All of us maintain a bank account which we use for receiving and disbursing funds. Bank accounts are also used for opening fixed deposits which helps an individual to earn extra income on his/her idle funds.

While a bank account may offer numerous advantages in the form of security, debit card facility, interest income and so on, there is a possibility that an individual may have to deal with certain problems such as financial charge levied by the bank on any overdraft facility, incorrect account balance and so on. An account holder is required to maintain a constant check on the transactions appearing in his/her bank statement to identify any discrepancies and report relevant issues to appropriate bank executive.

In order to increase the level of customer satisfaction, banks have devised various mechanisms (such as independent grievance cell) where an account holder can file a complaint in case of any issue in a banking transaction.

Three Different Ways to Complain to a Bank

Write an Email

Depending on the level of issue, an individual may write an email either to the bank’s operation manager or at the email Id of the grievance cell (generally provided on the bank’s website). As soon as a discrepancy is noticed by the account holder, an email should be forwarded with all the relevant information such as date and amount of transaction, nature of transaction along with issue details.

For Instance, an individual has identified an amount of $ 10 as financial charge for an online transaction in his/her bank statement which is not valid. Individual can report this issue in a detailed manner by writing an email with content such as “While verifying my bank statement for the month of June 2011, I have observed a financial charge of $ 10 for an online transaction made on 15th September 2011. As per my understanding these charges are invalid on the ground of……..”.

Call on Customer Care

An account holder can also report an issue on the customer care number of the bank. These numbers are available on website of the bank. Account holder will be required to provide specific details of the transaction to the customer care executive who in turn will provide a reference number to the account holder. This reference number can be used by the account holder to track the status of the complaint at any point of time.

Visit Bank Branch

Account holder can visit his/her respective bank branch to discuss the issue with appropriate executive in case reply received from the customer care is not satisfactory or no reply has been received against an email sent by the account holder. It is advisable to take a print out of the email and reference number that was obtained through customer care. This information will help the executive at the branch to track the complaint and understand the subject matter of the issue raised by the account holder. It is important to note that some issues (such as wrongful debit of a large amount in the bank account) may get resolved only after visiting the bank branch.