Qcoom wants to resume business

Qcoom Ltd, one of the closed online marketplaces, wants to resume its business activities, officials said.
On January 31, Qcoom's lawyer, in favour of its managing director (MD) and chief executive officer Md Ripon Mia, requested the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) to take necessary steps in this regard.
The platform sought cooperation from the government, including adequate security, to run its business smoothly and contribute to the country's economic development, they added.
When contacted, a senior official said, "We have just received a letter from Qcoom on Monday to let it resume business. We will start working on the issue soon."
Currently, the online shop's MD is under trial due to allegedly misappropriating a huge amount of customers' funds by unethical ways in the name of selling goods.
Some e-commerce companies, including Qcoom, were accused of not delivering products duly to their customers. The owners and officials of these companies were arrested on various charges, including fraudulence and money laundering.
Besides, more than Tk 3.94 billion funds of the firms remained stuck up with Foster Payments.
Qcoom claimed that Foster Payments did not give payments to it despite supplying ordered products to the customers concerned. The company could not supply products at stipulated timeframe, as its fund was stuck with Foster.
Currently, goods worth Tk 1.0 billion are stockpiled in two warehouses of Qcoom. It fears that the products are going to be wasted in the warehouses.
An official team, formed by MoC, visited Qcoom's two warehouses, and found that a number of products were stored there.
In its letter, the company informed that it has Tk 50 million assets in its two offices.
Besides, the online platform currently has a total of Tk 5.0 billion assets, it claimed.
Qcoom said to resume operations of its two offices and warehouses, bail is required for its MD; and its blocked bank accounts should be unblocked.
Besides, office rent, service charges, salary and allowance of staffs should be paid for its normal activities, according to the letter.
The company's products worth around Tk 20 million have already been stolen. On the other hand, life cycle of the stockpiled grocery products is expiring, it claimed.
There were 200 staffs of the company, which started business with Tk 10 million capital.
Qcoom started reimbursing its customers with the funds that got stuck with Foster Payments. As part of the move, the shopping portal refunded more than Tk 22 million to its affected clients.
Besides, the central bank asked the banks concerned to release funds of Qcoom.
Qcoom and Foster made a partial list of the affected customers following instructions by a high-level meeting.
Initially, an estimated 6,721 clients of the company were listed for getting payback of Tk 590 million, out of the total Tk 1.65 billion funds that remained stashed with Foster.
The government agencies concerned were working to pay back the money that was paid in advance by customers from July 01 to October 14 last year.

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