Evaly pledges to start refunding process this month

Controversial e-commerce company Evaly has pledged to start refunding the money stuck in the payment gateways from this month. 

Addressing a virtual press briefing at Evaly's Dhanmondi head office in the capital on Saturday, the company's CEO, Mohammed Rassel said, "We will refund the customer's money stuck in the gateway this month, and will start paying off all old debts, including cheques from May."

According to Rassel, his company currently has a debt of Tk350 crore to customers and Tk150 crore to marketers. He said the company has already refunded Tk9 crore.

He also sought a public apology for the debts. 

"I apologise to the countrymen, customers and everyone for the suffering… We will also pay the media advertising debt. Gradually, we will pay all types of debt."

Responding to a question from journalists, Rassel said his company has garnered great response from customers and merchants since the first day of resuming operations recently.

"In the first campaign, we got 2 lakh product orders, and we started making a profit from the first campaign," he added.

Evaly is burdened with debts as it took advance payments from customers by offering various discounts on products, but failed to deliver the ordered items within the stipulated time. The company also has debts to suppliers. The refund cheques given to customers had also bounced because of an insufficient fund in Evaly's bank account.

In addition, many of Evaly's customers' money got stuck on different payment platforms.