It is very much unfortunate that the well known “Skumars” group has duped lacs of people and is trying to gobble up whole of their hard earned money by all means.
This Mumbai based famous “Skumars” group after launching a new company namely M/S Skumars.com Ltd. (presently known as Skumars Online Ltd.), during March 2000, floated a series of advertisements all over India offering a lucrative e-commerce business. The company posed it’s planned project to be highly rewarding and promised a monthly income of more than Rs. 20, 000/-, showed big dreams, talked about various plans, made dozens of promises etc.
Lured by their offer and keeping faith in their big and reputed name, more then one lakh people from all over India applied for getting its SBA / Franchiseeship. Thereafter on receipt of formal appointment letters from the company, most of the franchisees managed to pay Rs. 2.00 lacs (SBAs paid much more) through either loans or mortgages or investing their hard earned savings of the lifetime. This way, the company collected over Rs.250.00 crores in the name of their proposed business first through applications, then by appointing SBAs / Franchisees, etc.
But after collecting money, the company did not materialize any of its promised plans and their business never started. Their deceitful intentions became more evident from the fact that the company and its officials never bothered to meet the contents of all those letters / reminders / information written to them and instead tried to evade the necessary compliances. The company did not even hesitate to use “Top Ranking Retired Military Personnel” as a tool to collect money. They appointed them to fool public and made mockery of the people’s faith in them.
Realizing that the company has cheated them, SBAs & Franchisees asked the company to return their invested money. But instead of returning their money back, the company blamed them for the failure of their project and compelled them to part off with their investments in some or the other way.
In their individual efforts to get back the hard earned money from the company, the Franchisees & SBAs approached all concerned ministries, C.B.I., media and where not, but all in vain. They also came across some groups who claimed to have taken legal initiatives against the company, but there also SBAs & Franchisees felt of being cheated again.
Infact in today’s time, making money by such means are not very difficult for such big cheaters like Skumars.com Ltd. They target common man because they are well aware that with their money power and support from politicians, media & even high authorities who look only for money, nobody would even listen to the common man who has been cheated. If any one tries to take the shelter of the judiciary, he will require a considerable amount to be spent in advance that is again not possible for such individuals.
However, those people who have money power or muscle power can overpower such cheaters. But think of those who don’t have such powers…should they be left to lose and suffer????????
Now there is a strong need to form such platforms where one can get true support of lawyers, media, etc. to fight against such culprits unitedly and book them for justice.
In this view we urge all those NGOs, dignitaries, lawyers, media, intellectuals and whoever is willing to contribute selflessly, to come forward. They are requested to come forward in forming such platforms and extend their fullest support in such causes. We would also like, if we can get active participation of top class Solicitors and Advocates to seek redressal and legal recourse. OUR IMMEDIATE PLAN is to lodge and fight a court case against this duping by the Skumars.com Ltd. We want to do this jointly with support from all those franchisees/SBAs, all over India, who hold similar views.
All interested are requested to please mail at rathi.rameshwar@yahoo.co.uk, briefing about themselves and the kind of support they want to extend.
We believe that this will surely bring a new hope in all those helpless people who have been victimized by such cheaters and are in need of such support.