Fraudulent Union Bank reports keep on harming my Credit Rating for 7 years after closure of CC !!!

[Trust Me]

Believe it or not, until recently I have never checked my credit reports, secure in the belief that nothing could go wrong with my rating since I've never, ever, been delinquent with my loan repayments. Indeed, I have never been denied a loan or a credit card owing to my credit rating. Also my rating range as shown by some banks these days never indicated anything to worry about. How naïve I was!

A few days back, while checking my Credit Report for the first time, I noticed to my horror that my old Union Bank credit card which was closed way back in April 2016, is still being reported fraudulently by Union Bank to all the Credit Bureaus as being active (the 'Date Closed' is left blank), -- and that too as a non-secured card which it never was!

* On top of that it was reported for late/non payment for 5 consecutive months in 2021 -- five years after the credit card account was actually closed by me !!!


Here is the chronology of events:

* I opened an FD with Union Bank in April 2011. On my application, a credit card was issued to me against this FD by placing a lien on it.

* I closed the above credit card on or before the FD Maturity in April 2016. Consequently the lien against my FD was removed, so I was able to close it and transfer the money to my SB account.

* I was happy to have ended all my relationship with Union Bank by then closing my SB account too.

* I have never applied for, nor did I ever have, any unsecured credit card from Union Bank.


The Union Bank reports fail obvious consistency checks too:

Date of Last Payment: January 2014.

Date Reported and Certified: 25-04-2023.

Payments were reported to be 30 days past due for 5 consecutive months in 2021. Then it somehow recovered to 'no delay' each month till April 2023 even without any payments made (remember the last payment was made back in January 2014)!

It is amazing how the credit bureaus obviously think it's not their responsibility to check the incoming data for consistency before reporting them! Perhaps they think they should adapt to the very Indian way of doing things: regurgitate the input information without applying your mind to it! Nice!


Also, isn't it strange that a credit card that was apparently unused for almost 9.5 years (since December 2013) was still kept alive by the bank? And who were the apparently renewed card(s) mailed to, since I, the apparent card owner, never knew anything about them?! The bank did have my contact information in file!

Be that as it may, what can I do now to have this mess fixed ASAP? I don't have any relationship with Union Bank anymore, so who should I write to? It is such a blatant case of fraud, I do believe that the bank shouldn't be able to get away with just removal of the fradulent reporting. They must somehow be taken to task by the RBI too, but how? Thanks for any guidance.

 

[iSaurabhSri]

Doesn't 'print to pdf' just add one extra step of converting the already made postscript to pdf? Then it's not such a great leap from the good old 'print to xps' after all ! Anyway, I'll give it a try. Thanks again.

When I used to work on Windows 7, Google chrome had an option "Save as PDF". It should still be there, press Ctrl+P to open print Wizard.

 

[Trust Me]

When I used to work on Windows 7, Google chrome had an option "Save as PDF". It should still be there, press Ctrl+P to open print Wizard.

Thank you so much. That actually did work! Printing as pdf usually does work for me in Firefox. Now I know where to go when it doesn't. -- No, I'm not really keen on moving altogether to Chrome from Firefox! 🙂.

 

[Trust Me]

Oh, what a let down from CIBIL! I had raised a dispute with them on 16-06-2023, and they had promised a response within 30 days. So I was dubious when I received a message from them yesterday (19-06-2023) saying "we have resolved your Dispute ...". And it was moved to the "Closed" section. Here is what the Dispute Status page says:


"We reached out to UNIONBANK and they
have confirmed that the credit information
reported by them is correct. Hence, we
would not be able to make any changes to
your credit information...... We therefore
request you to get in touch with
UNIONBANK for the required correction.
Inconvenience is regretted."


Really? Within 3 days (including a weekend!) CIBIL approached Union Bank (a sarkari bank), who investigated the dispute, and reverted to CIBIL, who in turn responded back to me! With this kind of exemplary efficiency what was the need to ask for 30 days?!

And all this, when the Union Bank 'data' in my CIBIL report couldn't even stand up to a consistency check (as I had argued before), if CIBIL had only believed it to be their duty to practice diligence!

All this looks like a game played by a cartel to me! What's likely to have happened is, they have automated the game: CIBIL sends an automated query to the bank based on my dispute; on receipt, the bank's automated mechanism immediately responds back to CIBIL that "all is well"! A group of idiots!

Union Bank don't have a case. I have enough data with me to prove my point. Just that it wastes my time and increases my aggravation level. Once I get them to concede their fraud, I have a good mind to proceed with an RTI as to how this first denial could have happened so quickly without any apparent investigation whatsoever!

 

[Trust Me]

Unfolding updates ...

So I went down to the local Union Bank branch and met with the Manager who apparently realized the seriousness of my complaint, and tried to be helpful. I came to know to my astonishment that my credit card was not actually closed (in spite of my written application to my then home branch manager to do so), but was actually just put in a 'Blocked' state (perhaps because it needed only a button click)!

Was this something that is even allowed by RBI, given that I had actually requested the closure of the card in writing? I was in fact left blissfully unaware of the fact until now that my card has been left in a zombie state, only to keep on biting me for 7 years through spurious reports from the Bank to all the credit bureaus!

The lien on my FD was actually removed nonetheless, so I was able to close it as well as my SB account, and was happy that I was finally rid of this bank. Until now, that is!

I have detailed everything in writing and asked the bank to fix the mess ASAP. Let's see how the saga unfolds now.

 

[Trust Me]

Question for the experts:

The monthly entries in the 'Payment Status' section (for a CC) in the CIBIL Report necessarily correspond to monthly payments against actual credit card statements: '0' means timely payment, and '30' means payment was delayed by 30 days, right? Anything wrong with my understanding?

Then how on earth a 'Blocked' card can cause generation of any entry at all in this section ???! What nonsense is Union Bank trying to feed me?!

 

[SSV]

Question for the experts:

The monthly entries in the 'Payment Status' section (for a CC) in the CIBIL Report necessarily correspond to monthly payments against actual credit card statements: '0' means timely payment, and '30' means payment was delayed by 30 days, right? Anything wrong with my understanding?

Then how on earth a 'Blocked' card can cause generation of any entry at all in this section ???! What nonsense is Union Bank trying to sell me?!

If your card is not used for that month it should display 'XXX' but used and paid before the due date '000'.
Ideally your data should be 'XXX' as the card was blocked, hence not been used...

Example, In my case above. I have used the card in Jan 2022 and paid beofre the due date hence '000'
For the next thee months I have not used , hence 'XXX' for Feb , Mar and April
Again I used in May , hence '000'.

 

[Trust Me]

If your card is not used for that month it should display 'XXX' but used and paid before the due date '000'.
Ideally your data should be 'XXX' as the card was blocked, hence not been used...
View attachment 20645
Example, In my case above. I have used the card in Jan 2022 and paid beofre the due date hence '000'
For the next thee months I have not used , hence 'XXX' for Feb , Mar and April
Again I used in May , hence '000'.

Yes, that's my understanding too. But in the 36 months going back from April 2023, there was just one xxx, -- mostly zeroes, but for a consecutive stretch of 5 months in 2021, it was '30' each month! -- Then it again came back to zeroes. All this for a supposedly 'Blocked' card!

Wait, there's more: the 'Date of Last Payment' in the CIBIL Report was in January 2014! So all those 30-day delayed payments came back to zeroes without any payments at all, -- and the statements keep getting generated month after month apparently without any use of the card at all !

I think the CIBIL guys are quite happy with their regular supply of ganja from Union Bank.

 

[SSV]

Yes, that's my understanding too. But in the 36 months going back from April 2023, there was just one xxx, -- mostly zeroes, but for a consecutive stretch of 5 months in 2021, it was '30' each month! -- Then it again came back to zeroes. All this for a supposedly 'Blocked' card!

Wait, there's more: the 'Date of Last Payment' in the CIBIL Report was in January 2014! So all those 30-day delayed payments came back to zeroes without any payments at all, -- and the statements keep getting generated month after month apparently without any use of the card at all !

I think the CIBIL guys are quite happy with their regular supply of ganja from Union Bank.

Possible scenarios:
There were some charges/ penalties for whatever reason for some period and gets reversed automatically after some period, hence some '000' and some 'xxx'..

CIBIL least cares about individuals.. In fact, because of the sheer volume of consumers in India, it is not "the quality of service" that drives the economy, it is the competitive pricing that drives... In other words. India, largely, is highly price sensitive but not service / customer satisfaction sensitive because of abundance of consumers.

In this scenario, we ( consumers ) have to chase things up and keep the house in order. Neither oraganisations nor the companies nor the Govts care...

In a nutshell, to protect our credit worthiness, we have to be vigilant on the data being reported to bureaus and take action regulary..
For exmaple, one of my secured loans was reported to (or interpreted) by Experian as an unsecured, where as the same was correclty mentioned in CIBIL and CRIF...I am chasing up with Experian and they are in no way in hurry to resovle my issue. ( infact, getting to talk to them itself took some effort...)

 

[Trust Me]

Possible scenarios:
There were some charges/ penalties for whatever reason for some period and gets reversed automatically after some period, hence some '000' and some 'xxx'..

Well, when I had applied in 04-2016 for the closure of my credit card so the lien on my FD was removed, obviously I had to satisfy the Bank that I had no outstanding dues. They just blocked the card instead of closing it. How could some charges or penalties accrue on such a blocked card 5 years later?!

.., one of my secured loans was reported to (or interpreted) by Experian as an unsecured,

My secured card also appears as unsecured in the Experian report!

 

[Trust Me]

Update :-

I've received an SMS from Union Bank that my CC "has been cancelled on 22-06-2023 at your request"! The email confirmation (verbally promised) hasn't arrived in 2 days since.

The problem is, my written request for cancellation of the CC was submitted way back in April 2016, more than 7 years back! So I told them over phone that I was never going to accept this June 2023 cancellation date, since it would give legitimacy to all those fraudulent statements generated (unbeknownst to me) since my cancellation request (and consequent removal of the lien on my FD) back in April 2016. So I'm going to contest it with them all the way up to the RBI ombudsman, if necessary.

I'd very much appreciate advice from the experts at TechnoFino in this regard. Thanks.

 

[Bugs Bunny]

Update :-

I've received an SMS from Union Bank that my CC "has been cancelled on 22-06-2023 at your request"! The email confirmation (verbally promised) hasn't arrived in 2 days since.

The problem is, my written request for cancellation of the CC was submitted way back in April 2016, more than 7 years back! So I told them over phone that I was never going to accept this June 2023 cancellation date, since it would give legitimacy to all those fraudulent statements generated (unbeknownst to me) since my cancellation request (and consequent removal of the lien on my FD) back in April 2016. So I'm going to contest it with them all the way up to the RBI ombudsman, if necessary.

I'd very much appreciate advice from the experts at TechnoFino in this regard. Thanks.

Draft a good email and send it to cms rbi after 30 days most probably they'd pull the bank up for such fiasco and the bank will delete the card retrospectively as you want.

 

[Trust Me]

Update:

Wanted to play by the book, and allow Union Bank every chance to rectify their mistake. Here is the timeline since my last update on 24-06-2023:

06-07-2023: Drafted a letter explaining why a CC closure date of 22-06-2023 (as the final result of my written application more than 7 years and 3 months back) is not acceptable, and emailed it to their Deputy Regional Head (address found on their website). No response received in 8 days! So,

14-07-2023: emailed same letter (along with a stronger note) to the GRO in the city of my former home branch, as well as to the GRO at the Zonal Head Office in Kolkata (with cc to the DyRH). No response again in 10 days!

So the time is ripe now to escalate it to the RBI ombudsman (it's been more than a month since my first written complaint to the local BM).

This time I'm going to ask for compensation. What could be a reasonable amount? If the current RBI notification were applicable back on my original closure request date, Union Bank would owe me more than Rs. 13.25 lakhs now! 🙂.

 

[SSV]

Possible scenarios:
There were some charges/ penalties for whatever reason for some period and gets reversed automatically after some period, hence some '000' and some 'xxx'..

CIBIL least cares about individuals.. In fact, because of the sheer volume of consumers in India, it is not "the quality of service" that drives the economy, it is the competitive pricing that drives... In other words. India, largely, is highly price sensitive but not service / customer satisfaction sensitive because of abundance of consumers.

In this scenario, we ( consumers ) have to chase things up and keep the house in order. Neither oraganisations nor the companies nor the Govts care...

In a nutshell, to protect our credit worthiness, we have to be vigilant on the data being reported to bureaus and take action regulary..
For exmaple, one of my secured loans was reported to (or interpreted) by Experian as an unsecured, where as the same was correclty mentioned in CIBIL and CRIF...I am chasing up with Experian and they are in no way in hurry to resovle my issue. ( infact, getting to talk to them itself took some effort...)

Thanks @iamabhisekagar for recognizing and reacting to this post after more than a month At last somebody have seen its intent and relevance..

 

[Faust]

Somebody at the bank needs to be kicked in the groin.

Anyone has an idea what would happen if legal proceedings were to be undertaken? It is a pain but if someone does it in a well publicised case, the rest of the banks will behave.

 

[RaviAglRaviAgl is verified member.]

Somebody at the bank needs to be kicked in the groin.

Anyone has an idea what would happen if legal proceedings were to be undertaken? It is a pain but if someone does it in a well publicised case, the rest of the banks will behave.

Consumer forum...

Slow but it does the job. Demand a compensation of Rs 10 crore.

No harm in asking. They will have to settle somewhere.

If you are more of a media person, get your case published in leading dailies.

Thanks!!

 

[Trust Me]

Consumer forum...

Slow but it does the job. Demand a compensation of Rs 10 crore.

No harm in asking. They will have to settle somewhere.

If you are more of a media person, get your case published in leading dailies.

Let me put one step at a time.

Next step (in a couple of days): RBI Ombudsman. I think this should resolve it.

I believe that Consumer Forum doesn't have any teeth to enforce their judgment.

May try RTI if RBI doesn't help.

 

[RaviAglRaviAgl is verified member.]

Let me put one step at a time.

Next step (in a couple of days): RBI Ombudsman. I think this should resolve it.

I believe that Consumer Forum doesn't have any teeth to enforce their judgment.

May try RTI if RBI doesn't help.

Rbi ombudsman is the first. Of course. Because you cannot go to the ombudsman after filing case with consumer forum. I was going to say but missed, my bad.

Regarding consumer forum, they may not have teeth but the sarkari corporate is pretty afraid of them. Believe me on this.

Thanks!!

 

[Bugs Bunny]

Update:

Wanted to play by the book, and allow Union Bank every chance to rectify their mistake. Here is the timeline since my last update on 24-06-2023:

06-07-2023: Drafted a letter explaining why a CC closure date of 22-06-2023 (as the final result of my written application more than 7 years and 3 months back) is not acceptable, and emailed it to their Deputy Regional Head (address found on their website). No response received in 8 days! So,

14-07-2023: emailed same letter (along with a stronger note) to the GRO in the city of my former home branch, as well as to the GRO at the Zonal Head Office in Kolkata (with cc to the DyRH). No response again in 10 days!

So the time is ripe now to escalate it to the RBI ombudsman (it's been more than a month since my first written complaint to the local BM).

This time I'm going to ask for compensation. What could be a reasonable amount? If the current RBI notification were applicable back on my original closure request date, Union Bank would owe me more than Rs. 13.25 lakhs now! 🙂.

A very strong case of mental trauma caused by the bank and for damaging the cibil. Draft a fantastic email and mail it to crpc@rbi.org.in and see the banks shitting in their pants.

 

[Trust Me]

So I've finally filed a complaint with the RBI Ombudsman this Monday, after having no response whatsoever from either the DyRH (in more than 30 days), or the GROs. It's almost as if Union Bank have been daring me to approach yhe RBI, secure in the belief that they would not face much of any consequence! Let's see how things pan out now.

Be that as it may, I was a bit surprised that cms.rbi only accepted complaint details written in a very restricted format, limited to only the alphabets and the digits, plus comma and period. Everything else is a 'special character' not to be used! Perhaps this facilitates machine processing? But the text shown to me for confirmation was just a jumbled mass of sentences, sans any formatting whatsoever! Aren't real human beings supposed to read those?! (I previously had unsatisfactory experiences with such text uploaded to the IT efiling site, -- nobody ever read those!). Anyway, I'll have to just wait and see.
.

 

[RaviAglRaviAgl is verified member.]

So I've finally filed a complaint with the RBI Ombudsman this Monday, after having no response whatsoever from either the DyRH (in more than 30 days), or the GROs. It's almost as if Union Bank have been daring me to approach yhe RBI, secure in the belief that they would not face much of any consequence! Let's see how things pan out now.

Be that as it may, I was a bit surprised that cms.rbi only accepted complaint details written in a very restricted format, limited to only the alphabets and the digits, plus comma and period. Everything else is a 'special character' not to be used! Perhaps this facilitates machine processing? But the text shown to me for confirmation was just a jumbled mass of sentences, sans any formatting whatsoever! Aren't real human beings supposed to read those?! (I previously had unsatisfactory experiences with such text uploaded to the IT efiling site, -- nobody ever read those!). Anyway, I'll have to just wait and see.
.

It is really funny, but the real reason is code hijacking which is the reason that they don't allow special characters. If you are into coding, then you will be able to understand what I want to say by reading the below article.

What is SQL Injection? Tutorial & Examples | Web Security Academy

In this section, we explain: What SQL injection (SQLi) is. How to find and exploit different types of SQLi vulnerabilities. How to prevent SQLi. Labs If ...

portswigger.net

Thanks!!