Dear Karvy,
Thank you so much for responding to my email without reading it.
Your assurance in your email of 20th November, in response to my email of 19th November enquiring about the status of issuance of my shares of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) lying in a Suspense account, that the issue (I suppose no pun was intended) will get addressed in twenty days, gives me great comfort, as you took over six months to pay me the missing dividend on other shares of the same company.
Had you read the enclosed exchanges, you would have realised that in your email dated 6th November, which was in response to my email dated 5th November, which was a follow-up of my email of 24th October as no response had been received, you had told me that “Please note that the credit of shares are under process. It takes 15 days time.” I now see that if you had read the mail trail, you would have denied yourselves the pleasure of giving me assurance of resolution in a random timeframe of twenty days. You may have even felt compelled to apologise for your inability to meet the timeline committed earlier and giving a new, random timeline for resolution. I apologise for initially feeling angry about your arbitrary and inexplicable response. I was wrong. I am the customer, after all, and need to keep my emotions, and expectations, in check.
It is, of course, another matter, that in your email of 6th November, you never specified the starting point of the “15 days time.” Would it start from 19th October, 2019, which, as I had also mentioned in my email of 24th October, was the date the required documents had been delivered to your office, or would it start from, say, 18th April, 2062?
If my math serves me right, if I send you a reminder every month, and you increase the resolution time frame on each such occasion by five days, my resolution timeframe will increase by sixty days every year.
Staying with the math, suppose I live for another 50 years, at the time of my death, the issue will only be 3000 days, or roughly 8 years, away from resolution.
Signing off in my customary manner, “Kindly confirm once the needful has been done.”
Warm regards.
darkofficehumour 
I have several places I could send this post. I wouldn’t even have to change a word. Great job.
Thank you John! It is a deep-rooted malaise. Many consumer businesses, in the name of cost efficiency, are making their businesses customer unfriendly.
As if it is a crime to be a customer.
So true. Could be the title of a thriller, “Crime and Customer,” or “Customary Criminals,” or “A Customer, A Crime, and A Big Business.”
Hahahahaha
Your fictional email addresses the problem well we all experience when dealing with impersonal entities, no matter whether they are government agencies, corporations, or investment companies. Try to cancel a phone plan or a TV subscription, and you will have to jump over a zillion hurdles, which are set up to get you to the point of giving up. Great post, Ankur! I love your vitriolic attacks on our impersonal institutions.
Thank you Peter! By the way, the fictional response is to a real email received two days back by my wife. Whenever she is peeved with a vendor/ business, she asks me to handle it in my nicest way 🙂
She apparently knows you very well, as all good wives should view their husbands. Haha!
Something tells me that fact is stranger than fiction in this case. Grrr…
That is another timeless statement, Jacqui 🙂
Ankur, my dear friend,
How did you know?
I am trying to get a refund from Amazon for costs I incurred; costs which were triggered by their wrong advice and poor communication within their departments.
I’m checking to see whether you have access to my emails 🙂 You just described my situation.
Cheers!
Eric
Check for Pegasus. The Indian govt has not denied using Pegasus for spying. You are on the list. Wannabe business people in India are often willing to give an arm or leg to be on a government list; tax defaulters, illegal overseas transfers, mobile monitoring, any… Their claim to fame. You made it Eric!
Yippee! I always wanted to share the same cell as priests, politicians and bankers.
Much the same way as Pegasus, who shares your cell(phone)?
Been 10 months. Still waiting for refunds for overcharges from doctor’s bookkeeping dept.
Corporate best practices are finding their way into the menu of professionals 😦
I have similar experience with them and wish i have the same skills to write like this
Kurian, you just need to show up there and flex your biceps 🙂
Haha Ankur. Good idea
And guess what, Karvy has been making money off the stocks you and I have with them. Just read today…
https://www.livemint.com/market/stock-market-news/sebi-bars-karvy-for-rs-2000-crore-client-fraud-11574444121954.html
Oh no. That’s fraud.
None of them can be trusted
This is hilarious! So much time wasted by so many companies to their “valued” customers. 🙂
The more they strive for efficiency, the more inefficient they become. An earlier issue with the same company took over 15 emails, 5 long chats, and several phone calls over 6 months to get resolved. A knowledgable, sincere person could have resolved the same in perhaps 2 hours or less.
The giiant run around technique used by corps to avoid answering customer’s concerns.
“If you can’t convince them, confuse them, or at least delay them to the point of frustration,” is the motto.
They need to make a resolution to resolve the resolutions before a revolution starts.
Ha ha! But I am easily satisfied. Will be happy if they just resolve to be honest. A day after I posted, this company was charged with pledging client securities worth over USD 400 million, for raising funds for themselves. Of course not with the intention to defraud, but with the firm conviction that their gambles will yield handsome returns, and they will return client securities, as any honest person or company would.