A SPATE of recent incidents involving overcharging claims has left some customers of local and foreign banks flustered.
Some say their banks had overcharged them on their loans.
A local bank customer, who is in his 30s and wanted to be known only as Mr Tan, told my paper that his bank imposed a $6,000 pre-payment fee for his home loan that should not have been charged.
'If my wife and I did not call the bank in September to clarify the loan-repayment statement, we might not have known about the extra charge,' said the information- technology executive.
The bank has since reimbursed him.
Last month, Standard Chartered Bank customer Feroze Khan, 43, wrote to The Straits Times' Forum to express his displeasure with his bank.
'I should have paid about $250 for the last instalment on my personal loan, instead of the original $260 a month, as I had paid a bit more earlier,' he told my paper. 'But the bank kept asking me to pay $260.'
Standard Chartered later clarified that this was a service lapse, and said it had resolved the issue with Mr Khan.
Banks my paper approached said they conducted stringent checks to prevent payment errors.
For OCBC Bank, miscalculations on payments are unlikely to occur with the bank's computation system for home loans, said Mr Gregory Chan, head of consumer secured lending.
'But they may arise through rare occurrences of human error during entry of details,' he said.
Banks said that customers should contact them if they think there could be mistakes in their bank statements.
A DBS Bank spokesman said: 'If a customer has indeed been overcharged on a loan, the bank will reimburse the customer accordingly.'
As for United Overseas Bank (UOB), a spokesman said that when customers raise concerns about payment errors, the bank 'will also take the opportunity to review its processes...to ensure that such a concern doesn't arise again.'
Banks also reminded customers to scrutinise their bank statements.
'We always encourage our customers to check their bank and credit-card statements within 14 days upon receipt,' said Ms Ngo Min Ying, general manager of customer experience at Standard Chartered.
