AVOID Reliance Money. Review on Reliance Money

Dated - 28th Jul 07

Place: Pune

Summary: I have been cheated by Reliance Money and neither they have opened my account nor have refunded my money. I have lost Rs 1250 which I paid as the account opening charges and brokerage for 1st year which Reliance Money collects in advance.

Details:

1) I was looking for a change from my current Demat provider (ICICIDirect.com) due to high brokerage rates.

2) I looked into several companies on the net and came across a few. As usual I sent the SMS and web queries to all of them and waited for them to respond.

3) Reliance Money was the first to respond and their person (Nafeez) explained the excellent scheme they had. I asked the account opening duration for which, he said 7 days.

4) Was impressed by it and asked Nafeez to send across his person to get the form filled and cheque collected.

5) The person (Nawab Singh) showed up the next day and got the form filled and cheque collected.

6) From then on, for nearly 2 weeks, I did not get any communication from them. At this point, I called up Nafeez and asked him about my account opening status. He said that you have not provided a cancelled cheque. understand this, Nafeez is telling me this after I called him. Had I not called him, he would have not bothered about it. This is not to mention that I was never told to give a cancelled cheque. And the account opening cheque of 1250 was already cashed by them.

7) Anyways, asked Nafeez to send a person to collect the cancelled cheque, for which, he committed to send his person the next day.

8) The person did not show up for a week and no calls either.

9) I called up Nafeez and he was giving the excuse, that he was in Mumbai for the whole week. He made it sound as if he was not in Mumbai but in US and unable to function.

10) After some heated arguments, I asked him to refund my money. He told me flat, that Reliance does not refunds the money.

11) I asked to speak to his manager and he gave me the number of one Atul Malik

12) Immediately, I tried calling Atul, but his number was busy. In my opinion, Nafeez had called him to inform him about my incoming call.

13) Finally, I managed to reach Atul and he started giving explanations, even before I told him the issue. Finally, it was agreed that Nawab Singh (the guy from 5) above) will come within an hour. My question: This happened after more than an hour of arguments. Why was this not done as committed?

14) Nawab Singh showed up and collected the cancelled cheque.

15) I asked him again how much will it take to open the account. His answer: 7 days.

16) Waited for another 10 days and no calls, SMS or email.

17) Being frustrated, called up Nafeez. He said, he will check and call me by evening. Question: Does Reliance Money takes a whole day to find out if an account has been opened?

18) Never got a call back from Nafeez and from that point on he never picked up my call as well. Frustrated, after a couple of days, I called Atul Malik. After jogging his memory, he was able to recollect our past conversation. I told him the account has still not opened. He gave me a landline number and asked me to check with them.

19) Called the landline and got a guy called Amit. He sounded like the first sensible guy in my entire interaction with Reliance Money. He took my name and number and told me that he will get back to me in 30 min

20) Before 30 min, he called me up and said that my account opening form has been rejected by Mumbai office. He did not know the reason and said that it will be clear once the form reaches Pune.

21) I said, I have had enough of this and would like my account opening charge and 1st year brokerage refunded, since the account was anyways not opened. He said that I will have to give them an application for refund. He said, he would ask Nawab Singh to come and collect the application. Question: In point 10) above, why did Nafeez mention that Reliance does not refund?

22) Got into calls with Nawab Singh, who as usual, tried to deny that my form has been rejected. At one time, he gave me an excuse that someone else's form has been rejected. I told him to cut the crap and come and collect my application for refund. His reply was, the refund cannot be applied without they knowing the reason for rejection. Question: Is this bureaucracy or customer harrassment?

23) I reached my wits end post this and had no intention of arguing with the employees of a company, which neither wants to live up to its commitments, nor provide service, demand fees in advance and not do refund.

Moral of the story: Stay away from Reliance Money

I have sent mails to customer grievance on Reliance Money web site and Times of India. Does any one knows who else to contact to bring these crooks to book?