The companies behind E-commerce scams in the country had grabbed Tk of thousands of crore from the customers. However, they aren’t showing the true account of this missing money. The ministry of commerce has got some estimation from some 35 companies, but a huge amount of money has been remaining beyond the record and estimation.

According to the source information, the customers of Evaly made transactions of around Tk 4,000 crore, but the real account of this transactions hasn’t been disclosed yet. Similarly, the transactions of Tk 2,000 made by the customers of Aleysha Mart are still missing.

Tapan Kanti Ghosh, senior secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, told The Bangladesh Pratidin, “Most of the money that was stuck in the payment gateways of the e-commerce companies has been returned. In addition, some companies have some money in bank accounts which were taken to return; the money cannot be paid as the accounts are frozen due to the case. We do not have any account of transactions outside the payment gateway of e-commerce companies.”

How much money returned?

According to the data of Central E-Commerce Cell, 55, 726 customers have been refunded Tk 386 crore 84 lakh till last November. 15 companies have refunded the money to their affected customers. Qcom gave the maximum amount of money out of this. The company has refunded 311 crore 17 lakh taka to 44,039 customers. Among the remaining institutions Dalal Plus, Boomboom, Anandabazar, Thaley.com, Dhamaka, Alifworld, Bangladeshdeal, Safetik, Adian Mart, Sirajganj Shop, the refund amount is below Crore. Apart from this, Dalal Plus has returned Tk 18.49 crore and Shrestha.com has returned Tk 1.5 crore. However, the refund amount of the two big companies accused in the e-commerce scam, Evaly and Alesha Mart, is very less than the actual transactions.

According to sources, the board of directors headed by Justice Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik, appointed by the court, had given information about the deposit of Tk 4,867.8 crore in Evaly's account till June 30 last year. This money has been transacted only through mobile financial service providers. Evaly officials could not give proper information about this huge amount of transactions. Furthermore, Evaly has returned only Tk 10 crore 43 lakh to the affected customers out of the money stuck in the payment gateway. Beyond this there is a huge volume of transactions. The Ministry of Commerce is not getting the real account of this money because the server is not active.

The same is the case with another e-commerce company, Alesha Mart. Bangladesh Bank has found 56 accounts of Alesha Mart in different banks, in which information of deposits of more than Tk 2 thousand crores of the customers are available. Out of this, the company has withdrawn 1,999 crores. There were only 2 crore 7 lakhs in the accounts. Apart from this, Tk 40.67 crores were returned out of the money that was stuck in the payment gateway. According to the Ministry of Commerce, 8, 288 customers currently owe Tk 116 crore to Alesha Mart out of the money transacted in the Escrow Service. However, beyond this, a large amount of transactions were not accounted for.

According to an inquiry at the commerce minister's office, recently the central e-commerce cell has informed the commerce minister about the refund process of the accused companies. In that report, the issue of non-cooperation of the institutions has come up. According to the report sent to the minister's office, 72 crore 75 lakhs of Qcom customers are stuck in the payment gateway; Customers and merchants of Dhamaka shopping are stuck with about Tk 100 crore. 2, 700 customers of Sirajganj shop are stuck with Tk 14 crore and customers and merchants of Aladdin Pradip are stuck with 9 crore 44 lakh taka. Apart from this, the list of refunds of 4, 380 customers on behalf of Suryapay Limited has been given to Dalal Plus, but they have refunded Tk 18 crore 49 lakh to only 2, 420 customers. The report to the minister mentioned that it is not possible to refund the customers due to non-cooperation of Dalal Plus officials.

The concerned persons said that the money of the e-commerce companies which was stuck in the escrow service is possible to return only upon the receipt of information. Out of this, there is a huge amount of money that remains unaccounted for. If the servers of the accused comapnies are opened, information about the missing money can be obtained. However, the officials of the institutions are not helping in this regard. The stakeholders also say that the refunds received by victims of e-commerce scams are only 5 percent of the money lost. The remaining 95 percent remains unaccounted for, which can be recovered by restoring the main servers of the companies. Officials fear that these money of thousands of crores in e-commerce scams will never return to the mainstream economy if the servers of the accused companies are not activated. Affected customers will also not get their transaction money back.

​​(The report was published in print and online version of The Bangladesh Pratidin on December 30 and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque Khan)