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Groww: Worried Investors Create Buzz on Social Media over MF Investment Goof-up
Yogesh Sapkale 28 June 2024
Investor Interest
Hanendra Pratap Singh posted an angry message about how Groww had goofed up with an investment by his sister in 2020 which was only on paper and never credited to the concerned asset management company (AMC) for the mutual fund (MF) scheme. Worse, as he wrote in a post on LinkedIn (the post is now deleted), Groww even tried to wipe the investment record from the dashboard saying the issue is resolved! While Groww has refunded the entire money to the sister of Mr Singh, it has asked, as a pre-condition, to remove his original post from LinkedIn. What is more shocking in this incident is the change in stance by Groww, starting with a total denial of the investment to an ‘anomaly in dashboard’ to finally refunding the entire money to the customer with a gag order. This shocking and bizarre incident has created a buzz on social media, with several investors expressing concern over their investment through Groww. But more about it later.
 
From the screenshots of Mr Singh's original post (see the side image), it appears his sister invested some money in 2020 through Groww in the Parag Parikh MF scheme. She was assigned a folio number for the investment and the Groww app also correctly showed the invested amount and growth and other details. 
 
However, Mr Singh says, "We decided to redeem the fund and withdraw money. However, redemption was not working. When we checked with the customer care of Parag Parikh MF, we found no investment was done by Groww to them, and the folio number provided to us (for this particular investment) does not exist."
 
When he contacted Groww's customer care, he was assured that the issue would be resolved. The team from Groww asked him to share the sheet provided by Computer Age Management Services Ltd (CAMS), an MF transfer agency, to help debug the issue. "Now here they went one higher step fraud, since they have never invested the money correctly to a correct folio of Parag Parikh MF. They just refreshed it with CAMS and removed the folio details from the dashboard, saying the issue is resolved. Boss, where is the money? You can not just wipe a record and say the issue is sorted."
 
Mr Singh alleges that Groww also wiped out the MF entry from CAMS. His post, copied to Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), became viral on social media.
 
 
Meanwhile, responding to angry posts on X (erstwhile Twitter), Groww (@_groww) says, "We have investigated the matter, and we can assure that the customer did not make any investment. We assure everyone that no transaction took place and the customer's money was not deducted from the customer's bank account in the said matter. The customer's dashboard erroneously reflected a folio. We have explained the same to the customer, regretting the error. We have resolved the reporting issue and are in touch with the customer for any support required."
 
 
In another response, Groww says, "To ensure that the investor doesn't get anxious about the claimed amount, we have credited it to the investor on a good faith basis. We have also asked the investor to provide the bank statement evidencing the debit of the said amount claimed to have been invested. This will facilitate our scrutiny, as well as that of our regulators, of the claimed investment in question."
 
 
Meanwhile, Mr Singh posted another message on LinkedIn saying, "The resolution has happened and we have gotten our refund or fund money back with the correct value."
 
"...was definitely a learning for us and to everyone else that how more proactive we need to be with our investments. And also the need still simplifications of this from government level and not from these brokers level," he added.
 
While we do not know what prompted Mr Singh to delete his earlier post about the goof-up at Groww, he says, "...issue with Groww team is sorted, the amount is refunded. They will sort the issues they have in their system."
 
In its response on X, Groww calls the original post of Mr Singh, being circulated on social media as 'spreading misinformation'. "A Groww customer reported on 19 June 2024 that she was unable to redeem an MF investment. Upon investigation, we found that the customer's account was showing an incorrect investment due to a recon (reconciliation-- a procedure that compares two sets of records to check that the figures are correct and in agreement) issue. The customer never made this investment, and no money was deducted from her bank account. We deeply regret the reporting error and have resolved the issue."
 
However, there are two primary issues with Groww's response. First, if there was an issue with the reconciliation as it claims, why was the folio created and a number assigned to the customer? And secondly, why was the customer not informed about the reconciliation issue or Groww not receiving payment from her bank account in 2020 itself? 
 
Replying to Groww’s message on X stating, “No, the money was never deducted from the bank account of the customer in the said matter,” one user Alokesh Dey (@iAlokesh) shared Mr Singh’s post about receiving refund and the condtition. The image shared by Mr Dey, Mr Singh is allegedly quoted as saying “As a final resolution they have decided to refund/ credit the amount, which was in question. However, as a condition, they have asked to removev the social media post including this one."
  
 
Another X user, Aadhan0 , questions anomaly by Groww by asking, "But how can you let such a 'anomaly' creep in??? How can a folio number be assigned if the number wasn't debited????"
 
 
 
 

 

Comments
sajisunnyc
7 months ago
I have a demat account with Groww and Geojit. Recently, I started using Groww for all my trading. Should I consider to close my account and choose Geojit demat account for trading.
Reply
Milind Chitnis
7 months ago
Key issue here is if the client's bank account was debited & there was no refund of money due to non allotment of units on technical grounds (it sometimes happens that fund houses reverse the units allotted for some reason & refund money). In this case GROWW is fully responsible for paying client on the basis of NAV on the day of redemption.

However your report & various comments / social media posts do not explicitely state this (that money was debited from the bank account)
Reply
Meenal Mamdani
7 months ago
Good heavens, a credible company does this!!!
We all are human, we make mistakes, if we acknowledge our mistake, correct it and take steps to prevent a recurrence, then all is well.
Here the cover up is even worse - this usually happens in even bigger mistakes and then that cover up needs an even bigger cover up and so on.
What is the matter with these people, we are not gods, we are human and so prone to errors.
Reply
Kamal Garg
Replied to Meenal Mamdani comment 7 months ago
Nothing is 'credible' about this company. Many such mushroomed new age companies have failed on process rigor and customer integrity issue.
Reply
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