I decided to go with Emirates Islamic Bank (EIB) for my auto-loan. I was paying the equated monthly instalment (EMI) through direct debit from my payroll account, which was in another bank.

Things went smoothly until I changed my payroll account to a third bank. They deducted monthly charges, thus the balance came down and resulted in a penalty of Dh100!

I went to the bank immediately and requested them to close my account. They accepted the request, but they couldn’t close it, since there was an active debit. So I went to EIB’s branch and paid the EMI by cash and requested them to update the direct debit to the third bank instead of the bank with my previous payroll account.

After waiting for two hours, the executive told me he could not take the request as the EMI was still showing as pending in his system. It could take two days to update. He asked me to pay the penalty of Dh100, which I did, and left.

After three days, I went to the same branch. There, another executive assisted me and sent an email to the concerned department and told me he could not take the documents from me until he got a reply. He noted down my contact details, but never called me.

I received no calls for 10 days, so I went and met with the same person. By then, he had received a response and based on that, I submitted all relevant documents, including the security cheque of the outstanding loan. But, the direct debit failed again and I rushed to the bank.

The executive told me he had sent the email already, but the back-end team didn’t update the details on time, which resulted in another Dh200 fine.

He sent another email and was trying to convince me. I thought this time, the issue would be solved. After a month, in December 2017, again the same story! The direct debit failed and EIB sent an email asking me to pay the EMI to avoid the impact on my credit rating.

This time the executive showed me my profile on his screen and the bank details were correct. But, he didn’t know what to do next. So, once again, I paid the EMI manually and left. Due to somebody’s ignorance, my credit rating went down and I am paying Dh200 every month.

I’m frustrated with this issue! I request Gulf News to please help me resolve this issue.

From Mr Anish Kumar

Dubai

The management of EIB responds:

Thank you for bringing Mr Kumar’s concerns to our attention. Our Customer Experience team has been in touch with Mr Kumar and the issue has been resolved to his satisfaction.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused to him and take this opportunity to reiterate that Emirates Islamic is committed to providing the best customer experience to all our clients.

Mr Kumar responds:

I received a call from the bank, confirming they changed the funding account to the third bank. Thank you Gulf News, for the support. Really appreciate the way the newspaper is helping people in their struggle.

(Process initiation: January 6. Response from organisation: January 16. Reader confirmation: January 16.)

Editor’s note: Do you have similar issues that you would like to raise with us? You can write to us at readers@gulfnews.com.