I was preparing for my trip to India and had to transfer some money to a HDFC bank account in India. I did some research and found HDFC Quickremit which promised low fees and reasonable exchange rates. Moreover, they have an arrangement with my bank (DBS) in Singapore which I can make a quick funds transfer and avoid the use of credit cards. Everything sounds good.
But my experience has not been great. Here’s my 1 month saga.
12/11/2010
After filling many details at quickremit site, I transferred money to their bank account.
Received an email from quickremit@timesofmoney.com for a soft copy of my passport. I sent the copy.
Received a call from quickremit to verify my details.
Received another call from quickremit that my beneficiary’s contact number is not working and they need to perform verification with the beneficiary as well.
I told them I need to check and they told me to send the details to quickremit@timesofmoney.com.
First I tried to update the contact numbers on my own at quickremit website but I found that my account was barred from making changes as my account is not verified. So I just send the updated contacts to quickremit@timesofmoney.com.
15/11/2010
I dropped an email to quickremit@timesofmoney.com requesting for an update of status.
No response.
16/11/2010
I dropped another email to quickremit@timesofmoney.com requesting for an update of status.
No response.
17/11/2010
Tried to call their US hotline but I could not get through. Then I googled and found many similar complaints. I posted at http://www.consumercourtforum.in/f33/hdfc-bank-quickremit-20347/ and also dropped an email to support@hdfcbank.com.
18/11/2010
Divya Palai from support@hdfcbank.com responded to my email and requested for more information.
I sent them the following information:
– My user ID at quickremit
– Copy of my remittance (I saved a copy)
– My beneficiary’s contact numbers
– My contact number if they need to call me
20/11/2010
As I have received no response, I requested for an update from support@hdfcbank.com.
23/11/2010
Divya Palai from support@hdfcbank.com informed me that they have forwarded the case to quickremit@timesofmoney.com.
I sent a terse email to both support@hdfcbank.com and quickremit@timesofmoney.com to express my disappointment with their service.
24/11/2010
Yasmin Koli from quickremit@timesofmoney.com acknowledged my email and requested for a copy of my passport.
Fine, even though I have already sent a copy on 12/11/2010, I sent again on the same day. I also reminded them of the update of my beneficiary’s contact numbers.
26/11/2010
I dropped an email to quickremit@timesofmoney.com requesting for an update of status.
No response.
29/11/2010
I dropped another email to quickremit@timesofmoney.com requesting to cancel the transaction and refund my money.
No response.
08/12/2010
I sent another terse email to both quickremit@timesofmoney.com and support@hdfcbank.com.
09/12/2010
Akhlaque Khan from quickremit@timesofmoney.com responded. Again, I was asked for a soft copy of my passport.
Being such a patient guy, I sent them a copy of my passport again and reminded them that this is the third time I have done so. I also requested for an acknowledge of receipt.
Within a few hours, Anupam Guria from quickremit@timesofmoney.com acknowledged my email and assured me that they are following up.
Received another email later in the day from Rajesh Kavade who informed me that my account has been activated. I logged in and found that my transaction is under “Money Awaited”. This means “We have not yet received the money from your Bank account. In case you have not initiated a transfer through your bank, we request you to please do so at the earliest”.
But I did the transfer on 12 Nov 2010.
So I dropped another email to quickremit@timesofmoney.com explaining the situation and gave them the transaction reference.
10/12/2010
Anupam Guria from quickremit@timesofmoney.com responded that they have taken note of my query
A few hours later, Anupam Guria informed me that my transaction was processed and my beneficiary would receive the money with 48 hours.
My beneficiary informed me that he has received the money in his HDFC bank account. The amount he received is 6 rupees more than the indicative amount given by HDFC quickremit when I first submitted the remittance.
I sent a thank you message to quickremit.
Comments
Overall, I feel it’s an interesting pre-trip experience. I guess it is also because the amount I transferred is small so I was not very worried. And I am lucky that my beneficiary is patient enough to wait almost a month for the money.
I am still unsure of the reasons which might have caused the long delay. The following are some guesses:
– I gave the wrong beneficiary contact numbers
– I sent too many emails
– I am a foreigner sending money to a foreigner in India and have go to through additional checks
– Indian authorities are checking if this is a tax-evading transaction
Do note that my Indian colleagues who used the same HDFC Quickremit service managed to get their money transferred within a week to their relatives . They underwent the same type of phone verifications as me. Anyway, hope you would have better luck if you are using HDFC Quickremit service.
My experience has been quiet smooth so far with Quickremit. No issues what so ever. The verification which involves sending a copy of the passport was over within a day and money was transferred within 2 days. Quiet efficient, I shoud say.
Hi Shree,
That’s good to hear. 🙂
Mostly I use ICICI NRI money transfer. fast ( 1-3 working days ) good and reasonable.
Do they provide for NRNI? 😛
Hello friends, Please DO NOT use QuickRemit. When I transfereed £50 in August-2011 from UK to HDFC my Indian NRE bank account the money got transferred in 3 days. But when I transferred £3000, the money got transferred after 20 days, that also after repeatedly sending hundreds of email to the customer center. Their customer center is one of the worst I have seen in my entire life. Once the tranfer gets delayed, they simply do not reply to any of the emails (apart from the auto generated message). The rate was much lower than the one which I booked. I heard that these guys are actually converting the money on the day when rate is high and keep waiting for the day the rate goes very low. The differnce of rate is their profit. So in my case they would have earned INR 5000 because my rate on the booking day was INR 75.00 and rate on the delivery date was INR 73.50. As a responsible citizen of the country I would like to suggest that simply do not use these corrupted services for your hard earned money, and tell the same to all your family members and friends. Jai Hind!!
Wow, i am not alone. i made a transfer of $5000 using quickremit more than a month back it got rejected as the account number was incorrect. I am still fighting to get the money back. my last email to them summerizes it all. They are shamelessly asking me to take the loss for their crappy system design
Hi ZZZ,
I am reiterating what i mentioned to you in the call few mins ago.
There are a few issues in your system.
1. your payment system is not designed like any other normal system. If the transfer is not through, any normal system will credit it back to the source account. since quickremit deviates from norm, it has the responsibility to explicitly educate the customers on how quick remit works, including what happens when a transfer is rejected. you may want to note that this has to happen not after the transfer is rejected, but before hand.
2. In the email that i got from quick remit notifying me of rejection, it gave me 3 options for getting the amount credited into indian bank. what it didnt tell me is what will happen if i dont take any of these 3 options. as far as the email goes, it didnt have complete information, it had some info missing.
3. i called up the customer care at different times on different days about how to get back the amount to my US account. the reason for asking the money in US account is because, i made another transfer once the transfer in question got rejected. i got the required amount in my india account. i was told each time that it is not possible to put the money back into my US account. this speaks about the training quality. they are not even trained with the way your system is designed.
4. then i talk to you and understand that it actually is possible and after going back and forth you say that your system has a limitation, it cannot use a prior exchange rate for conversion and hence i am asked to take the loss.
if you are asking me to book complete loss because of the above issue, this business is no way a fair one. I would urge you to let me talk to your manager.
HDFC taking decades to transfer money. Today’s date is 11/30/2011
Here is proof:
Date of Instruction: 19/11/2011
Remitted Amount: USD 2,000
Mode of Payment: ACH Transfer
Status of Remittance Request: Transaction in Clearing
Pros: Somehow they transfer money
Cons: 1.Too much time consuming
2. Horrible Customer Service.
3.KYC verification call is joke and looks like C.R. calling from some Indian street.
4. 5000 limit.
Thanks all i was about to comit the same mistake u all guys did
Horrified reading above reveiws during my process of remiting money to India.But the result was quite pleasent and satisfying.
Guys , use XOOM to transfer money to india .Good exchange rate , 1.5 working days to reach indian account . But only 12 transactions are allowed / year . Now am looking for similar type as i had completed 12 transactions within 5 months ….lol
Friends
Please do not use quick remit as a means to transfer funds. I would rather frame it as SLOW REMIT. My experience is a night mare. It took 18 days to transfer the beneficiary’s account in India when the money was required very urgently, that too after tonnes of mails They will provide one conversion rate in the web site but when the amount is credited to your accounts in India you can expect at least 50 paise less than committed. On the name of security reasons they delay and finally ensure that you would get less than anticipated. Please use some other mode of transfer. There is no escalation mechanism in the website. It’s really a slow remit.Response to mails is poor.
hi friends,
I Made a transfer from hsbc UK a/c to hdfc quickremit a/c no provided by quickremit after CIP, the money was deducted from
hsbc a/c but not showing in hdfc quick remit , it is showing as money awaited.there is no customer service no to contact. need contact information.
thanks
I want to file a complaint against some members of HDFC :
Mr. Hari OM (Manager),
Mr. Deepak,
Ms Priyanka.
These people are very arrogant and not helpful at all. I request them to settle the bill amount but the response is too bad and they even don’t have the correct address of my home. After providing the correct address they again putting someone else address.
Now they are even not ready to speak in proper manner and not sending any executive to collect the amount.
Ms Priyanka said to me that why dont you send your friend in their branch? I dont understand these type of conversation.
And i dont know what the hell she is talking about.
So many different peoples are calling me from HDFC from their personal contact number.
I have even filed a complaint against them on their site as well as here, http://www.consumercourt.in/banking/76422-hdfc-bank-credit-card-customer-care.html at Consumer Court site but so far no action has been taken on this case.I hope i will get the proper solution of my complaint very soon.
I tried to send money to my cousin brother son for education purpose.
It showed verification. They called home # when we are at office never left a message. I called them, later they called and got all my information and said , it’s not matching. Iwhen I called customer service they were not helpful.
They are also holding all our money and delaying to pay in time.
They are into big money laundering , than helping customers. You might have read in papers.
Hi,
I transferred money to India on 17th of March 2013 using HDFC quickremit. I forgot to prefix ‘QR000’ n the consumer reference no generated. THe status was money awaited till yesterday night. Today morning the status shows that the transaction has been closed. Money has been debited from my DBS account. So any idea when will I get back the money to my Singapore local bank account?? Has anyone experienced a similar situation?
QUICK REMIT IS CHEAT.
use xoom – its atleast honest
Avoid such dubious transfer services. I use the following…
If the transfer is initiated in Indian Banking hours..
1. XOOM: 4 hours (max) [1st transfer takes time as a/c needs to be verified]
2. Wells Fargo: some times less than 15 mins (One time visit to the Wells Fargo is required. After that 15 mins. Sometimes 5 mins (the money was there before I could login to my Indian HDFC a/c !!). Rates better than Xoom most of the time.) Also since there is no 3rd party involved, money is safe and secure.
Cheers 🙂
I just found out this service is not for non residence indian and I already did the bill payment 2250sgd to them. I have not much money left for this. shit! Bad system design!
Hi
Kindly help me online quickremit money transfer,..If key in wrong input QR0001253789545 in the Customer Reference Number Field…how will money transfer or what happens this transfer..Kindly advise asap and Thanks.