Home ›› 22 Mar 2023 ›› Front
Controversial e-commerce company Dhamakashopping.com (Invariant Telecom Bangladesh Limited), the owner of which have allegedly laundered a huge amount of money abroad, plans to refund Tk 25 crore to 960 of its customers.
The company sent a letter, signed by Manager Mukitur Rahman Akhanda, in this regard to the Commerce Ministry, a senior official of the ministry’s Central Digital Commerce Cell told The Business Post.
The official said they will discuss the issue at the next meeting very soon.
“A lot of money of Dhamaka’s customers is stuck in Bangladesh Bank’s gateway while the company owner’s bank accounts have been frozen. Those accounts will have to be unfrozen to have the money disbursed,” said the senior official.
The official also said that Dhamaka Chairman Dr M Ali, alias Mojtaba Ali, claims they are unable to refund the customers due to the ongoing cases against them. “We are looking into all related issues.”
Sent by the Dhamaka Shopping manager in November 2022, the letter said that the verified information against the amount the company owes to its customers has been sent to the Commerce Ministry and the company is ready to refund the customers.
With the ministry’s help, the online e-commerce platform expressed hope that it would be able to pay the money owed to its customers in full.
So far, Dhamaka — which had more than 3 lakh customers — has verified 147 customers’ claims in the first phase, 552 people in the second and 261 in the third phase and submitted their data/list to the ministry.
In 2021, multiple cases were lodged against more than 30 people, including the chairman, MD and numerous officials of Dhamaka, in different areas of the country over various charges including fraud, embezzlement, and money laundering. One case was filed under the Digital Security Act as well.
Since then, law enforcement agencies have arrested and charged many of them.
As many as 49,190 customers who were duped into ordering products from 14 now-controversial and rogue e-commerce companies have received more than Tk 353 crore in refunds from the business entities in the past year.
The development came after Commerce Ministry took measures to refund the money that was stuck in various payment gateways during this period to customers.
According to Commerce Ministry sources, around Tk 525 crore were stuck in various gateways since June 30, 2021, after purchase orders were made to 27 e-commerce companies.
Of that amount, Tk 352.59 crore has been refunded to the customers so far. The remaining Tk 172 crore is yet to be refunded.
However, the government does not want to take the responsibility of returning the money of any defrauded customer that was paid before June 30, 2021. The ministry says further action will be taken based on the court’s ruling.
According to the ministry, the refunding process started in March last year. Dhamaka has refunded some Tk 89.07 lakh to 2,502 customers so far.
