If you read the headline and clicked on the link gleefully, you already know what this article is about. If you don’t have an idea of what I mean, then you are one of the lucky few who have cordial relationships with banks and know how to spend, make and save money. Unfortunately, I am not one of those.
In fact, I am one of the unlucky few who do not understand the seriousness of money and the role it plays in people’s lives. Mix this foolhardiness about money (I am a Sagittarius) with the fact that I was one of the very few non-graduates who were drawing a five figure salary in the early 2000s, and you will understand what this article is about.
As soon as I landed my first job – my office was literally in the middle of two shopping malls, I started getting calls with credit card offers. HDFC, HSBC, ICICI Bank, SBI, all of them. Back in those days, having a single credit card was a status quo unto itself. The cream was Citibank and after that, there was American Express. I was shell-shocked that barring American Express, all the banks gave me a credit card. Within a month, I had around six months of my salary in my pocket in the avatar of shiny metal. You know how it works after that. That mobile, that movie, that dish, that outing, those clothes, that shirt, that-that-that. I committed the mistake that many young professionals do – burn through the money with nothing to show at the end of the month.
It started to show. A thousand spent there, a three thousand spent there. A four thousand spent for a friend who promises that it will be returned – which never will be. A 10 thousand budget outing with a bae, with a promise that it will be transferred into the account as soon as they connect to WiFi – yes, that was an excuse in the early to mid 2000s.
Within a year, I had credit card bills worth Rs. 2 lakh. On paper, I shouldn’t have worried. I was making more than double that in a year. But then, it hit me. What I was making, half of it was my maintenance (hah, savings) and the credit card bills monthly were slightly more than what I wanted them to be. That brought me into the minimum due circle. Even after 10 years, I haven’t really understood what minimum balance was – was it an amount to be paid that would ensure that you are not charged interest, or was it money to give the collection agents so that they go away from the door of your office, your home, your friend’s home, your relative’s home – wherever they catch you. And ah, the collection agents. So, if you have a shiny credit card in your wallet and this is your first one, please allow me to tell you how credit card collection agents work.
If you have an outstanding amount to be paid, for a couple of weeks, you will get a call from a landline number, a service that’s paid for by the bank. They will be cordial, some will be sweet, and you will think that you have surpassed this level.
If you don’t pay that bill, in the next couple of weeks, you will get a call from another landline number, but this time, it won’t be a generic one, it will be a business establishment’s number – so will be like any landline. They will be gentle, but they will no longer be cordial. After some take, they will quite solemnly ask when you will pay the bill.
If you don’t, then that’s the third ring of hell that you have just won a free ticket into. The third type of collection agents are quite frankly, people who are paid to get money from you. They will try every trick in the book to get money from you. One of them had told me, while I was in a meeting in the office of the seventh largest media company in South East Asia, that the cops will come and take me away in handcuffs from my office if I don’t pay the minimum due balance of Rs. 1,500.
The office was in Mahalaxmi, Mumbai and I had recently joined. And while I knew what he said was a far shot, I also knew that it could happen. I have at least two legal notices – I keep them for posterity – to pay an amount of Rs. 40,000. Another one called me up asking about the payment, and there was someone else on another line abusing another of these ‘bad clients’ with the choicest abuses. So you see, this was a great way of showing me what they can do, and yet not do it.
The only thing that baffled me in all this was that I seriously, eagerly, had the intention to pay. I like spending money, I also like paying off people – so I can earn again and I can spend again. And the collection agents just didn’t believe that. Even if I was a hundred rupees less on the payment, I had to make that alright. They didn’t care if I sold my mobile, my home, myself – they wanted them hundred rupees.
You will wonder how Chanda Kochhar comes into the picture. She comes into the picture because, I firmly believe, every decision – more importantly a customer-side decision goes right to the top brass. Do you think, as an Indian citizen and a Bank professional, Chanda didn’t know how rude and arrogant ICICI credit card recovery agents were? Did she not, for even a minute, think that what’s happening is wrong, morally, at least? Hell, there’s a Sanjay Dutt starrer film, EMI, made about recovery agents.
If found guilty, Chanda has to pay Rs. 9.8 crores back to the bank. That’s the complete budget of the company that I work for, for 80 years. So, you understand what my salaries are and what my minimum due would be. Even then, I got a call from a rude, boor from Mumbai suburbs, while the media just learnt a new term with the Chanda Kochhar news, ‘clawback.’