I would like to share my experience with National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) [which has merged with FGB to form First Abu Dhabi Bank] — I received double interest charges when closing a credit card.

I have been using an NBAD credit card since December 2013 and have never failed to pay the total due amount.

Last month, I requested a liability letter and asked for the card to be closed. The card has a limit of Dh20,000. NBAD charged me around Dh3,075 as interest. When I requested a detailed calculation of these charges, there was no proper explanation. I visited a branch and requested for it, however the branch employee was unable to give me proper justification. He told me this was the total interest I would need to pay, which I had already paid in previous months. There were seven loans (Easy Payment Plan) from the card and four of them were with ‘zero’ interest, however NBAD charged me interest on all of the loans.

This means the interest amount, which I had paid through the past 18 months, would need to be paid again.

Instead of NBAD, if I had used another bank’s credit card, the total charges for closing the card would have amounted to Dh750. The other bank’s call centre clearly give me the computation and calculation, however NBAD failed to provide the details and is trying to charge excessively, when a customer is leaving. I requested for help several times from NBAD’s call centre, their complaints team and two different branches, however, I failed to get a resolution.

From Mr Harun Soylu

Abu Dhabi

The management of NBAD responds:

Thank you for your constant cooperation and communication with us in the endeavour to best serve our customers and resolve their issues.

We have investigated Mr Soylu’s complaint and below are our findings:

Mr Soylu requested us for a liability letter in February 2017 as he was transferring his liabilities to another bank. He had several instalment plans active at the time of cancelling his credit card and the early settlement charges were added to the outstanding as per the terms and conditions, which were clearly explained at the time of booking the plans. We also took the opportunity in reviewing the conversation Mr Soylu had with NBAD Contact Centre agent and would like to confirm that all the information provided to him was accurate.

We have contacted Mr Soylu again and have clarified all the charges, the details of which are also mentioned on his credit card statement dated 5th March 2017.

Thank you once again for forwarding the complaint to us. Our Customers Experience is very important to us and we are thankful for the opportunity to respond.

(Process initiation: March 8. Response from organisation: March 13.)

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