The modern thinking Indian

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):

Sending a clear message against unfair trade practices, UT consumer forum directed HDFC Bank to pay Rs 25,000 as compensation and Rs 5,000 as litigation cost to Panchkula-resident Sohan Lal. The bank was also asked to issue a no-dues certificate (NDC) and overhaul its client’s account. Consumer forum’s decision came in the wake of allegations laid by Lal stating that the bank had asked him to pay exorbitant bouncing charges.
Holding that the bank adopted an unfair trade practice of charging exorbitant bouncing fees, the forum held, “The bank did not place any document to suggest if it was entitled to charge Rs 400 as bouncing charges.” The forum stated it was not clear that under what provision of law or agreement the bank was fleecing the complainant. “It is very unfortunate that banks are fleecing those who take petty loans for their basic needs,” it stated.

The problem described in this article is something that a number of people have faced when dealing with banks; some fight it out with complaints and a determined quest to ensure that they are not cheated, others don't fight it out and accept whatever the bank ordains for them - in either case, it is still incumbent on consumers to not take any extra charges lying down.

Labels: Bank, Case, Charge, Compensation, Consumer Court, Decision, Delay, Extra Charge, Loan, Penalty, Repayment, Unfair trade practice

Nowadays, there are a number of shops (primarily in the area of apparel and clothing) that seek to attract customers through offering huge discounts. So you have brands such as Priknit offering 80% sale on their jackets, Cantabil offering 80% discount on all clothes, Pepe Jeans branding a sale logo of Buy 2, get 2 free, Kouton's offering 50% + 50% and so on. I have been shopping in many of these, and realize that there is a huge amount of anti-consumer intent behind many of these. A lot of the numbers are inflated, and actual good quality is scarce. So let's take some specific examples, and see what goes on:

- Pepe Jeans: The store had this huge sales sign outside proclaiming that if you buy 2, then you get 2 free (and of course they had the '*', means that some conditions will apply). However, if you thought that this was a great bargain for getting 2 Pepe jeans, then think again. The offer was only for Pepe T-shirts, something that they forgot to put in the huge sign.

- Priknit: I was looking for some discounted jackets for the next season, and Priknit with it's 80% offer seemed fishy, but why not give it a try. So off I went to the Shipra Mall in Indirapuram in the NCR region, and entered the store over there. I looked at a jacket when inside, and speculated that such a jacket should not cost more than Rs. 2,000 at the most, and it looked impressive, and with 80% discount, could be considered for buying. Imagine the shock when the list price of the jacket was listed at Rs. 4,000, and on a closer look, some of the threads on the jacket seemed to be awry. And there were some better jackets that were listed at Rs. 6,000 - you could have knocked me down with a feather.

- Cantabil was the next one - Here also there was a 80% discount. Well, guess what, more of the same. Shirts (and nothing spectacular) were listed at Rs. 1600. I am pretty sure that people would not have even looked at the store again if these shirts were retailed at their full list price; I made a quick exit from the store. If I wanted to buy such shirts, would rather go to a much better place.

- Kouton was the first such brand that was offering these 75% kind of discounts on clothes, and I remember buying some pretty great looking shirts from at discounted prices of Rs. 400, and those shirts looked great, but when I had gone there recently, the quality and designs had degraded.

Final realization: What looks like a bargain may not be a bargain (there is this psychological thing where you end up buying something if it seems to be a great bargain, and you have to spend some effort in order to prevent yourself from falling under this spell), and a lot of these retailers are indulging in some pretty ugly anti-consumer practices. Please add more such issues you know about in comments.

Labels: Apparel, Clothes, Consumer, Customer, Discount, Extra Charge, Fraud, Retailer, Shop, Shopping