Kotak Securities - Worst Customer Service

If I were to rate companies on the poor customer service operations, I'd rate Kotak Securities as the worst. This award winning company has really shocked me with their lack of accountability and careless approach. Here's what happened.

I had invested in 2 mutual funds and on Dec-29, I sold these funds because I wanted to invest in new funds (to claim tax benefits). I called them few days later to check when and how I'd receive the money. They told me that  they could not credit money electronically to my account because of a name mismatch between my Kotak Account and my Bank Account (This name mismatch occurred because someone in Kotak mis-spelt my name while creating my account!). So they would send cheques to my registered address. I requested them to send cheques at my current address because I don't live at my registered address any more (the registered address is my parents' address). They said they would try to do it but no assurances were given. After calling them several times, they told me that one of cheques had been dispatched to my registered address on Jan-18th (20 days after I sold my funds!!). I still haven't received that cheque and have called them several times. Every time I call them, they tell me that they  are coordinating with their back-end team and will give me an update soon. The last update they gave me was 3 days ago when they will still coordinating with their team.

The story of my other cheque is worse. Ironically, the 2nd cheque was supposed to come from Kotak Mutual Fund (a part of the Kotak group of companies). Till date, no one has been able to tell me if that cheque has even been dispatched. Imagine this, I sold my mutual funds over a month ago and till now they can't tell me where my money is.

I must have called Kotak Customer Care at least 15 times in the past month and have even escalated my issue but there is no resolution in sight. Here's what I intend to do next:
1. Write to the head of Kotak Securites, explaining this situation.
2. Write to the head of Kotak group
3. Find out the regulatory body who deals with these issues and write to them
4. Close my account with Kotak once I have collected all my dues
5. Discourage people from opening account with them.

Any suggestions to deal with this issue and get my money back??

Customer Service Woes

For the past 2 weeks, I've spent almost 30-40 minutes each day over phone, complaining to companies and trying to deal with multiple issues.
Issues: credit card problem, mutual fund redemption, extra billing on internet account, bank account problem etc.
Companies: Some of the leading names like Reliance, ICICI, Kotak Securities, Standard Chartered etc.

Till date, none of these issues has been resolved and I am still fighting. This has made me realize the pathetic state of customer care, careless attitude of companies and lack of regulatory/reporting mechanism to deal with customer complaints. My next few posts will be dedicated to the problems that I've faced

The Year Gone By

I had started blogging 3 yrs ago and I've not been as regular at blogging as I would have liked. However, one of my resolutions for 2010 is to be regular at blogging.. Let's see how it goes...

To start with, 2009 is over and I was thinking about my life over the year gone by; Here are the highlights for the last year:

1. Graduation: I had always wanted to do an MBA and after postponing my MBA plans for 4 yrs, I finally finished MBA in 2009. Even though this was probably the worst year to get out of a b-school, I still feel it was completely worth it.

2. Travels: I love travelling and 2009 (esp. the first half) was great in terms of travelling. Some of the places I travelled to are London, Loire Valley, Barcelona, Brussels, French Riviera (Nice, Cannes, Monte Carlo), Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna. Among these, trips to Barcelona and Budapest were really great.

3. Books: I got back to reading after a long time and read many books in 2009. Most of the books I read were about history and wars. All the books I read were great but these stood out:

The Haj and Exodus by Leon Uris, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Emperor Series by Conn Iggulden , The African Dream written using excerpts from the diaries of Che Guevera and AK-47 by Michael Hodges.

4. Getting back to work: Getting work after graduating with MBA in 2009 was not easy; It took me some time to get the kind of job I wanted and in the end the wait was worth it. I am currently working with a young technology company and am really enjoying the experience.

So this is it for 2009. I hope 2010 will be much better.

Swine flu scare in India

Yesterday I returned to Pune after 10 days and was shocked to see almost half the population wearing face-masks to protect against swine-flu (H1N1 virus in India). Considering that there have been 6 H1N1 related deaths in Pune in the last week, the fear among the people is understandable. But is the mass hysteria justifiable?

Y'day, I watched a TV interview by the Indian health minister talking about the preventive measures taken by his goverment. He proudly claimed that India has screened 4.7 million people which is the biggest exercise of its kind in the world. He also blamed travellers coming to India for bringing this virus into the country.

While I agree that this virus has come to India through passengers coming from overseas, I would say that the biggest blame lies with the Indian government for its negligent attitude which has led to this situation in India.

The first reports of Swine flu came from Mexico in April and in May, the WHO talked about Swine Flu being a potential pendemic. What was Indian government doing then to prevent the spread of this virus in India? I returned to India from Paris on 29th June. I took the flight from Paris to Abu Dhabi and then changed a flight from Abu Dhabhi for India. After the flight landed at Abu Dhabi, every passenger had to undergo a test where thermal scanners manned by doctors screened passengers for potnetial flu symptoms. The system was very simple to implement and very efficient as well. Compare this to how this threat was dealt in India.

Before landing in Mumbai, each passenger was given a declaration form in which the person had to fill in some basic information like whether they had been to a flu affected country or had been in contact with a flu infected person. I filled this form in the flight and then landed at the airport. There was utter chaos at the terminal. There were some officials who wore face masks and asked each passenger to go to a particular room to get the form attested. I duly went to that room and got the form attested. After that I cleared immigration and entered into Mumbai with that form still with me; no official had looked at that form after I got it attested. So here I was, back in India, with a useless form in which I had mentioned that I had been to a swine flu infected country. No one had bothered to read that form and test me for any possible symptoms. And now the government blames travellers!!!!!