Ekta World Brochure & Agreement mein zameen-aasman ka pharak hai!

Ekta Group of builders cheats and bullies its customers – no two ways about it. Don't be fooled by clever PR campaigns, paid media, beautiful website, and estate agents. Don't get taken in by endorsements of reputed corporates like HDFC Realty, HDFC Red, or mentions in Magic Bricks Now. Don't go by Anil Kapoor's endorsement and MCHI-Credai Awards for Customer Responsiveness. That's all smokescreen. 

Booking a flat in an Ekta World project means giving lakhs of rupees with no safeguards and no legal entitlements. Even when the flat-agreement is registered, it is an unfair, one-sided agreement that make you lose all your rights as a flat purchaser. Ekta builder's overall strategy is to make the buyer helpless. As they say in market language, "Builder ko haath kaatke de dene jaisa hai" -- like cutting off your hands and giving them to the builder!

Why are we making such harsh statements against a reputed builder? To understand why, please read: 

(1) brochure of Ekta Parksville. The brochure is full of rosy promises,

(2) flat-purchase agreement for Ekta Parksville. The sale agreement tells you that you have no rights and no legal entitlements. Builder ka sab kuch, buyer ka kuch nahin!


After reading the brochure and the agreement, if you still feel that this builder is fair and reliable, then go ahead and invest your hard-earned money in an Ekta Project! After all, flat-buyers get the builders they deserve! 

Also read the rebuttal by Ekta World CMD Ashok Mohanani. 

ISSUED IN PUBLIC INTEREST BY
Krishnaraj Rao
98215 88114
krish.kkphoto@gmail.com

Loan Shark? Pawn Broker? No, HDFC Bank Relationship Manager & Personal Banker

In the old days, they used to call them loan sharks and pawn-brokers. Now they call them Relationship Managers and Personal Bankers. In their quest for year-on-year growth, retail bankers are crossing over some boundaries of the client-banker relationship. HDFC Bank is abundant in examples of this unwholesome trend. Without providing you with adequate grounds for filing complaints to RBI or the banking ombudsman, HDFC Bank is routinely exploiting the customers' dependency and blind trust.

HDFC Bank is like if your doctor collects real-time information about when and with whom you have sex, and then he goes and hires a bunch of MBAs and college freshers, calls them "Relationship Managers", lets them hang around his clinic pretending to be doctors till you start telling them about your intimate problems. And then this doctor gives these relationship managers access to your information on their computer screens, with monthly targets for selling you condoms and other contraceptives. Conflict of interest? Absolutely!

Bankers are routinely privy to salary details, annual income, etc. that it is their business to know. However, the salesmen and women who hang around your bank have no business to know your financial details. These glib young men and women go out of their way to fill up account-opening forms, etc. for you. You think they are "bankers" and so you ask them to access your account on their computers. This gives these sales people access to your very private financial details, such as a huge cash-flow into your accounts when your life insurance policy matures, or you take VRS, or sell your house, or book profits in the share market.

HDFC's bankers and non-bankers acting together in an orchestrated way, exploit customers systematically in the long run.

If you are flush with funds, your "personal banker" tries to persuade you to buy tax planning products, annuities, etc. Alternatively, if you are struggling to pay credit-card bills, frequently overdrawing your current-account, breaking fixed deposits prematurely, etc., your relationship manager nudges you to take a personal loan or gold loan. Loan disbursal lets him meet his monthly targets and earn commissions, and when you default on repayments, your bank reaps handsome profits by imposing heavy penalties and selling the collateral of gold loan.

Why is HDFC Bank so keen on opening lots of new accounts, even if they don't transact much business? Because it "provides customer base for ongoing cross-sell through branches". In other words, every account holder is a potential customer for credit cards, loans, etc.

Let's look at HDFC Bank's online behaviour. As a customer, I have given my email address to HDFC Bank to enable them to keep me informed of my account balance, etc. Here's an example of an acceptable email from HDFC Bank:

Emails giving you updates about your HDFC account balance are ethically OK... but these are the narrow end of the wedge.

But then HDFC Bank ups the ante, and starts using the same email channel to sell you products. Here's an example of a salesman-like email:

Emails selling you the bank's debit card services seem ethically OK, but only because banking and debit/credit card businesses are so inextricably mixed up.

Still, it's tolerable because debit cards are an intrinsic part of modern banking. But HDFC Bank doesn't stop at selling their own products, they try selling you other companies' offerings, earning advertisement revenues like a newspaper company. Here's an example:

Marketing emails cross the line from banking to advertising and marketing. Using the bank's customer base for marketing products of other companies --  how is that banking? How is it even a related business? This is just blatant abuse of the trust that customers repose in their bankers!

Surely, advertising Amazon's festival sale is beyond the bounds of the client-banker relationship. Advertising cannot be considered a part of a bank's legitimate activities. Is this why we give the bank our email address in the first place? No! Using the bank's customer base as a captive market for selling the products of other companies is abuse of trust and misuse of the client's information! It's not very different from selling their client data to marketing companies, is it? The bank's customers are silent simply because they have gotten used to it. It's similar to their tolerance to receiving unwelcome marketing calls from their "Relationship Managers" or "Personal Bankers".

HDFC Bank earns substantial revenues from third party product sales, fees and commissions. See this slide from HDFC's investor presentation:

The box on top right shows that third-party product sales is a source of fees and commissions for HDFC Bank. The bullet points at the bottom shows that Fees and Commission form about a quarter of other Income (non-fund revenues) of the bank.

ISSUED IN PUBLIC INTEREST BY
Krishnaraj Rao

9821588114
krish.kkphoto@gmail.com

Other articles about HDFC Bank:

1) Is HDFC Bank letting Justdial steal your money?

2) Pawn your wife's gold now  -- No documents needed!

Attention, Flat buyers in Ekta's Virar Project

1.  Five years ago, Vineet Malik of Gurgaon applied for a flat in Ekta Parksville project in Virar, at a price of Rs 26 lakhs. The first demand for payment by Ekta Parksville Homes Pvt. Ltd. came in November 2011. This amount was promptly paid. The verbal commitment given to him was that the flat would be delivered by December 2013 i.e. two years later.

2. Four years later, in November 2015, the last demand note was sent by Ekta Parksville Homes Pvt. Ltd. Although 95% of the total consideration had already been paid, the flat-purchase agreement was not yet signed. The buyer was at the builder's mercy; the builder could break the deal even now.

3. In March 2016, although the buyer had paid 97% of the total consideration, Ekta continued to refer to the deal as "provisional booking". See this indemnity bond given by the buyer.
   
   

   

4. In May 2016, finally, the Flat Purchase Agreement was registered. (MOFA requires registered agreement at the time of receiving 20% of the total consideration, but these builders are laws unto themselves!) The agreement was full of discriminatory clauses making the buyer renounce all his legal rights. In a nutshell, the agreement says that flat-owner is only the owner of the four walls of his house, and he has no say in the common amenities promised in the lavish brochure. (Even if the builder reduces any or all of the amenities, and exploits the FSI of the land and/or any common area of the building, the flat-owner must keep quiet! Is this the kind of agreement one expects from a reputed builder?)

5. According to the recently signed agreement, the promised date for giving possession is December 2016. But, judging from the current construction status, this promise will be broken. The entire site is under-construction; there is no way it can be completed for giving possession within two months. Buyers will be lucky to get possession even on December 2017!
   
   {Click to read the rebuttal by Ekta World CMD Ashok Mohanani}
   
   
   

   

   Ekta Parksville – What will be delivered in December 2016

   
   

   ISSUED IN PUBLIC INTEREST BY
   Krishnaraj Rao
   98215 88114
   krish.kkphoto@gmail.com

HDFC Bank Gold Loans -- Fuelling Impulse Purchases?

HDFC Bank markets Gold Loans as an impulse purchase. "45 minutes, no paperwork" is HDFC Bank's promise. Since documentation is minimized, so are safeguards. Relationship managers and other para-banking employees can abuse the blind faith that customers have. 

So if you are a market speculator with an itch to invest in some hot scrip, you need a few lakhs to fund this impulse purchase, and you need it now. HDFC Bank says, "Psst, psst. Raid your wife's jewelry cupboard and pawn her gold. WE WON'T ASK YOU ANY QUESTIONS! DO IT NOW. Zero accountability, man!"

Or, if you are a crazy housewife with an uncontrollable itch to splurge without consulting her family, HDFC Bank gets into your head and whispers, "Just go ahead, honey, pledge your gold. DON'T THINK, JUST DO IT NOW! Live for the moment!"

Having pawned off their gold, HDFC Bank's customers discover that the bank personnel can armtwist, blackmail and extort. Read this complaint from an aggrieved customer in Mumbai: "I the undersigned holding Gold Loan A/c. No. 21114 with your esteemed HDFC Bank, Yogi Nagar Branch for Rs. 130,200/-. Last week I visited your Yogi Nagar Branch for renewal of my Gold Loan. I meet Lady Officer (name unknown) and informed her to renew the same and asked about details for the same. She refused to provide any details and filled one cash deposit slip with account number details and amount and told me to pay Rs.11680/- to the Teller. I paid the same at the Teller and given the Counterslip to that lady. She cross/cutted the account number mentioned on it and given it to me back. The said renewal charges are not accounted to my loan account but deposited in her personal account... She has also not given the Renewal documents for Gold Loan and refused to provide the same."

ISSUED IN PUBLIC INTEREST BY
Krishnaraj Rao
9821588114
krish.kkphoto@gmail.com

Related articles:

1) Is HDFC Bank letting Justdial steal your money?
 
2) HDFC Bank's Abuse of Customer Trust and Fiduciary Relationship

How Justdial cheats customers by using Electronic Clearance Service (ECS)

In May 2016, Sanjeev Goel, managing partner of Pure Energy Academy in Belapur, Navi Mumbai, signed a contract with Justdial for business promotion. June onwards, Justdial started sucking money from Pure Energy's bank account by using a fraudulent Electronic Clearance Service (ECS) mandate. 

Justdial -- India's no. 1 bloodsuckers.

 Pure Energy Academy's contract with Justdial was for payment of Rs 1040/- per month, for a period of one year. See the terms of contract below.

Two cheques were issued towards the first two monthly payments. Justdial activated the contract on 3^rd June after depositing both the cheques one day earlier. Justdial's backroom boys evidently forged a ECS/NACH mandate form enabling them to charge upto Rs 1040/- as many times in a month as they wished. Justdial could milk limitless money from Pure Energy's bank account by presenting the ECS/NACH mandate for the next 14 years! Also, the forged ECS mandate was made out to be irrevocable!

See the forged ECS/NACH mandate below.

Take a close look at this fishy document. All the options are pre-tick-marked and cancelled in the printed form itself. They are not tickmarked or cancelled by hand, the form is printed that way! Even the supposed termination date of the contract – 31/03./2030 – is printed, and only the starting date is entered by hand. The frequency options i.e. Monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly, are all pre-cancelled in the printed form, and "As and when presented" is pre-tickmarked. The debit type option of "Maximum amount" is also pre-selected in the printed stationery. Also notice that something has been pasted on top of the form, partly covering the words "Client" and "Reference" on the left-hand-side. Like a cheque, the ECS mandate is a negotiable instrument, so how can it have a pasted-on layer? Aren't negotiable instruments rejected by banks if there is pasting, over-writing etc.? This ECS mandate defies commonsense!

Using this ECS mandate, Justdial started guzzling money from Pure Energy Academy's bank account. Justdial encashed both the cheques on 3^rd June, and debited Rs 1040/- on 30^th June by ECS – three debits in the first month of the contract. Despite being told to terminate the contract, Justdial debited Rs 1040/- in July, August and September, plus Rs 110/- twice in September. Within four months, Justdial took payment for more than six months. 
 

See Statement of Account below.

If and only if the police register an FIR against Justdial, HDFC Bank will consider reversing the debits. But what if the police does not register FIR? Suppose the police takes the stand that this is a banking issue, and therefore, they have no understanding of it, and therefore, Sanjeev should complain to appropriate authorities in the banking domain? Then Sanjeev will be left with no remedies, and Justdial will get away scotfree.

Read the full article: Is HDFC Bank letting Justdial steal your money?

ISSUED IN PUBLIC INTEREST BY

Krishnaraj Rao

9821488114

krish.kkphoto@gmail.com

Other Articles on HDFC Bank:

1) Pawn your Wife's Gold Now -- No Documents Needed!

2) Abuse of Customers' Trust & Fiduciary Relationship