When in doubt, pay back!

I shudder when I hear friends/colleagues talking about EMI that is more than 40-50% of their take home salaries, and for an extended duration - such as 5+ years. The assumption is that our salaries will keep flowing without interruption, but the risk seems enormous. What if one gets real sick and needs a 3/4 month sabbatical? What if you want to switch a job immediately and there's no second job in hand?

Here's an eye-opening incident that I came across - a man killed over an ICICI bank loan - for a mere Rs. 15,000 loan.

Y Yadaiah, 42, an electrician in the state medical and health department, had defaulted on a Rs 15,000 personal loan he had taken from ICICI Bank a few months ago.

Yadaiah had called her up sometime later, saying the recovery agents had detained him at their office. “He was told he would not be allowed to leave until he returned the money,” she said. Around 2 pm, Sunanda received a message from a hospital saying her husband had died.

It's common knowledge that banks use goons to recover the sum. Here's the version from the 'recovery' agents. I don't think there's a single person who's gonna believe this.

Elite Financial Services told the police that Yadaiah went into convulsions, fell on the floor and injured his forehead. It said Yadaiah was taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead.

Here's more, and the evidence that ICICI was actually involved in it:

“Many debt-recovery outfits employ retired cops for their expertise in third-degree methods,” said a police official on condition of anonymity.

"We had demanded compensation of Rs 50 lakh but the ICICI Bank officials offered Rs 15 lakh. Whatever the amount, the readiness of the bank to pay implies its connivance in the sorry episode and that it is using goons to recover dues by hook and literally by crook"

The guy has apparently paid 8K out of 15, and the 7K costed him his life. Here's a huge bunch of issues faced by ICICI's customers. Guess I need to rethink about renewing the 'relationship' with them - it's one dark murky world, this entire banking thing.