Safety feature – Online Credit card usage
If you have ever stopped to look at the online credit usage you would have done (including reviewed the information you were asked to provide), it would seem extremely easy to use somebody’s card and use it for buying stuff. What is it that you need to provide in terms of information when using your credit card online ? You go to a site, decide to buy something (maybe jewellery, maybe some electronics goods, or something that can be delivered instantaneously such as software) and are asked whether you need to pay through a credit card, using the much hyped secure card payment gateways (that use ’128 bit encryption security’, and are from well known banks).
Think for a minute about the information you provide online; you typically provide the following information:
- Name
- Date of birth (sometimes)
- Card Number
- 3 / 4 Digit security code at the back of the card
- Validity period of the card
Categories: Banks, Consumer, Credit Card, Finance, Fraud, Online, RBI, Security Tags: Bank, Credit Card, Finance, Fraud, Money, Online Transaction, RBI, Safety, Security
HDFC Bank fined for ‘extra charges’
Normally, dealing with banks is a hot and cold affair. When you have dealings with ATM’s and with over the counter in branches, things are fine normally fine. But when there is something that is out of the ordinary, that is when people have more complaints. This could be when there are some delays in credit card payments, or a person is on the edge when qualifying for a loan, or when there is some problem in making the loan repayments. In such cases, it is hard for bank customers to understand all the charges that a bank levies as penalties or extra charges, and this could lead to banks sometimes levying charges that are more than normal.
Consider the following example when a person had bought a motorcycle on loan from HDFC Bank, and was unable to pay some of the installments on time; he was unable to understand some of the charges levied by the bank and filed a case in the consumer forum against these charges (link to article):
Categories: Banks, Chandigarh, Compensation, Consumer, Court, Finance Tags: Bank, Case, Charge, Compensation, Consumer Court, Decision, Delay, Extra Charge, Loan, Penalty, Repayment, Unfair trade practice
Consumer: Experience with ICICI Prudential agent
This is a post about my experience with a few of the agents of ICICI Prudential (and you should be able to extend this experience with other companies as well). This all started a few weeks back when my dad (a Government pensioner and a well-read man) got a phone call from an ICICI agent about a great pension plan with a guaranteed return. My dad has seen the past 1 year fury of the stock market bringing down the value of most companies, as well as having read enough of the over-promising by insurance Direct Sales Agents. So when anybody from a finance / insurance / investment company call, he asks them to speak to me (not that I am much better, but I am better informed about being able to get details).
So, the guy came once to meet at home, promised us a spiel about investing Rs. 30,000 every year as premium, and in December 2013, ICICI will offer us units with a NAV of Rs. 15 as part of a scheme called ICICI Life Stage Pension Plan (with investments in the Return Guaranteed Fund). Overall, it seems like a great return, and this is a pension plan. So I did some research over the next weekend when the guy was to come back again for trying to get us to sign up for this pension plan. The scheme looks good, and after all, who does not want a guaranteed rate of return for their investments, but it seemed too good to be true. And then I found a few articles that criticized the scheme for the charges that they were levying, refer this article in the Hindu.com (link):
Categories: Banks, Consumer, Finance, Investing Tags: False, Guaranteed, ICICI, Information, Insurance, Investing, Investment, Pension, Plan, Prudential, Return
