Never trust your Bank

Has this happened to you?

The bank promises you a credit card with a limit and at the time of drawal, they dont let you draw.

Backstabbed by the bank! 

The bank in question is HDFC Bank.

From yester years, the synonym of banking or lending is trust, which is the main basis of it.

The recent experience of my "trusted" bank has had me question some of my beliefs.

I have been a loyal customer to this bank from 2005, a pretty significant 18 years. And this has been my primary bank account. They have issued me a premium credit card and they have wanted to increase the limit once a year which I have denied to as I have a decent limit which I dont use.

I was also smart enough to get my wife an add on card on the exact next day after our wedding 10 years ago so that she should not have any problem when the need arises.

Last week, my wife shopped and swiped the card for a pretty big amount well within the overall unused limit and the card was declined. I reset the password online and checked with my banker (on a sat holiday) and he confirmed that the pin generation and limit change was instantaneous. Despite this, the card was declined 3 times with no correct reason specified.

The next day, I get a call from the transaction monitoring team of the credit card asking if the transaction tried was genuine. Why didnt they call and check at that time? She also told me that the card has been blocked. When I asked why, she had no reason.

In effect, they promised me credit and at the time of drawal, they didnt let me draw. Backstabbed by the bank! 

What if the purpose of this transaction was at a hospital for an emergency? The patient could have died as I couldnt pay. Could I then make the bank a party to the murder of the patient as it was responsible for not obliging on its promises and denied getting the treatments on time?

Few lessons from this episode:
Never trust any bank. Diversify the credit cards and have 2 primary accounts with transactions in each to have good credit limit.

You need to have multiple lines of liquidity (as stated earlier in my blog) to overcome immediate payment needs.