Dev (IT Professional) 02 July 2012

Money stuck with a fraud online survey company

Hi,

My 2.5 Lac is stuck with the (well) known survey company Speak Asia Online Pte. Ltd. also called SAOL that runs its business on www.speakasiaonline.com. However, in 2011 it was exposed by Star News that it could be a scam and since then it has not been operational in the country and has always been in news and been promising its panelists / subscribers that it would start working normally subject to Indian Government proceedings in its favour. It has not even returned the money to them who unsubscribed from or opted out of it. The worst thing, in my case, is I took 1.75 Lac Rs. on Loan from HDFC Bank and have been paying an EMI of about Rs. 6500/- and also have had to pay load amount that I raised from friends. (Yes, a misguided step that I took hoping to earn a decent living by working on the www.speakasiaonline.com and I am not the only one in the race, thousands others are victims of SAOL.)

Could anybody help me get my money back? I want to take a legal action against this organisation. The only problem (well, there are many others) is it has no office in the country, though it has been promising to open one in Mumbai.

Please give your thoughtful advice because I am finding it very difficult to continue paying off the loan/EMI. If I stop paying back to the bank then the relationship would get affected which is not a good thing. Please help me.

Thanks!

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3 Replies

RAJU O.F., (Advocate) 02 July 2012

I could not understand as to how you can earn a decent living after investing Rs.2.5 lakhs in the said company. Presume that you were collecting some data from Indian situations and feeding it online to the company on offer of remuneration. Is there any contract executed between you and the company?

Adv Rohit Dalmia 9324538481 (Lawyer) 06 July 2012

Hi! this is Advocate Rohit Dalmia from Mumbai.

First you need to file a criminal complaint with the police against the company and its directors and also against the employees. gather all the copy of the communications, photographs of the employees, directors and their contact details, if available wioth you. You may contact me on 9324538481for further assitance.

Dev (IT Professional) 08 July 2012

Dear Raju and Rohit:

Speakasia or www.SpeakAsiaOnline.com has been in news for a year or so in the country and its business model is: You pay Rs. 11000 and become its penalist (member); you get 2 Surveys every week worth Rs. 500 each (also called reward points); you earn Rs. 4000 a month. It's that much simple and easy to understand.

There is no physical presence of the company in the country but it has an address in Singapore from where it is supposed to be working. However, after legal proceedings and criminal cases against it, the company has not been operational and has not been successful in opening its office in Mumbai where it claims to be working from in India in the future. Obviosuly, I have created multiple accounts on my family members' names which is usually the case with most of the penalists / members who joined SpeakAsia.

There has been no paper work. There has been no personal human interaction with the company with any penalist except that their call center in Delhi used to work. It is difficult and almost not practical to get the photos of those who were running the business in India.

However, Tarak and Manoj (top officials of SpeakAsia) have been in news and Tarak has been arrested and then released as the case is also with EOW, Mumbai that is deemed to be interfering the proceedings of SpeakAsia in restarting its business in the country and repaying those who have opted out (exited) of it per its Exit Policy.

I paid all the money to somebody who introduced me as a penalist. He in turn deposited the money into the bank account of the dealer / distributor working in Mumbai. So, his role was fair and post that I got my accounts and credentials and they were working fine for sometime until all the penalists started facing the site down problem as Star News with malicious or vested purposes broadcast that the company could be a scam and it succeeded in interrupting the operations of the company and ever since then all the penalists have been in a severe troubled state of mind and been suffering a lot.

It is difficult for me to produce any documents or contract because all work was online / on the Internet on the official website: www.SpeakAsiaOnline.com and you can log on to it but it won't let you login to your account because the company claims that it has not control on the server in Singapore and the control has been taken by the EOW, Mumbai. This fact still remains uncertain because both the company and the EOW, Mumbai say different things.

The main source of information / communication is currently https://aispa.co.in/index.php which you may like to look at for a deeper understanding of the court proceedings and the cases being fought.