Dear editor
This has reference to the recent news items about the meeting of the senior functionaries of J&K Bank with its customers, there by glorifying its work and relationships with its customers at Jammu and Kathua. Apart from other senior functionaries of the J&K Bank, this meeting was chaired by the Chairman and MD of the J&K Bank himself.
We as customers of J&K Bank since last more than 25 years, do not agree with such a show of the J&K Bank. The press statement issued in this behalf by the J&K Bank functionaries appears to be true to the extent of the interests of J&K Bank with the customers’ deposits of their hard earned money which makes the J&K Bank to earn hefty profits. When it comes to the losses of the customers the J&K Bank authorities turn their backs to such customers.
Myself and my wife aged more than 80 years of age, were defrauded, through fraudulent drawls, of huge amounts to the tune of Rs. 1.10 Lakhs from our pension accounts, which we are having with the J&K Bank branches located in New Delhi for the last more than 25 years. It is now almost the 4th month when such a loss has occurred to us. The matter was brought to the notice of the concerned authorities of J&K Bank immediately. The bank authorities reported our complaint to the cybercrime police, Jammu, with no follow up action. The Bank just performed its formality of reporting the complaint to cyber crime police. It is very much unfortunate for us to say that we had protracted correspondence with the concerned authorities of the J&K Bank including the worthy Chairman of the bank, for their lax security system, to protect the clients deposits, but to our dismay no response was ever given to our such complaints and huge losses.
J&K Bank through its Branch Managers took no immediate visible action nor guided us to seek remedies available to us as Banking Consumers. Upon insistence and personal visit of our son Mr. Sanjiv Khushu to J&K Bank Branch Prithvi Raj Road, a charge back was raised most unwillingly by the Branch Manager on 24-05-2024, after an initial delay of nine (9) days of the occurrence of the fraudulent drawls on 15-05-2024. Had it been done in time our hard earned money would have been saved? It sounds like a criminal act and the bank has no regrets.
The Bank does not have a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to handle Cybercrime. Since the incident was brought to the notice of Bank Managers almost near instantaneously, no effort was made by the Bank to block the beneficiary accounts and retrieve the money in real time. It took them 9 days to accept a formal Charge Back request and more than a month to reply back to us pleading helplessness in the matter. This in itself is criminal negligence of highest order. The Bank does not have a Customer Grievance handling mechanism in such matters, with even the Branch Managers pleading ignorance of the Bank and RBI policies in this matter. There was no proactive official communication with us by the J&K Bank. No communication mechanism or any Contact Person details were provided to us for further updates. It is with regret to mention here that even we approached the worthy Chairman & MD of the J & K Bank, too through various mails and individual letters, yet, to our misfortune he never bothered to reply or respond to our complaints. Where is the clients interest being saved and looked after. It is a myth. Let the bank authorities not conduct hoax shows.
It needs to be made clear to the J&K Bank management that the J&K Bank is mostly sustained by J&K government transactions, which includes the salaries and pensions of the state employees. The bank should be more cautious about such clients, which it is not. The bank takes such clients for granted as such clients like government employees and pensioners have no other option but to maintain their accounts with the J&K Bank, when there are very good other banks also available.
Reference to the clients being integral to the Bank’s success and growth, the worthy Chairman and MD is referring to the deposits of the clients and not the banks responsibility towards its clients in the events of their losses. What has happened with us is a live example of a lax behavior with clients like us.