If you are impressed with advertisements of Reliance Money to open an account, (get a free gold coin, etc), think again. Why should a brokerage house, with very low cost – at least that is what they claim – offer such freebies? The answer is that Reliance Money will treat your money as their own and will keep debiting your account with arbitrary amounts at their own whims and fancies.
The customer care department has one policy: just don’t reply to customer complaints. There is also a customer grievance e-mail given on the site, but it appears that either they are incompetent of lazy, or whether they are following the policy of keeping quiet so that the customer forgets the amounts that have been debited to his account.
If you are persistent and decide to bear the cost of STD calls to Bombay at their number, the fellow at the line asks some stupid questions before hanging up, no query answered.
Reliance Money is clearly taking their customers for a ride. If you still want to trade, the site is extremely slow during trading hours. Of course the sales fellows will show you how the site operates offline, but if you have to make an urgent trade, wait endlessly for the site to open. There is no portfolio maintained on the site so you have to keep track of when you purchased the shares and at what price. Confirmations of trade are not sent.
It is a wonder that Reliance Money actually is gathering customers, even though they do not offer the basic services. And of course, don’t go by their claims of low cost. When you add up the charges they keep debiting you, the cost of trade is actually higher than if you are with a traditional broker. My account has been debited as under:
Limit card: Rs 500(supposedly for 12 months)
Trade: Rs 24 per trade
Limit card charges: Rs 1751
Mandate charges: innumerable
CDSL DP bill: innumerable.
When I add it all up, I find I was better off with my traditional broker.
And of course, the customer service people are in deep slumber and do not answer queries properly.
So if you are planning to open an account with Reliance Money, here is one word advice from a customer planning to close his account with R MOney: DON’T! If you can recommend an online broker that does not cheat you like Reliance Money, please let me know.