Customer sues Evaly chairman, MD over fraud, harassment

A case has been filed with a Sirajganj court against Evaly's Managing Director (MD) Mohammad Rassel and Chairman Shamima Nasrin. 

A customer named Mohammad Raj filed the case in the court of Senior Judicial Magistrate Jasmine Ara on Wednesday, bringing allegations of fraud and customer harassment.

Plaintiff's lawyer Advocate Manjurul Islam Sohag said, "The court has taken the case into cognizance considering the plaintiff's statement and documents, and directed the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) to submit a report after investigation."

According to the case statement, on 4 May this year, the plaintiff ordered the purchase of five products, including a television, a pen drive and an iron machine from the online e-commerce platform Evaly. At that time, he paid a total of Tk50,737 for the products.

As per Evaly's company policy, the products must be delivered within 7 to 45 working days of the order. But according to Raj, the products have not been delivered to him although three months have passed after the orders were placed and payment.

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Earlier in an inspection report last June, the Bangladesh Bank said Evaly took Tk214 crore from their customers up until 14 March this year, but it did not deliver the products to them. Besides, the platform is yet to pay Tk190 crore to its merchants.

Evaly's current assets are worth only Tk65 crore, which means that the platform would only be able to pay 16% of its dues to customers and merchants with their total assets.

Mentioning that Evaly itself had supplied this information to the central bank, the report continues, "The platform's total liabilities may even be higher than what they reported. Because Evaly did not grant Bangladesh Bank's officials access to its replica database."

After missing the 1 August deadline for submitting the information sought by authorities, Evaly sent a letter to the commerce ministry the same day seeking a six-month time extension.

On 11 August, Evaly CEO Mohammad Rassel said there will be no scope of completing deliveries if the company is forced to close and sell assets due to outside pressure. 

Later on 19 August, Mohammad Rassel said Evaly's actual debt to customers and merchants is higher than the amount mentioned in the Bangladesh Bank's inspection report submitted to the commerce ministry.

As of 15 July, the total liabilities of the e-commerce platform, including advances taken from customers, debts to suppliers and other business debts, amounted to Tk543 crore. Besides, there is additional debt of Tk1 crore for shareholder equity, says a statement submitted to the commerce ministry on Wednesday.