Bengaluru: At least two police complaints have been registered in Bengaluru and four throughout the state against a domestic and international courier and cargo express company in Bengaluru for cheating hundreds of its franchisees to the tune of several crores of rupees.
The numbers of cheating complaints are likely to increase in the coming days, and the fraud had gone up to several hundreds of crores throughout the country, aggrieved franchisees said.
The courier and cargo express firm under the banner of City Express have around 186 franchisees throughout Karnataka, 40 of them in Bengaluru, and are expanding their presence into other states and major cities as well at a fast pace, taking all of their franchisees for a ride.
According to the aggrieved franchisees, the company claimed to them that it was a US-based firm, the largest courier company in the world, and were aggressively trying to expand their business in India after a parent company (SRRM) in India purchased its brand for hundreds of crores of rupees.
“Each one of us have not only invested amounts ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 50 lakh to the SRRM firm for purchasing the City Express franchise, but had invested heavily on our office rents, salaries for delivery boys and other workers, even purchased vehicles and for other office infrastructure,” said Charan Nayak, an aggrieved franchisee, during a protest at Freedom Park on Friday.
“City Express had initially advertised in leading newspapers and claimed that they had operations worldwide like every other giant courier companies and were interested in taking up franchisees here in the city as well as the state,” said Mohammad Tameem, who had purchased two franchises in Hebbal and Chikpet for Rs 10.22 lakh. Tameem has lodged a complaint at the Commercial Street police station.
Tameem took up the franchise in July 2015 and when green signal was given by the company in November 2015, he gradually learnt that the deliveries of parcels were getting unduly delayed.
Tracking the delivery status was also not possible as the tracking number given on the booking shipment was not valid. When he questioned about this to the senior officials at the SRRM corporate office, he did not get a proper justification.
He then discovered that even other franchisees were facing the same problem. Later in April, the corporate office in Shivaji Nagar shut down leading to a massive chaos among franchisees.
