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Okay dorkie, here's an update on my earlier post on Standard Chartered's XtraSaver account. You can read the first post here .
After lodging my complaint with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, I received a call from Standard Chartered on the third day. I know I had several missed calls on both the first and second days following the complaint so it is possible that MAS and/or Stanchart had been trying to contact me even before.
Whichever the case, this lady from Stanchart's Customer Service Experience (not sure if I remember the name correctly but the department sounded something like that) called me and gave a pretty sincere-sounding apology. Based on my *extensive* public speaking experience, I did not detect any hypocrisy from her so I was somewhat mollified.
She conceded that the "no minimum sum" carrot was indeed advertised with the XtraSaver product. As mentioned in my first post, the staff I spoke to earlier said that my account was closed because it was at $0 for more than 60 days. In a way, this is still correct but the manner it was said made the information misleading. The staff probably was not 100% informed himself and this lady agreed that they had to step up on their staff training (so they said when dealing with my previous complaints regarding other issues).
So she explained that more correctly, this was in fact something that was applied across the board - not only at Stanchart. There is an alarm that will go off when an account has $0. When this happens, the account will be terminated after a period of inactivity exceeding 60 days. She cited an example that when an account did not have the minimum sum and a fall-below fee kept being deducted, the account will ultimately reach $0 and will thus be terminated. I wonder if this is some MAS requirement but she was quite reluctant to say more.
I agreed to "keeping" the XtraSaver account after she asked if I would like it reinstated (yet remember the previous staff saying bank accounts once closed cannot be reinstated?). Then she suddenly mentioned that accounts that were closed for more than one month cannot be reinstated. Mine was closed for about 4 months already so it would be difficult. However, she would try to see what she can do. In addition, she said she would tag a special flag to my account in the system so that it would never be closed again even if it is at $0. Part of me wants to test this out (lol) but I guess communicating with them again if it does not work out would take too much time. Besides, my heart has taken enough nastiness so I don't want to risk it. :P
She also brought up 2 scenarios. If she did not succeed in getting my account reinstated, she would make it as a new application i.e. I would have to tolerate a new account number, card and cheque book. In this case, she would either do a taped conversation with me to confirm that I still want the account, or send a courier to get my signature. She did stress that the latter would be the worst-case scenario.
The next day, she called me again (she said she did so I assume that the missed call was hers). I then received the sms confirmation that my account has been reinstated. I haven't yet checked if the card and cheques are viable, but at least when I logged in to Internet Banking, my XtraSaver account was back on the radar.
From this incident, I am at least happy to know that MAS is not a flowerpot. A complaint to MAS indeed does get looked into and I continue to have faith in the Singapore government. As for Stanchart? Bleh.
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