- Bribe Fighter
- 14 years ago
- 14136 views
No agent or bribe for hypothecation termination of my car
I took a car loan from ICICI bank and once the term was complete, I received a letter from ICICI (I believe Form 35) and it had a validity of 90 days and I had to get a new RC book with the hypothecation removed. The car was registered at Indiranagar, Bangalore RTO and I want there with this form 35, RC book, insurance proof, driver's license. As soon as I reached there, a few touts said they could help and It would take more than 30 days and they could get it done in less than 10 days for Rs. 800/-. I was tempted, but wanted to try doing it by myself and experience the process.
Got some basic info from the helpdesk about which room that I need to go to etc..and then spoke to the first available at the person at the counter in the room that I was asked to go. This person was pretty helpful and atleast told me the list of things that are required to be done, even though there was a slight complication that the address on the RC book was not the place where I lived at this time. I had to come down to the shops below the RTO office and make copies and buy the self addressed envelope, stamps, a file and then went up to the room again. I gave these to the same person I met, since I felt that he was helpful and he at once passed on my papers to a lady sitting in front of the computer. I was not sure what was going to happen to my papers (original RC book along with it). I had my eye on the lady who did some entry into the computer. Once done, she returned the papers to me and asked me to go and pay the charges as prescribed by the first person I met. Apparently, every transaction needs to be "data entried" before accepting any charges towards that transaction. Went to the accounts room and paid the charges, there was some back/forth here, due to the address complication mentioned earlier. With 3 back/forth walks between the first person I met and the accounts dept, this got sorted out. Ofcourse, at each counter, I had to wait, while agents came in with a bunch of files to be processed in one shot and got them processed while I was waiting. Once this was done, I came back to the person I met and showed him the receipt of charges paid and he asked me to ********** another lady who would give me an acknowledgement. I asked him how long until I received my new RC (smart card) and he said "within 30 days". I passed on the file to the other lady who gave me an acknowledgement receipt. Returned home after like 4 hrs at the RTO.
This happened in early Feb. I waited until early Apr and there was no sign of the smart card. I got a bit worried about whether my file was lost, hence visited the RTO again and showed the acknowledgement receipt. One lady searched through a bunch of files, which were all stacked together and after a suspense filled 10 mins found my files. She said, oh this'll take more time (what was undefined is how much more...), and I asked her if I had to take the files to some one to move the files. She said, "no sir..it'll take time".. By this time, I was not sure if she was hinting at some payment. So i asked her.."Do you think I have to pay something more to get this done..?". She repeated "No sir...it'll take time..that's the usual process. It has to go through many officers". In any case, I returned home thinking that I'll probably visit once more within the next 3-4 weeks. But, I was time constrained and on May 19 (fortunately, I had taken the day off), the new smart card reached me at my home and I collected it.
Time taken for the whole process : 3.5 months.
Money : Actual charges (which came to around 250, including postal fees/stamp, xerox copies etc..).
Task : HP termination + NOC for change of address.
This post can either go under "I didn't have to pay a bribe" OR "I didn't pay a bribe"