Cheque dishonoured by hdfc bank

My advice is this: (1) Pay the fees + fine amount to the school and take a receipt from the school clearly mentioning the fees and the fine amount separately, (2) ask the school for a copy of the returned chq alongwith return memo, (3) Go to bank's branch where you maintain the a/c with the fees+fine receipt and copy of the chq and return memo, and meet the branch head/operations head. Discuss the matter with him and then submit a written complaint to him saying that since the chq has wrongly been dishonoured and you have had to pay the fine, the bank should reimburse the chq return charges (if any) + the fine amount, within 7 days.

HDFC is a reputed and service oriented bank and the matter should be resolved at this stage only. I don't think you need to take any legal steps on this. If the matter is not resolved at the branch level, pls logonto https://www.hdfcbank.com/personal/customer-centre and follow instructions.

P.S: If you dont find time to visit the branch, you can call the call centre too and register a complaint. Dont forget to ask for and note down the complaint no.

you said the cheque was dishonoured due to the fact that it was post dated.

yours is not a case of insufficiency of funds....here you cannot find fault with the Bank, the fault lies with you and the school if you have issued a post dated cheque and school presented it prior to the fixed date.

Sir, I appreciate that you took your time out to read and reply to my post. I have very clearly mentioned in my post the date of issue and the date of the cheque. This dishonour has been due to some other reason from their end. I have had sufficient funds in the account throughout these days allowing for the cheque to be cleared. Still, the cheque is dishonoured. And for all their misunderstanding and confusions, I have to pay the fine and be ashamed. This has dented my reputation with the school management.

Sir Mr. Prasun Chandra Das,

I am thankful to you for taking your time out and replying to my post. I tried reaching the branch manager today over the phone, she very rudely disconnected the call saying please call the HDFC Phone banking and check with the customer care executive. To my surprise, I did call the phone banking prior to calling the branch manager and what I found was that there is no option in the menu to speak to the customer care executive at all. I went through all the options, and all I could hear were options of various other services which were not related to me, like to apply for 2 wheeler loan, to stop cheque payment etc, I then for the second time called up the branch manager, she did not answer my call. It was 3:30pm by then and I could not personally make it to the branch as it closes at 4:00pm sharp. I then logged on to the website of HDFC Bank and found out the Grievance redressal officer's phone no. which operates from 9:30 to 6:30 pm monday to friday. I called about 4 times within the specified time for no reply. I still do not think that a written complaint could do a bit to such morons. I also mentioned in my earlier reply to another Mr who wrote back to my post saying that this is going to cost me some good time and extra amount of fine, and this issue has dented my reputation with the school management. The rule of the school's admin is that once the cheque is dishonoured, they will not accept any more cheque payments from the concerned student and will only take DDs. You know how painful it can be to stand in the que on a monday morning rush hour at the cash counter to make a DD. All I want is that my cheque dated 10th October, 2012 to be cleared with and apology stating the misunderstanding from the HDFC bank to the customer and the party to the cheque. Am I not rightful to ask so much for the trouble this issue has caused me?

fine due to misunderstanding or lack of communication..

Mr.Talikoti - try writing your complaint at https://leads.hdfcbank.com/applications/webforms/apply/complaint_form.asp

Alternatively, I think the mail id of Mr Aditya Puri - head of the Bank - is aditya.puri@hdfcbank.com. You may write to him regarding the complaint.

Mr. Prasun, thank you again for replying to my post. I personally visited the school and have chequed with them, they handed me over the copy of the cheque and the statement of their bank i.e Bank of India which states that the cheque is post dated. I took the copy and showed it another 10 people asking them if their is anything wrong with the date. The HDFC bank contends that the month entered by me is looking like 2 which is supposed to be 10 for the month October. Later on visiting the bank with the bank statement, invoice copy of the school and the copy handed over to me the HDFC bank staff still contends that the month 10 is 20. I have taken my decision. I also want to know the point of view at lawyers club and options to defend myself when the school authority and the Bank of India staff and another 10 or 20 people around me have said that the month is 10 and not 20. I am attaching the scanned copy of the cheque and account summary to this. Please check the attachment. Thank you.
 

Mr Talikoti: As I see it, the date of the chq is 11/20/2012 (and not 10/10/2012 as you contend). If I were at HDFC Bank's position, I would contend that the chq date is wrongly written as 11/20/2012 and hence the chq return was justified.

My suggestion is this: (1) Avoid litigation; (2) Pay the school fees immediately by cash/dd; (3) Since it seems that taking up the matter with HDFC Bank will not solve anything, discuss the matter with the school and tell them that there was no insufficiancy of funds and it was just a different perception in reading the date that resulted in the chq return; (4) Request them to continue accepting chqs; (5) If they do not agree to chqs, tell them to provide you with the school's bank a/c details (bank name, branch name, a/c no., type of a/c, IFSC code), so that you can send the school fees by RTGS/NEFT. If you have internet banking, you can send the funds by RTGS/NEFT from your office/home. This will only cost Rs.5 approx. Also tell them that you shall take money receipts after 2-3 days when the school is confirmed that funds have been received.

If the above does not work, you will perhaps have to issue DDs.

Sir mr. Prasun, I did see the slight tilt of the top most part of the 1 in the date which could be assumed to be 2 or 1 as I have mentioned earlier that people have identified it as 1 at the school premises and also the Bank of India staff did not mind it. Also, do you think that the month ccould be 20? Or, is it not according to the Indian date format which is date/month/year ? Did you also see the bank statement that I have uploaded, where you can see that the cheque has been processed and then credited back, this frustrates me even more. I was able to speak patiently with the school staff and they are with me about the date. I have already made the payment through another cheque to the school as they were cooperative and know my records well. I would say that, there has to be a bit of understanding of the customer and not just outrightly dishonour the cheque that too after clearing it for payment. It did cause me some Rs 500 extra + travel cost + time + humiliation at the bank as again some staff saw it as 1 and some as 2 and my other uncle who is a criminal lawyer at High Court of Karnataka is personally not available as he is out of Bangalore. I did not want to take it much further as I too have exams from 2nd november, 2012.  Appreciate your effort in replying. Hope to grab HDFC Bank, ITPL, Bangalore branch by the neck with the help of Law next time . Thank you.

HDFC Bank has a policy to show chq returns as first a debit and then a credit. In all other banks, there is no debit made at all for a chq return. I think HDFC Bank does it well because atleast you know that a chq has been returned, whereas in other banks you do not have the knowledge if the chq has been returned or not presented at all.

I hope the matter gets settled. As for your "...Hope to grab HDFC Bank, ITPL, Bangalore branch by the neck with the help of Law next time", since I work for a competitor Bank, I would say- "Ameen"

The School authorities are equally negligent in accepting a cheque looking to be post dated one. You can show banks statement to the school authorities where sufficient balance was maintained therein and request School authorities to continue accepting your cheques. Sending fees by NEFT/RTGS to school is not suggested as they may not be able to credit the same to your child's account. Your grievances against HDFC bank are unfounded

Mr. Prasun, thank you for replying back. Well, I am done with that issue. The school management were somehow a little more cooperative. As far as the debiting and crediting of the account goes, does not debiting an account mean you have accepted the cheque or the cheque has been processed and then after  a while you go oh sht I did not see the date, lets reject the cheque saying cheque out dated, and there is either way some minor dent to the accuracy in writing and we could maintin our branche's CRR for 1 more day, wheww....thank God this cheque was dishonoured, well, this is what the branch would have thought and done, atleast that's what coming to my mind. The policy is or may be misunderstood if there is no disclosure of such a thing of how a customer's cheque would be processed. Seems, like you too hold a grudge againt HDFC, you seem to be a very loyal employee to the ICICI Bank ( I am guessing) .

Mr. Surendra, thank you for replying to my post. As of now, the issue has been resolved. I partially agree to the fault (if it is proved ) that I am not right at all after all that processing and pain that has gone in due to this. Thankfully, the school management, did cooperate with me. I had shown them the bank statement and they too could not find fault with the cheque. It seems that this clerical error has become a debatable issue itself and shows as to how far the instrument is scrutinised or otherwise it should be scrutinised. Thanks again.