The banking ombudsman on Friday stressed on awareness to help customers lodge complaints without consulting advocates or doing rounds of the offices concerned.

“Our thrust is to create awareness among customers if the bank does not listen to their complaints. People can get their complaints redressed at the banking ombudsman office without doing rounds of courts or taking assistance from advocates,” said Patric Barla, the banking ombudsman (Bihar and Jharkhand).

Barla added that customers or their authorised representatives, other than advocates, could write letters or send emails to the office of the banking ombudsman or file his/her complaint online.

The complainant can log on to www.rbi.org.in and click on “For Common Person” and then follow the complaints link, Barla said, adding that one must furnish details such as name, address, name of the bank and branch, documents to prove the bank did not act on his/her written application, amount of compensation/damage sought and others.

However, complainants can approach the ombudsman for redress only if he/she fails to receive any reply from the bank within a month of the application, he added.

There are 27 grounds on which aggrieved customers can file complaints to the ombudsman. The grounds include non-payment or non-realisation of draft, cheque, non-payment or inadequate payment of interest, non-receipt of cash from ATM, delay in pension payment, banks’ refusal to open accounts, forceful closure of accounts and others.