ICICI bank to pay fine for unfair practice

It has become very common to receive a call on mobile from an insurance company which tries to sell you a policy. Sometimes, companies go beyond this and offer medical insurance policy absolutely free. But, in reality nothing comes free. The customer one day realizes that he has been charged a heavy amount for something which he did not want at all.

Harish Sisodia, a city businessman and Maharashtra Sports Council member had to face this when he received a call from ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company, which offered him a medical insurance policy free of cost. In the beginning, Sisodia did not show any interest in the policy at all but he kept receiving a call from ICICI Lombard executives urging him to accept the policy.

Ultimately, Sisodia agreed to take the policy (No. 4034/FNP/01727327/00/000) on December 29, 2006, but on one condition that none of the policy transactions “would get reflected in his ICICI Credit Card statements”. However, when he received a monthly statement of January 2007, the insurance transactions showed up in the credit card statement. Therefore Sisodia contacted ICICI Lombard and told them to cancel his policy.

Sisodia told TOI, “It took four months for the insurance company to cancel the policy on April 28, 2007, but until then I kept on receiving the credit card statements wherein the premium amount and some other charges were levied”. But, even after this till January, 2008, Sisodia continued to get ‘statements’ showing premium amount and others charges. The total amount had by now risen to Rs 25,422.59.

Sisodia informed, “Unable to take it anymore I contacted ICICI officials on two three occasions and told them to reverse the entries, but all my requests fell on deaf ear.” He said, “With no option left, I approached the Consumer Disputes and Redressal Forum, Nagpur district, which gave a verdict in my favor and ordered both ICICI Lombard and ICICI Bank to pay me a compensation of Rs 5,000 for mental agony. The forum also stamped a cost of Rs 1,000 on both respondent companies.”

The forum observed that Sisodia had taken the policy on one condition that no payment will be made through his credit card. But, ICICI Bank submitted that ICICI Lombard had given them the authority to collect the premium amount from Sisodia through credit card.

The forum further stated that while it was sufficiently clear that Sisodia said that his transactions will not be made through credit card, but neither ICICI Lombard nor ICICI Bank could put forward any proof saying that ICICI Bank (credit card) has been authorized to collect money from Sisodia. The forum considered this an unfair trade practice.

It also supported Sisodia’s views that ICICI Lombard and ICICI Bank being connected companies, the latter provides names of some credit card holders to the former who trail the customers to take policies. Therefore forum directed the ICICI Bank to reverse all the charges relating to the policy.

“We had demanded a compensation of Rs 25,000 for mental harassment. The forum partly upheld the claim and ordered the insurance company and bank to pay Rs 5,000 as compensation and Rs 1,000 as cost,” said Advocate Ranjit Sardey, Sisodia’s counsel.

ICICI Lombard had appealed against the verdict at the state consumer forum but to no avail. In the end, the ICICI Bank had to hand over Rs 6,000 cheque (dated September 5, 2008) to Sisodia on September 18.