lost money to a consulting firm assuring job
2 weeks ago
I have paid around 1.5 lakhs to a so called "recruiting-firm" called mygrowcareer who kept taking money from me to arrange interview with IBM for a job opening. I backed out and asked for refund. When I paid the amount, they told me its totally refundable. But when i asked for refund, they kept on asking to pay more for GST, processing fee etc. Every time they would say this is the last payment and after this you would get all the money you paid within 2 hrs. But they won't respond and on next day they will come up with some new term on which name i have to pay more. As of today, they are asking me to pay 44700 more as "Refund ID Charges". I have all the emails from them, a phone number, names of 2 members (though genuine or not is unknown) and their website has their address. I make all payments via GPay. Please tell me if I can get my money back from them by raising a cyber crime case.
You may immediately approach higher police officers and get register FIR and also see that he is arrested and your money is recovered.
In the absence of a written contract with a placement agency, it may be a difficult task to get back the money you paid for the purpose to the agency. However, in the given scenario, you may serve a legal notice to the recruiting agency and file a complaint against them for deficiency in service and unfair trade practice before the Dist. Consumer Commission claiming refund of service charges or capitation fees along with compensation for harassment and cost of litigation. The complaint should be filed within two years from the date of the cause of action. Apart from this, lodging a police complaint, you can also file a suit for cheating under Sec.415 of the IPC against the recruitment agency in the concerned court of Judicial Magistrate. Reach out to an Advocate dealing with consumer cases for guidance and steps.
Please file a cyber complaint for online fraud and scam. The national cybercrime hotline number is 155260. File your online fraud complaint at https://cybercrime.gov.in/ Keep validating documents ready to substantiate your claim. you can even register a complaint at your local police station.