Confusion at Bank

Last Saturday I had gone to a nationalized bank here to check the status of my request for transfer of account from Bangalore branch to Chennai branch. It was twenty five days after I submitted the request. The person who handled such issues was always surrounded by a lot of customers. I noticed it last time when I came to submit the request letter. Though it was a five minutes job it took me nearly forty minutes because I was waiting for almost twenty minutes to get his attention. When I told him about the transfer of accounts, immediately he asked me submit my ATM card, Cheque book and Passbook. Actually since my account in Bangalore was a temporary one (for holding the bond amount that was mandatory for joining my company and the salary till the bond period of fifteen months got over). Hence they never provided the Passbook. So before I could explain him this, he saw that I didn’t have the passbook with me and wrote me off saying that they will not accept unless I submit the passbook also. Thanks to my Dad, I had got a printout of my email to the Bangalore branch asking about the process of transfer and their reply suggesting that I needed to submit only my ATM card and Cheque book. But to get his attention I needed to wait another ten minutes after which the whole process was over in five minutes.

This delay is attributed to the fact that the bank was computerized recently with a core banking system and there were a lot of confusions. Last Saturday I was a victim of such confusion. I showed him the copy of the letter that I had submitted at the time of request for transfer. I think he would’ve just read the subject of the letter before passing it back to me. He again asked me for my name and the branch in Bangalore where I had my account. After I provided him the details he was immersed in the computer for sometime after which he turned to me saying that the account has been closed there and a new account is opened here. However, THERE WAS NO BALANCE IN THE ACCOUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was shocked. Won’t anyone who was supposed to have balance close to One Lakh (courtesy the returned bond amount after the bond period) be damn shocked if they hear the above statement?????????????? After I recovered from the shock, I told him that it is supposed to have a huge balance and I mentioned the amount. I also showed him the latest ATM slip that I had got when I went to withdraw the month before. He answered coolly that the computer shows nil amount. I told them that I would call up the Bangalore branch and enquire about the balance. He said that they might have closed the account and sent a DD for that amount. He asked his colleagues whether they had seen a draft with my name from the Bangalore branch. He also searched in his desk but couldn’t find any such DD. This went on for half an hour or so and I was very irritated with the way they handled this issue so calmly. Such a huge amount was at stake and they were as if I had just told them I’d dropped a five rupee coin on the floor and they are searching for it!!! Then he got tired of searching and asked me to go home and come back another time. I was all the more irritated. I told him to check whether there is any balance in the old account number. Again after “thattifying” on the computer for sometime he turned back to me saying that the account is intact and the balance is also intact. I had the urge to just shout at him saying “Why the hell did u stage this drama then?” But I asked him “What was the problem?”

He calmly explained that since they have got core banking in place, the account number will remain the same throughout India across all the branches and only the location code will change. But they had made a mistake of opening another account in my name. This mistake cost me two and a half hours on a hot Saturday morning. When I came out it was noon and by the time I reached home I was half-baked by the sun!!!!!