Hi,
In year 2004/2005, at National Institute of Immunology, JNU, New Delhi, we got two representatives of HSBC bank who told us that HSBC was giving credit cards to all the employees free of any kind of annual charges. So like many other employees I also applied and got a classic credit card made on my name (44**********8153). However, after a year I found on my bank statement that the bank has charged me an annual charge of about Rs 700. I called the HSBC helpline and told them the problem that my card was made on the condition that it was free of any kind of annual charges and that I was not at all willing to pay the charges. On this the bank executive told me that if I paid Rs 700 then I would get 700 redeemable points in my cards account. That time I had 899 reward points on my account and I thought It would be good have extra reward points and on this offer I paid the annual charges. This was around Feb of that year, but from March to August of that year I didn't get the reward points. All these months I kept calling and asking them to give me the promised reward points but each time they assured me that I will get these points in next month's statement. After that I was really pissed off but couldn't do anything except to leave the matter. I stopped using the card and ignored all the statements that came from HSBC. Now after about five years I got a call that I have not paid the annual fee for these years which is around Rs 4897!. I told the caller that first point is that this card was supposed to be a free card and that I have not used it after the clearance of my last transaction, I am not going to pay anything to the bank. On this I was threatened that they will send me a court notice, and then he tried to record my voice as well, probably to show me as defaulter that I denied the payment just like that.

I know that banks keep people to recover their money who can hurt the customer as well.
How authentic these callers who call themselves as the lawyers or court representatives are?
And kindly, let me know how do I deal with the situation?