ECS mandate form costed me heavily

Personal finance always has something new to teach me.

I am using ECS for like ages now; I mean for last 4 years, I never felt I can go wrong with them. And yet, today I saw one of my newly opened ECS bouncing and heavy service charges being levied. Do I need to say it's lose-lose situation for me? My planned investment is not happening and I am charged for same.

I immediately called my bank, ABN AMRO and the customer representative, Abhishek, there was more then a helping person.

He explained me in detail that why it got bounced, because debiting party, i.e. the HDFC Fund House, was supposed to send an ECS mandate form to my bank. They delayed it on their part. In fact my bank received it later in the day.

Then he also checked for me if other two fund houses, whose SIPs are also supposed to be debited from my account through ECS, has submitted ECS mandate form or not. Well, just for fact Reliance has done this favor to me but not IDFC.

Next he explained that what are the possibility, pros and cons of doing it on my own in case IDFC also delays it. In case IDFC's mandate form reaches late, I have to pay one more penalty. :(

And, without me even asking, he raised a complaint to re-consider the charges levied to me. WOW!

That's called customer care that is very rare.

But now to ECS, please bear in mind that ECS mandate is important in case of ECS-Debit transactions and make sure that beneficiary or you submit the same well in time.

I'll keep you all updated about what happens next. In the mean time, my fingers are crossed. I just hope that IDFC send ECS mandate on time, for my sake please. :(

Update: The money that was taken from my account as service charge for bounced ECS is refunded back to my account.

Guilt Shopping

My DH's shoes needed immediate replacement as he was wearing them in unwearable conditions from last one year. Please don't get me wrong, this has nothing to do with my budget and no I am not depriving him by any means. He is a real lazy man when it comes to shopping. Three times prior to this we went to buy new shoes for him, but he will make one excuse or another and delay the purchase.

So, yesterday I almost scolded him to get one and we went to a shoe shop. He finalized one for him and there was a huge queue on billing counter. What happened to the entire recession thing that I still hear or is it the holiday season?

Well, so just to pass the time I thought I’ll explore ladies section. Well, this shouldn't be any dangerous as I never ever got my size shoe, from this brand before. Add to that I only wear Flats, a rare commodity. Plus my old experience of the salesmen there was that they are least helpful. They are never interested in showing anything not already in display.

While I was browsing the shoes, I saw some real good flat shoes, but none of my size in display. A polite salesman approached me and started to help me. He suggested me other shoes, also fetched lots of shoes from stock. First time ever I saw a salesman so polite, so eager to sell. After trying 5 shoes all showed by that polite gentleman, none of my size, I left the showroom. While I was leaving, that man gave me really sorry look. I felt terribly bad. I really needed nothing, but the way he helped me, and looked at me when nothing fitted me, I probably could have bought something if my size would have been available.

After coming out of store, I was still feeling bad. It was so tough to convince me that I didn't need any new shoes and there were actually none available of my size. I am not going to do window shopping ever. :(

Do you ever feel guilty this way?