Moneylife Foundation’s Insurance Helpline has received a second case of fraudulent “interest-free loan” offer from AB Capital. This time, the victim took a loan of Rs2 lakh to pay the high insurance premium, lured by the carrot of a fat, interest free loan of Rs10 lakh
On 4th July Moneylife Insurance Helpline received an email from Prashant Gupte (name changed) saying that he had purchased two Reliance Life Insurance policies for himself and his wife by paying a Rs1 lakh premium each. Worse, Mr Gupte did not have the money. He took a personal loan to pay the premium, because AB Capital, a corporate agent for Reliance Life promised him an “interest-free” loan on Rs10 lakh on buying the Reliance Money Back Guaranteed Plan. He wrote to us on reading out reports about Dr Sujay Verma (name changed) who was similarly trapped and how our intervention led to a refund. Also, there was no sign of the interest-free loan he was promised. Clearly, a second case of outright cheating ought to make the regulator sit up, but until they do, people are getting trapped into taking a loan to buy high premium insurance plans of trivial value with the lure of an “interest-free” loan of 10 times the premium.
Read Is Reliance offering 10-year interest-free loan for buying insurance?
Moneylife Insurance Helpline immediately wrote to the head–corporate communications of Reliance Capital. While we are still to hear form the company, our communication had immediate effect. Mr Gupte has written to say that he received a call from AB Capital on the same day (4th July) and from Reliance Life customer care asking the bank details for refunding the amount. He also received another call from the Senior Manager, Compliance, at AB Capital. Mr Gupte says he was very apologetic and promised to refund the full amount shortly and he also promised to initiate strict action against the persons involved in the fraudulent sale. He also requested Mr Gupte not to take the complaint to the next level for fear of damaging the company's reputation.
Earlier, the intervention by Moneylife Foundation’s Insurance Helpline had helped Dr Verma in getting refund of Rs60,000 premium for Reliance Life policy fraudulently sold by the same corporate agent—AB Capital, with the false promise of an “interest-free” loan of Rs6 lakh from Reliance Capital. Dr Verma was running pillar to post for six months to get the refund without any success, but within two hours of our taking up his case with the company, Reliance Life promised to make amends.
Read Reliance Life refunds Rs60,000 in a suspicious transaction: Another Moneylife success
At that time, Reliance Life Insurance had claimed to us that “the calls are made by spurious callers, a menace faced by the industry, and not part of any mis-selling. The industry has sought help from the EOW and we, as Reliance, have also filed over 170 FIRs against these spurious callers.” Reliance Life pointed to an article in the Times of India which assures us: “These complaints have not made much headway since there was no transaction.” This is not entirely true. Moneylife Insurance Helpline has now forwarded two such cases with full details, which are not about nuisance calls of “interest-free loan” but actual transactions involving a Reliance Life insurance policy purchase which amount to outright cheating because they customers were denied the promised ‘interest free’ loan from Reliance Capital.
Moreover, AB Capital is clearly listed as a corporate agent of Reliance Life on its website http://www.reliancelife.com/Contactus/CorporateAgents/CorporateAgentsDetail.aspx?CityId=1. It has IRDA license number 5484516 and IRDA agent code 20879724. The license is valid from 22 June 2012 to 21 June 2015. The name of director is Raj Kumar Bhatter / Padma Bhatter /Anubhav Bhatter. Sharmistha Banerjee is the chief insurance executive. Its address is: 14/1, Paul Mansion, 6 Bishop Refroy Road, Kolkata, West Bengal-700020.
Can Reliance Life adopt a hands-off attitude? If the agent is peddling lies on its own, shouldn’t Reliance Life discontinue its relationship with AB Capital? Will the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) act quickly to cancel AB Capital’s license before it cheats more people? We will be tracking this story to bring you updates.
UPDATE: Reliance Life has refunded Rs2 lakh to Mr Prashant Gupte
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My contact number- 9773613685
[email protected]
[email protected]
AB capital also cheated me and asked me to buy policies of 30k and 75k. Last three years i am paying premiums with great difficulty.
There may be thousands of people cheated by AB capital.
Dharma Patil M:9325218518
email:[email protected]
Mo. 09326260960
[email protected]
Satwashil Mohite, Pune.
The following policies are done for me from Reliance Insurance Company fraudulently.
Policy number :
1. 50670727
2. 50759202
3. 50724154
4. 50700125
5. 50676972
They have informed me that they have outsourced the policy business to 3rd Party company called AB Capital which has done these policies.
The caller calls says he is from Reliance Insurance Company and he promises bonus of 2000 per month on each policy and other stuff and has done these policies. They told there is a verification call which I have to tell in specific way and they ask me to deny everything, that nothing is promised. They even told me that everything was converted into one time.
Reliance has accepted that AB Capital was doing fraud and they have terminated their service but they are not willing to cancel my policies.
I am not in a position to pay 2 lakh per Year for these policies. As I am not capable of paying this huge sum.
Even after repeated complaints to Reliance about this, I get the call from fraud asking for NOC for cancelling the policies, there is no good response from Reliance. I have decided to take this up further so that nobody can suffer like this.
Please help me on this, so that I can cancel the policies.
My name is shreyas nayak & I am from Dombivli (Mumbai suburb)& I am also victim of these people & duped for 75,000/- but I am not going to keep quite. I request you to join me & I am also contacting others to strong our voice in Police case. If you are ready & really want to get help from police then mail me on my email address on [email protected] I have evidence against these fraud people which I am going to submit to police if you want to join us then your complaint will also be registered at same time.
On 21.3.2012, I received a call from a lady caller and introduced herself as Ms. Avantika from Reliance Capital office, New Delhi. She then illustrated a Life insurance plan with interest free loan facility upto the maturity value. On consequent discussions with her and later with her senior, Mr Rajiv, they described that ‘U pay Rs. 25000/- for 10years in Reliance Guaranteed Money Back Plan. You will be given of loan of Rs. 250000/- within two months of the purchase of policy. At the end of the policy, we will not get anything. As such, a policy of Reliance Guaranteed Money Back Plan was purchased on 26-3-2012.
The details of the policy are as follows:
Name of the Policy Holder- PRADEEP KUMAR BEBARTA; Policy No.-50887724; SA-Rs.206000/-; Premium Amt: Rs. 24847.00; Yearly mode; Paying Term-10years; Client Id- 85897711
In this conversation, first they called from a call center no and later she gave her mobile no-09711320171 and her senior Rajeev’s no is 09015147362. As such, I received my policy on 25th of April’2013. Then I contacted them back. She told me that your application is in process and will soon get the loan. But that was the last call recd. And from then, the no of Rajeev was out of service and Avantika’s number was either ringing or switched off.
After a period of 4months, on 26.06.2013, suddenly I received a call from a person named Bipin Choudhary calling from Reliance Capital Office with his no-07503089567 and told me ‘U had applied for loan with the above policy. Are u still interested?’ I gave the answer ‘Yes’ and then he said that he is sending the file for processing. After 2days, he again called me up and told that Ur application is in process and is scrutinized. According to the company norms, I have to deposit Rs.20000/- as security and this will be sanctioned within 3days and the security amount will be released after 7days of sanction. Firstly, I doubted and tried to avoid and told him to call me up at evening as I am busy at office. He told me that I will be calling from the new no- 08285406012. Again in evening, he called me from his new no and repeated the same question and also said that u had been offered as per the conversion with Avantika during the purchase of the policy. When he took the name Avantika as reference of the policy, then I believed that it may be true and then I agreed to pay. He gave me an account no of the Sales Manager of Bodhgaya [[Name- Syed Shahbaz Mujtaba; Account No- 1616000100129632; Bank- Punjab National Bank, Bodhgaya branch]]. I asked me to give an A/c no of any SBI as it will be appropriate. But he told me that no one is having any account in SBI. Later he gave no of a Sales Manager, Arun Kumar, A/c No.- 12641050055794, Bank- HDFC Bank, Gurgaon Branch. But the local bank officials refused to deposit the amount in the said account as it is Salary Account and as per the norms of RBI, cash cannot be deposited by third party. When told to Bipin, he again gave me another account no of Ravi Prasad, A/c No.-14431050003704, Bank-HDFC Bank, Gurgaon Branch. But again, the local bank officials refused to deposit the amount in the said account as it is Salary Account and as per the norms of RBI, cash cannot be deposited by third party. Later on 02/07/2013, I went to the Punjab National Bank Jeypore branch and deposited cash in the account of Name-Syed Shahbaz Mujtaba; Account No- 1616000100129632; Bank- Punjab National Bank, Bodhgaya branch, Transaction No- M380744 Srl No-40. Again, after 2 day he said that the application is in process but as per the terms, the required amount is Rs.45000/- for security. So I had to pay another Rs.25000/- for the loan. Then I paid the said amount of Rs.25000.00 on 05-07-2013 in the same account of Mr. Syed Shahbaz Mujtaba, Account No- 1616000100129632; Bank- Punjab National Bank, Bodhgaya branch, Transaction No- M410278 Srl No-55. And the same was confirmed by Bipin Choudhary regarding the receipt of the total amount of Rs.45000.00. And then the number of Bipin was not reachable/ switched. After 10 days, when called from a different number, he revealed that the application is in the process. After that day the number is switched off.
After 3months i.e. on 25th September’2013, a call was received from Mr. Manish Mittal from Reliance Capital and revealed that the application is in process and I had to pay Rs.20000/- for the approval of loan. When asked about the earlier deposit of Rs.45000.00, he said that this amount is received. Also he said that “ when u believed Bipin Choudhary, have faith on me and I will let the file processed.” When I asked for the receipt, he also said that he will provide the same. He gave the file no- RLI-RC-0079157117 of the loan application.
Hence, this is the brief.
Pradeep Kumar Bebarta
Qr.No.SSF/D/4, Irrigation colony,
Jeypore, Dist: Koraput,
Odisha-764003
Mo. 09924271217
Niraj
9099981218
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If I don't get this loan I don't know how to survive further. As I have arranged money from my friends and taken the insurance in the hope that, with the help of this loan, I can clear all my credit card dues and also give back the money back to my friends. Can anyone please help me?????
I fail to undertand why would a branded and reputed company like reliance take such cheap steps in duping the people of the country. I am an existing customer of reliance and use couple of other services offered, but insurance scheme was the worst I have ever experienced.
If you have been able to successfully resolve other cases as mentioned, please provide me assistance.
Name: S Chandra
Contact: 865-278-3262
I fail to undertand why would a branded and reputed company like reliance take such cheap steps in duping the people of the country. I am an existing customer of reliance and use couple of other services offered, but insurance scheme was the worst I have ever experienced.
If you have been able to successfully resolve other cases as mentioned, please provide me assistance.
Name: S Chandra
Contact: 865-278-3262
company etc.
and i request to irda and govt of india to arrange a web portal only for fraud person and should category can view like life insurance fraud,gerneral insurnace,mutual fund stock market,nbfc,chitfund etc
website regulary and govt should adopt tecnology to create a website for indian consumer who can directly approach and upload that kind of fraud case to consult depart ment with also should provide unique email id from govt department as a proof that information which sent with customer have life time proof that particular time date was email sent to department with that kind of file,