I decided to close one of my demat accounts with India Infoline as it was not being used at all. Why to have multiple demat accounts and pay the annual maintenance charges?
As soon as I decided to close the Demat account, I acted really fast (unusal of me!!) and submitted a letter to the local office of India Infoline during the third week of Sep 2007. I was told at that time that it would take a maximum of 3 weeks to close the account and I would receive the cheque for the balance amount lying in my trading account. Within a fortnight I got a call promptly from the India Infoline's Mumbai office enquiring about my intention of closing the account and couple of other questions on client servicing etc., I was very thrilled because atleast one financial service provider is acting on time.
I have personally experienced that none of the brokerage houses, financial advisors turn up on time. I had instances of following up with them to find out what has happened and they hardly even bother to call up and apologise if there is a delay. So when things were different, I was totally impressed with the service from India Infoline and that too particularly for closing a demat account.
My joy didnt last forever. After that call nothing seems to happen for more than 3 months. I would have called the RM atleast 6 times in the intervening period but I was always told that the account has been closed and I would get the cheque for the balance amount. Last week when I was crossing their T Nagar office I just dropped in to enquire what has happened to the cheque. To my utter surprise, the RM apologises and produces the cheque to me dated 19 Nov 2007. He explained that as the account has been closed in their system they didnt have any contact details of mine and holding the cheque for the last 2 months.
Number of questions comes to my mind now.
1. Why India Infoline didnt send the cheque to my home and instead sent it to their T Nagar Office?
2. Why there is no formal communcation stating that my account has closed?
3. If they have sent the cheque to the RM to hand it over to the client, why they didnt provide my contact details to him?
4. Why did the RM kept saying that he has not received the cheque in the interim period between Nov 07 - Jan 08.
Luckily for me, the amount is just thousand odd rupees and it didnt really impact my cashflow. A lot needs to be changed with regard to service levels of these brokerage houses. I have had experienced myself or heard stories of very poor service levels from Kotak Securities, India Infoline, Geojit Securities, Sharekhan etc.,
Do you have any good or bad experiences to share?
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