An Indian woman tried to pay her hotel bill in Rotterdam. The card was declined. She had enough money in the account. The bank had made an error. Players from other countries were standing there. Some of them made remarks. Not just about whether she could pay, but about India. Her name is Dipika Pallikal. She is one of the best squash players India has produced, and an Arjuna Award winner. She was in the Netherlands in 2011 for a tournament. At the hotel, her Axis Bank debit card would not go through. There was nothing wrong with her account. There was enough balance in it. The failure was at the bank's end. But nobody standing in a hotel lobby can see that. All anyone sees is a young Indian sportswoman whose card has been refused. She had a second card from another bank. She used that and paid. That should have been the end of an embarrassing evening. Then the money went missing. The transaction had failed, but the amount was still taken from her account, and Axis Bank did not put it back. Most people would have made calls, got nowhere, got tired, and written it off as a lesson. She filed a case in a consumer court in Chennai. Her complaint was not really about the money. It was about humiliation and loss of reputation. She had been made to look, in front of international competitors, like someone who could not pay her own hotel bill. The case took about 3 years. On 24th March 2014, the consumer court held Axis Bank responsible for deficiency in service. It ordered the bank to pay her 5 lakh rupees in compensation, and another 5,000 rupees towards her costs. Here is why this case is worth knowing about, even if you will never play squash for India. A bank failing your card is not treated in law as bad luck or a technical glitch. It is treated as a service you paid for, delivered badly. And the damage the law recognised was not the amount of the bill. It was what happened to her standing in that room, in front of those people. Your reputation is something a court can put a number on. Hers came to 5 lakh rupees.