Saving bank accounts can have lot of hidden charges which most of the times we are not aware of. A few days back one of my friends was looking at his ICICI Bank statement and found 3 consecutive deductions of Rs 28.09 with the description of POSDEC CHG/11-06-14/8833/25ST3. As happens most of the times it’s almost impossible to figure out what this alien description meant!
A little research and asking friends revealed that POSDEC CHG means Point of Sale Decline Charges.
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What does this actually mean?
This means you tried using your debit card for paying something at the merchant but the transaction was declined due to insufficient funds in the account.
Also Read: 22 Hidden Charges in Saving Bank Account
But why 3 consecutive deductions?
This is what happens at the merchant side. You gave your debit card for payment. The transaction gets declined but you and the merchant does not know the reason for decline. As most of the times network failure/ wrong pin etc are responsible. So the merchant swipes the card multiple times but every time it’s declined! The unfortunate part ICICI deducts this POSDEC CHG of Rs 28.09 for every swipe! So in my friend’s case it was tried 3 times and hence there are 3 consecutive deductions!
The Complete Story of my Friend and many others!
My friend had gone to his usual departmental store for his regular purchase and gave his ICICI debit card for payment. The problem was he had 2 accounts with ICICI Bank and by mistake he gave the card which did not have sufficient funds. The transaction did not go through the card so he paid by cash and moved on. He only realized his mistake when he got to see these charges after more than a month in his statement! I am sure this can happen to lot many people especially who have multiple cards of the same bank!
Is this Ethical?
As a customer I find these charges completely unethical and then series of deduction for the same transaction – I have no words!
It’s not like all the transactions that are declined are because of insufficient funds. On the contrary the most declines are due to network issues! But how a customer can know the decline reason?
The bank should have either sent SMS to the customer that the decline is due to insufficient funds or may have charged only once for one transaction.
What should you do?
In such cases “prevention is better than cure”. So if such charges are reflecting in your statement you can talk to ICICI call center executive and tell him to reverse these charges. You have two problems here:
- One it’s really difficult to get through the maze of options to get a human voice and most of the time it really does not help!
- The time and money you would spend on call and follow ups would be worth more than Rs 28.09
A simple Google search and you would see multiple complaints regarding such charges online. In one extreme case I found the customer was charged 19 consecutive times probably for the same transaction!
RBI wants to encourage payments through Debit/credit cards but such practices by banks would be highly detrimental! Probably some rules/clarifications from RBI regarding these unethical charges might help.
How to Prevent?
There are few things you should take care while using your debit card:
- Carry only the debit cards you use regularly. Why create confusion and un-necessary risk by carrying multiple cards?
- Know your balance before making any payment
- Switch to banks that do not have such charges
Do you know of other banks who have such unethical practices or have you or your friends gone through this? If yes please leave comment to make everyone aware of such practices!
ICICI deducted 31 times .. 29.88 … ending up -1000 from my account…. This is Shame… Please return back my money else I will close the account
Hello everyone mainly thanks for posting this..I have been pondering why the hell these charges been made in My account..now I got cleared.but one thing you said was not happened in my case..I have not used my ICICI card since the pandemic begins… I only made two transactions via phonepe from ICICI account.for that also I’ve been charged with 28.09 Rs. Consecutively for three times…and now I’m trying to contact any ICICI branch for some clarification,this so called bank voice assistant does not allow me to get to one of their executives..these things are literally crime..how could one bank deduct fine for such things that too not 1 or 2 rupees but 28 rupees..I lost 100 rupees yesterday itself..if this is a modern way of looting people’s money through digital India process… I’m outta using this shit bank’s account…period
The same goes with PMJDY account in any bank, max limit for any withdrawal in such type of account is 10k per month and also there is limit for online transfer which is only four times a month and soon after that flat 17.54 is charged for every transaction without any intimation . All banks are fraud and all this is happening under the govt nose.
Thanks for sharing this information.
I was randomly checking my bank statement for last month which I usually don’t do. I noticed this charges bcz This time time transactions were very less as last month I used other debit card.
This is FRAUD by ICICI bank. They should have send one SMS for this deduction reason instead hidden charges to customers.
I Also face the same….ThNk for the information
File a complaint against ICICI Bank using
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/save/how-to-file-complaints-against-banks-and-nbfcs-on-rbi-website/articleshow/69941524.cms?from=mdr
It happens 21times with me i didn’t do any transactions like that in my account but they wantedly doing this transactions for the customers it is a fraud without any intimation how they can cut from our account..
Same issue unwanted charges on this hard time for me 6 times 29.50 rs charged without proper authorization notification I feel very bad about it …
Even though I paid my premium in advance but couldn’t able to pay for UNICEF which I was paying every month … Feel very bad 😞
If this type of charges started Colling by ICICI….. I, am sure many saving accounts going to get ” CLOSED ” soon are later including self. As a citizen of India I, demand bank to credit back the amount into respective customer of ICICI. If it continues further inspire of protest by all. Then some thing is wrong with ICICI.
Same thing happen to me but for me 500 rs has debited from me while i was adding Netflix but icici doesn’t allow me to do that.and when I contacted with the cc they said there is no problem from the bank.and consequently for 16 times they deducted 29.50rs . without any information they are doing such things. And previously they deduct 2000 rs from my account.. And said you activated the charity fund. So it’ll deduct. They are just looting our money.. Very bad service provided by icici.