20 Qcoom's customers refunded: Commerce ministry

The commerce ministry on Monday started refunding Tk 590 million—blocked at the payment gateway—to the customers of Qcoom, an e-commerce platform.

Among 6,721 Qcoom customers who did not receive their ordered products despite full payment in advance, 20 customers officially got their money back, reports UNB.

Senior commerce secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh inaugurated the refunding drive at the conference room of the commerce ministry. Tapan Kanti said 20 customers received Tk 4,002,413.

He said they decided to provide a unique ID number for each e-commerce company to get registered after a meeting with several ministries. "Hopefully, we'll be able to start it in the next 15 days."

He said, "The most important thing was that the customer neither got their money back nor received the products, they wanted the money back. I sought the opinion from the law ministry over refunding the money of the companies charged with cases."

In reply, the law ministry said it is not possible now to get the customers money back of those companies charged with cases. Despite many complaints were filed against Qcoom, no lawsuit was lodged against this company.

Shomi Kaiser, president of e-commerce association (e-CAB), said this refund will help overcome the crisis created centering e-commerce platforms.

Expressing gratitude to the commerce ministry, she said, "It's a great initiative to refund the customers for which the ministry has been working for the last few months. This will again help the e-commerce sector to regain the trust of people."

Earlier, e-commerce platform Qcoom and their payment gateway foster corporation jointly submitted a list of 6,621 transactions at the commerce ministry.

Sources said Tk 3.98 billion of Qcoom was stuck at foster payment gateway, of which purchase orders about half of the money has not been delivered to the customers. The commerce ministry asked them to find a way to refund customers if there were no legal complications.