What should you do if a credit card is issued without your consent?

Credit card companies are not legally allowed to issue unsolicited credit cards or upgrade an existing card without the explicit consent of the customer, failing which they will have to pay double the billed amount as penalty.

Unsolicited Credit Card is a credit card issued without a specific written/digital request or an application therefor.

 Card issuers are prohibited from issuing unsolicited credit cards and are required to seek prior and explicit consent from the customer before issuing a card. However, if the customer receives an unsolicited card, he/she should refrain from activating or providing consent for activation of card through OTP or any other means.

 If no consent is received for activating the card, the card-issuer is required to close the credit card account without any cost to the customer within seven working days from the date of seeking confirmation from the customer and shall also intimate the customer that the credit card account has been closed. 

"Subsequent to receiving the intimation from the card-issuer that the card account has been closed, the customer shall destroy the card. Further, the customer may file a complaint with the card-issuer against the issuance of unsolicited card and escalate it to the RBI Ombudsman as per Integrated Ombudsman Scheme," said the RBI in a release. 

What is the procedure for filing a complaint against a card issuer?

Response: For redressal of his/her grievance, the customer must first approach the concerned card-issuer. If the card-issuer does not respond within a period of 30 days after filing of the complaint or rejects the complaint wholly/partly or if the customer is not satisfied with the response/resolution given by the card-issuer, the customer can lodge his/her complaint with the Ombudsman, Reserve Bank through any of the following methods:

Online at https://cms.rbi.org.in.

Physical complaint (letter/post) in the form as specified in Annexure ‘A’ of the Reserve Bank - Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2021 to “Centralised Receipt and Processing Centre, 4th Floor, Reserve Bank of India, Sector -17, Central Vista, Chandigarh - 160017”.