A Kafkaesque tale of Indian consumer banking

Bureaus and banks wield unchecked power, their customers at their mercy.

It all began innocently enough. I was weighing the prospect of joining a company’s board and figured I’d check my credit score, a routine step in vetting new directors these days. I opened my banking app, expecting to see my usual high score. But what I saw nearly stopped my heart: 665. A full 130 points lower than it had always been, an impossible drop. Bewildered and deeply unsettled, I stared at that number. I’d taken out only one loan in my life—a home loan, twenty years ago, with every payment on time since. No other loans, no missed bills. Something was terribly, inexplicably wrong. A seasoned banker friend urged me to file a formal complaint with the credit bureau. That’s when things took a darker turn.

A Frightening Discovery

I logged onto the bureau’s website and keyed in my details, only to be met with a strange message: there was already a login and password associated with my information. This made no sense. I had never directly contacted the bureau before, let alone set up an account. A chill ran down my spine. Was someone out there using my credentials? My credit score had plummeted, and now I was locked out from even lodging a complaint.

As I checked my spam folder, something even more sinister surfaced—a credit card bill for Rs 435 on an account I hadn’t used in thirteen years. Furious, I contacted the bank’s card department head, demanding an explanation. He confirmed that the claim was baseless, assured me the account was inactive, and promised to clear the record. But a week later, the call center phoned, insisting I “settle” the phony debt. Furious, I escalated the matter, copying the bank’s MD and CEO. An automated response blandly assured me my issue was “under investigation.”

The Phantom Debt

My banker friend suggested this bogus credit card claim might explain the nosedive in my credit score. He suspected it had been marked as “overdue” month after month, dragging my score down. I reached out to contacts at the bureau, who confirmed my credit history was spotless except for that spurious credit card charge. Yet, even after verifying this, the bureau representative offered no explanation for the score drop. Instead, they merely agreed to flag it “under dispute.”

Weeks passed, and still, my score remained locked at 665. Desperate, I filed a complaint with the RBI Ombudsman, though I held little hope they’d intervene. Then, a woman from the CEO’s office of my bank called, saying they were “still investigating.” She asked me to pull my credit report, seemingly oblivious to my inability to access the bureau’s portal. For three weeks, we had the same circular conversation.

Escalating the Issue

Back to the bureau. I received an email from an address marked “escalation desk,” summarizing our conversation and vaguely acknowledging the “dispute.” The representative called again, this time asking if I’d ever had two different PAN numbers and if I could share a copy of my PAN card with them. My patience frayed; I replied that no law-abiding citizen could legally have two PANs. Moreover, I refused to send sensitive documents to a nameless email address, demanding a direct contact.

Both the bank and the bureau hid behind fortress walls, unreachable except for brief, impersonal messages from “escalation desks” and “response escalations.” No callbacks. No direct replies. Just a cycle of opaque, dead-end communication.

Call for Consumer Advocacy

Now, a month in, I am exactly where I started. My score has dropped to 662. I have no timeline, no contacts, no recourse. Credit scores are no longer mere loan qualifiers; they’re lifelines, determining everything from career opportunities to trustworthiness. Yet, bureaus and banks wield unchecked power, their customers at their mercy. While regulators tout “consumer protection,” they remain bystanders to a system that dangles livelihoods on a string.

I had the connections to raise these concerns. But I shudder to think about the millions left voiceless, with no means to challenge these errors. Their only hope? A prayer. This is the true face of consumer banking in India.