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11:03 AM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
May 14, 2014
There is this bank, okay. I closed my credit cards with them over a year ago. Like zero, zero. On both the Visa and the MasterCard. Then I cut up the cards and threw away the shackles. Happy camper. Celebrate.
Imagine my surprise this week when I get a call from a collections department fellow who says I owe them the princely sum of 1,100 dirhams in interest because the cards were not closed and the service charges have accrued.
These are monthly service charges yes? So I ask why they were silent for one year. Not a peep. Nothing. They say, the system brought it up now so they want the money.
I say, I cleared the cards in toto, in full, like down to the last fill.
Yes, but you didn’t ask for a letter of closure.
What??????
You didn’t close your account so it was still being serviced, it is now a suspended account, you have to pay it.
I don’t. I won’t. And zero is zero, mathematically, how do you service an account that is zero?
I know they are the big boys and in a fight they fight dirty but I am not giving in. So, if there is anybody out there, a banker, a legal advisor, a friend, someone who has also been punished and bullied by these so called venerable institutions and can give me some advice which we can all share, then do me a favor and share it for all. Just do not say oh, pay it and walk away.
I know it is such a pittance it is better to cut your losses but the sheer meanness and unfairness of it all galls me and the bile rises.
The mood I am in I don’t mind spending ten times that to not pay it…if you get the drift.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
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