ICICI salary account Lifetime zero ?- MAB non-maintenance charges

[Smh]

I have an old icici salary acc currenty in dormant status. Recenty I came across a reddit post where two users confirmed they have never been charged any penalty for non-maintenance of MAB in their inactive salary account (not dormant).

So, I decided to check how much ICICI has charged me but they just reply with a vague auto response email regarding penalty rules and dormant acc even though I specifically asked them the exact penalty applicable to my account.

I logged into net banking to see the status of my acc and there is no penalty applied (no -ve bal), it shows my old bal acc which I didn't withdraw (more than 0). In mab requirement section it shows Rs 0 required.

So can anyone share their experience of similar situation. I want to activate this and may be close it later properly but scared that ICICI may surprise me as their customer care are not providing any proper answer.



Link to reddit

 

[varkey]

If the balance remained at a positive value above 0, then it looks like your account might be tagged as a lifetime zero balance account. Or maybe their system doesn't automatically check whether you are getting salary credits or not.

I have a similar experience, so I had a very old ICICI savings account and when I joined at my previous work place, I opted to just re-use the existing account as salary account rather than creating a new one. So they asked me to sign a request which was basically to convert the existing savings account to salary account. I then moved to a different company and continued to the use the account now converted to a salary account. Was never charged anything and my MAB has dropped below my previous threshold of Rs 10000 but was never charged anything.

I think its more of a manual process, and might depend on the branch too I guess.

 

[Smh]

hey thanks for sharing

can you check in netbanking if it shows your account type as savings or salary and average bal required.

Net Banking >Bank Acc > Minimum balance details

 

[varkey]

@Smh Ah I didn't know that the MAB details are now displayed on the net banking portal. Mine is exactly same as yours, account type is Savings and MAB requirement is 0.

However I don't think there would be a change in the account type itself, cause "Salary account" is not a type. Perhaps the account category might show a change depending on how the account was created. For me it is SBGEN probably cause the account was created as a general savings account more than a decade ago.

Also, during the time of conversion to a salary account (I am guessing in this process they simply add a flag or something to account), an Employee Reimbursement Account (ERA) was created, the Account Type for that account is Overdraft and Account Category is CAERA (short for Current Account ERA I think)

 

[igloo]

A saving bank account can never show(but can act) in negative unless you signed up for some overdraft limit on it.
Though the moment you add some money to it. all previous charges would be debited on same moment.

If you want to close the account best is to send scan copy of signed account closure form from their website. email it or post it. better both and save the email as acknowledgement. No worry afterwards.

 

[varkey]

^ Yep, but @Smh mentioned that it remained with a non-zero balance. If there were charges involved, atleast in case of ICICI, they always deduct what they can and make the balance zero. So if his account remained with a non-zero balance over a long time, its a good indication that there wouldn't be any charges in queue.

 

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[webie]

Mine is society based account with 0 minimum. Using it from last 4 years. ICICI is cool, as long as the say on netbaning "0" MAB, you can take screenshot for future as proof however I am sure they won't create any problems if they said 0 and your netbanking says 0 so it's all cool.

 

[Smh]

@varkey mine shows category SBKIT same as shared by webiein above post.

@igloo they don't accept email or post I've asked them about it.

@webie yeah I've downloaded my acc details in pdf format where MAB required is 0. Problem is their customer care who won't clarify may they don't have information so they just copy paste MAB details to every email.

My acc bal is above 0 which ICICI could have deducted but they didn't so may be mine is also tagged as lifetime zero acc or something.

I am thinking to transfer some money in it and withdraw from atm to activate my acc (dormant) then hope nothing crazy happens.

 

[dextermorgan]

Just a heads up, HDFC bastards converted my sisters salary account to savings bank account and then levied MAB fees for 2 years till the balance went to negative. Her friend by mistake deposited money into it and all the money, 5k, was deducted. Had to fight for few days and threats of complaining to ombudsman to remove those charges and close the account for sure.

If you're not using that account, better just close it. You can easily open another account in any other bank offering zero balance feature.

 

[Smh]

@varkey @webie do you guys get charged annual fees of debit card and other fees like sms alert. (it is free with zero bal accs)

 

[webie]

No debit card fee, no sms alert fee. No fee really unless I need to replace my card(scratches). Also if you do a charge on card however u don't have sufficient balance, there will be 25 rs +gst fee.

 

[Smh]

Just a heads up, HDFC bastards converted my sisters salary account to savings bank account and then levied MAB fees for 2 years till the balance went to negative. Her friend by mistake deposited money into it and all the money, 5k, was deducted. Had to fight for few days and threats of complaining to ombudsman to remove those charges and close the account for sure.

If you're not using that account, better just close it. You can easily open another account in any other bank offering zero balance feature.

HDFC is on another level, on their website you cannot find any email or other option to contact their CS (lvl 1). On contact us page there is an option to email us but it is just a faq page, only if you want to report an unauthorized transaction you will get an form to write your complaint. You have to contact their social media team to get their CS email and then no one would reply unless you want loan or new card.

Even after charging so much money for every possible transaction they cannot afford to hire people for customer support.

 

[spinnerlake]

hey , mine was also salary account , but till now never been charged , may be due to i always had balance and used it at least once in month. maybe who knows