Ever had the need to call in to the customer service of your bank and be asked a round of 15 question before they allow u to get past stage one of the Identification (errrm interrogation) parade? Oh yes it happens to me each time I call in to my Aisa Waisa Bank phone banking. Oh!  make no mistake it is voted as one of the best Banks in India and perhaps Asia too (by a panel of Idiots I suppose) for some years now.

The way that female says “Welcome to Aisa Waisa Bank phone banking” with her bubbly accent oooooooozing with sensuality paints an image in my mind of a voluptuous woman whose blouse would burst open if she as much heaved a sigh. Some find it sexy others find it very inviting. Whichever way they manage to woo you in and capture your attention. When you think you have been swept off your feet with that put-on accent and telephonic oomph you don’t realise how hopeless their customer support system actually is. It was three years ago that I opened up an account with them purely with an intention of using their online portal (Aisawaisadirect.com) for online share trading. Right from the beginning I have only had a series of disappointing and frustrating experiences.

The first of my problems started with not getting my log in ID within the promised 2 week period to enable online trading account. A number of calls and many frustrating minutes later I was told I would have to go into the nearest branch. Any way by then I had moved to Goa on transfer and I had to request for it in writing at the local branch.

The next time I was in Kochi a year later (again on transfer), I went in to the bank and requested in writing for my mailing address to be changed. A few days later I got intimation from the bank that my address had been changed in all their records. That was early 2007. By middle of the year, one day as I logged into to trade some shares, was when I got instruction on the website for me to render my PAN card details within a stipulated time lest I wanted my services cancelled. Dreading that, I promptly gave them all the information that was required and took a receipt for the same. Yet some months later around September or so I saw yet another intimation pop up on the screen asking me to render all those details again because their servers had apparently been flooded. I don’t know why but for some reason the first thing that came to my mind was the scene from the movie My Cousin Vinnie where in Joe Pesci comes into the court room wearing a strange looking coat and when asked by the Judge if he was mocking him promptly replies he couldn’t get his new coat dry-cleaned because the drycleaners got the Flu. Till this day I can’t in my wildest dreams imagine is this one of India’s reputed banks we are talking of or is this some start up organisation with their server rooms by the road side in Chinchwad Thane??

Then came the most recent incident that made me decide enough was enough and I need to blog about this Great bank. My debit card expired in November and I realised that only when I inserted my card in an ATM which spat it out in the same speed as it did swallow it. Fortunately I was at an ATM that was part of a Bank complex and so I went in to find out why I had not got my new renewed card. Click … Clack… Click at the keyboard a few times and the lady told me that my new card had been sent to my previous address. So what ever happened to that formal intimation I got from the bank stating that my address had been changed? The following day I called up the phone banking and thankfully a guy answered. After giving them a piece of my mind over the phone, the guy at the other end not only couriered it to my local branch the same day but went on to send me an SMS asking me to collect it after three days.

I have not got it yet. But I do intend to go in again soon, this time with a copy of the SMS. I am sure I have more disappointments in store for me. After all they are Aisa Waisa Bank who goes around advertising “Hum Hai naah (…aapko tang karne ke liye)”.