Dhaka: A new period of uncertainty grips e-commerce platform consumers due to payment gateway money limbo. According to sources, about Tk210 crore of e-commerce is stuck in the gateway.
The owners of e-commerce companies like Evaly and E-Orange have been charged with embezzlement and several of them have already been arrested.
This problem is mainly due to the non-delivery of goods on time even with advance payment. Now due to this legal complication, thousands of customers’ money is stuck in various payment channels.
The government has issued the Digital Commerce Management Guideline 2021 to protect the interests of e-commerce consumers from July this year as allegations of non-delivery of goods with advance payment continue to grow.
According to the information provided by Bangladesh Bank, consumers have ordered products worth Tk490 crore on various e-commerce platforms since the issuance of this policy.
Consumers already understand products worth Tk280 crore. The remaining Tk210 crore is stuck at the gateways of various payment service providers (PSPs), payment system operators and mobile financial services (MFS) because these e-commerce platforms did not deliver the goods to the consumers and did not inform the payment gateway service providers.
Officials of PSP and MFS service providers said that from July 1, they are keeping the payments made by the consumers in the Trust-cum-Settlement Account (TCSA) as per the instructions of Bangladesh Bank and are awaiting information from the e-commerce company to confirm the delivery of the product.
Since July 1, advance payments of consumers are being kept at TCSAs as delivery is not guaranteed.
As per the rules, PSP or MFS service providers cannot give any kind of refund to the consumers even if the delivery deadline expires within 10 days.
