Mumbai (Mis)adventures - I

Some of my most painful moments since arriving in Mumbai apart from the rain and traffic have been in relation to services.

On first reaching here and attending the induction, I was told that I would have to open a salary account since they didn't deal with my Axis bank account. So I signed up with SBI who had a counter there because the ICICI guy had left for lunch and I dint want to wait idly. (I was to regret this later.)

Now, I also was told to get a new mobile connection since this number would be mapped to my employer ID. Did that.

And I was told to get my PAN card ASAP.

Now, the fun began.

When later I was checking my mobile bill on the net, I was amazed to find that my mobile connection has been registered against my father's name! Some crazy data-entry operator had mistakenly seen the 'Father's Name' column while filling in names in the database. (grr!!)

Then when I had to apply for a pan-card, the guy said I needed an address-proof (either a passport or the postpaid-mobile address details) and since I did not have a passport, and my mobile was registered under my father's name so this was out of the question.

So I asked mum for sending me a bank statement which had my local address on it.

On the last day of the month my colleagues started getting their salary in their accounts, I checked mine and it showed - Zero rupees. I enquired why and find out the company was dealing with SBI for the first time and there were some issues. (grr!!) It was resolved after a week and thankfully I had the money in my account. And then I forgot the password. The reason is, the password in SBI net-banking needs to include a special character in addition to characters and numbers (Grr!!) and with 8 bank accounts already crowding my head with ATM-pins, customer-ID numbers, customer-ID names, bank-account numbers, net-banking usernames, net-banking passwords, I guess I can forget a number once or twice. So I reset the password using a facility they provided which said it would get changed and the new password would arrive by post in a week. (sigh!) I got the password a week later.

Now one fine day I check my account on the internet and it shows 700 rupees. Further scrutiny revealed that the rest of the amount had been transferred to a deposit account with a maturity period of 1 year (for my own benefit I was told by the bank)
Someone reassured me that I could draw out this amount in the interim period also, so I tried online-transfer to my bank account back home. So I encountered this facility where when you register a payee for online-transfer, you have to validate this account by entering a code that you receive through an SMS on your phone. And I saw that the phone number mapped in this account was the one I had at home and that I no longer had it. So I tried changing the phone number and it said that it has sent an SMS to my OLD number to validate this new number (GRRR!!!!) I called up the branch manager and informed her of the problem; she said the phone number change cannot be done now because of whatever reason but that she will validate the transfer request if I wanted to. I said "SURE! That’s why I went to all this trouble in the first place!"

So I decided that I should change to ICICI bank because they have an existing relationship with my company. Now, I called up their representative and a person came and got my account-opening form filled up and took it back. A week passed and my colleague who had opened along with me got his account activated whereas mine still showed "Dormant" (grr!!!) So I call up the agent and he said my form has been rejected because I listed a hotel as my permanent address. I explained patiently to him that it was owned by my family but he wouldn't listen, so I said I could provide him another address without a hotel in it. So the agent came down again and I refilled the form.

So far so good.

Now I had to get my PAN card made. The guy came in and unlike the previous one, he said he will get it done even though my mobile was not in my name and I did not have a passport. He took a copy of my driving license and my Employee-ID and took out a letter from the HR certifying my appointment in the company. He said we will get our PAN numbers in a week.

A week passed and still no news. I called him and he said the copy which he took of my Driving License did not include the page on the validity of the license. (grr!!) So I called him, he came in again and took out a copy with all details.

Next I needed a data-card, to access the internet, and the guy comes in, says it’s very easy, it works just like another mobile number and that I only had to give him a bill of my existing mobile connection. I remembered my connection is in my father’s name. (Grr!) with a flash of inspiration I said then can I take the Data-card in my father’s name? And the guys says, “Sure, as long as your father is also an employee here!” So I somehow arrange for another letter from the HR who is by now pained by my frequent requests, so I just tell him this is the last time.
And so, a good 2 months later, all systems are up and running. Until the next time, I guess. (sigh!)