Well. it’s official now. CarWale.com is among top 100 Asian companies, Red Herring declared this in its Red Herring 100 Asia 2007 event today in Hongkong. Mohit sir was present in Hongkong to receive this honor.
I am on a high, finishing the post as well as the day’s work right away. It’s time to party! 
Read complete news at CarWale.com Blog.
I was surprised when I received a mail from ICICI Bank (customercare@icicibank.com) with title Alert!!! Renew And Secure Your Internet Banking Account Immediately. The mailer had a ICICI Bank logo and the mail format was quite similar to what ICICI has. Below is the complete mail body:
Currently, you are on the ICICI Bank Company Mailer
The internet has become widely accepted for banking online. While we have taken all the possible measures to ensure security and confidentiality of our online banking systems, as we are providing you 128-SSL Secured Server which is highly protected to store your passwords.
Now we are updating our 128-SSL Secured Server to 256-Encrypted SSL Secured Server which is highly sophisticated server to maintain your personal information as our prior service to you.
Important: Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of your online banking account we have issued this warning message.
During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification procedures, we were unable to verify your account information. It has come to our attention that your account information needs to be updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website .We demand that you take 5 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records to avoid running into any future problems with the online service. However, failure to update your records will result in your account suspension. Once you have updated your account records your internet banking service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.
If You Have ICICI Bank Personal Account , Click here https://verification.personal.icicibank.co.in/verify1.jsp
If You Have ICICI Bank Corporate Account , Click here https://verification.corporate.icicibank.co.in/verify2.jsp
Sincerely, ICICI Bank Security Department
I didn’t think much and clicked the ‘Personal Account’ link and landed on a page that was quite similar to what I see almost daily (oh yes, I use Internet banking too frequently). But when I was about to fill it, I noticed it is asking me for somewhat suspicious information like ATM pin and all. Then I had a look at URL. Hell! It was anything but ICICIBank.com!!! The URL was
http://www.iikii.com/bemarket/imgs/save/3/rbc3/www.icicibank.com/Login[1][1].jsp.html
Then I went back to mail-box, saw mail headers and found that mail has been sent by sd1967.sivit.org. So, I was about to become a victim of phishing! Trust me, it could have been a disaster. I remember well that a few months ago someone trapped me and took away my orkut password. He looted two of my communities which had over 4,000 members. Though it gave me a shock and I left orkut the same day but it gave me a lesson also and I am wary of such things now.
If any mail asks you your email, username, password, ATM pin, credit card information or any such thing, please make sure that you are not being trapped.
I am an ICICI Bank customer for a long time now. I also have a credit card with them. Trust me, having an Internet-banking-enabled bank account and credit card of same bank is a blessing. You don’t need to worry about anything, keep on spending in malls and repay sitting in your office chair. I appreciate ICICI Bank’s Internet/Phone banking capabilities (and fantastic security too), I really don’t remember when I visited my bank branch last!
But unfortunately I have had a few highly disappointing incidences with the bank. The latest was horrible. Here I go:
I had ordered some gifts against my reward points on 25th of July and I received them on 28th or so. I was to give some of them to Sudha. Before I could give her these, someone from BlueDart called me asking if I have opened the box? I answered in positive. The guy on the other side said, ‘Sir, ICICI has asked us to take the parcel back! There is some problem in the delivery’. I was surprised as if there was some problem why didn’t ICICI call me? Anyways, I asked the guys to come and collect the ‘opened’ box. I couldn’t do anything but to apologize to her!
Today is 12th August and there is no news about the gifts or my reward points! Mess!
Is this the way a bank like ICICI should behave? If there was some problem they should have called me regretting for what they have done and should have asked me for a balanced solution. Or were they supposed to ask some third-party to take the gifts back from my hands? Can you imagine, how humiliating it is? At that moment I thought of suing the bank literally but cooled myself off thinking, this is the way we all are. And ICICI is no exception.
Another bad experience I had was when I contacted them for a small personal loan sometime back. I contacted three banks i.e. ICICI, HDFC and Citi. Among them HDFC and Citi were more than desperate to give me the loan, in fact Citi committed to hand me over the cheque within 2 days. But since I bank with ICICI, I thought it would be better to get loan from these people but ICICI didn’t give me a damn even after receiving all the desired papers. They didn’t even bother to contact me since then.
Anyhow I don’t need a loan anymore but the practice was a lesson to me that DON’T SEEK ICICI FOR ANY SERIOUS BUSINESS! They have got enough mullahs and are happy with that. ICICI is happy to be what it is today and doesn’t have intention to expand.
In nutshell, I think ICICI is overall a great bank until everything is a success in one go, but if something needs a second attempt, you will have tough time with them.
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