia said that in international wire transfers, Citizens always sends the funds through an intermediary bank before it reaches its final destination, which adds another step in this transaction where something could have gone wrong.
"Thank you for bringing this to our attention and I assure you we will be in contact with the customer and discuss it with him," she said.
I have no doubt someone will, but that's not much of an answer. I asked when this would happen and she said she didn't know. I also told her about the abysmal customer service Bitkuri received and she sounded genuinely disturbed. That's promising.
But finding his $10,000 would be better. Maybe an apology would be nice, too."
Whats worse then this? I bank with them.
Source: Albany Times Union
First published: Thursday, June 26, 2008
Simple question this week: What did Citizens Bank do with Mr. Sridhar Bitkuri's $10,000?
The answer: Not so simple.
Bitkuri, a Schenectady resident by way of Hyderabad, India, tried to transfer $10,000 from his Citizens Bank account to his own personal account with Andhra Bank in India. He'd done it before without incident.
This time he was transferring the money so his mother in India could pay for knee surgery. "I paid the fee, I filled out the paperwork," said Bitkuri, 36, a computer engineer who runs his own consulting business and who has lived in Schenectady for five years.
"It's supposed to be secure."
But every technophobe's nightmare came true on this transaction. He wired the money on May 12, and it never showed up in his Indian bank account.
When he asked both banks to investigate, he came up empty. Andhra Bank in India -- which is a large, international bank -- never received notice of a wire transfer and sent Bitkuri a letter to that effect. Citizens told him that it tried to "recall" the transfer. And that was the best answer he could get.
"When I call them, and I've made thousands of phone calls, they tell me, 'We're still investigating,' " he said. He said customer service representatives have been rude and unsympathetic and one even told him to stop calling.
When he told one customer service representative he was so frustrated he was going to call a lawyer, he said the representative told him: "You have one lawyer, we have a hundred. Go ahead."
I met with Bitkuri and he showed me all the paperwork he had on the transaction, beginning with a copy of the wire transfer receipt. I saw how on May 12, he began the wire transfer and paid a fee of $35. He also provided a letter from Andhra Bank dated June 17 that stated the money had not arrived in his account and there was nothing in its system to indicate a wire transfer had begun.
His money is still lost in the digital ether and his mother is still waiting for surgery.
He kept returning to what disturbed him the most: That Citizens Bank representatives treated him as if his problem wasn't a big deal and that several acted annoyed with him rather than eager to find his $10,000.
He is not the kind of customer you'd think a bank would risk losing.
"I have a mortgage with them. I have a checking account, savings account, and my business account is through them. Everything," Bitkuri said.
Christy Calicchia, Citizens Bank's vice president for public affairs, was courteous and professional to me, but frankly, not helpful. First, she claimed she couldn't discuss Bitkuri's case out of concerns for his privacy. I pointed out to her that a man concerned about privacy probably wouldn't contact a newspaper columnist to help him. But never mind.
The bigger question is what happened to his money and why he was routinely treated as a nuisance?
Calicchia said that in international wire transfers, Citizens always sends the funds through an intermediary bank before it reaches its final destination, which adds another step in this transaction where something could have gone wrong.
"Thank you for bringing this to our attention and I assure you we will be in contact with the customer and discuss it with him," she said.
I have no doubt someone will, but that's not much of an answer. I asked when this would happen and she said she didn't know. I also told her about the abysmal customer service Bitkuri received and she sounded genuinely disturbed. That's promising.
But finding his $10,000 would be better. Maybe an apology would be nice, too."
Whats worse then this? I bank with them.
Source: Albany Times Union
