Bengaluru: Beleaguered e-commerce firm Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd) on Thursday said that the company does not owe sellers any money, after a barrage of complaints by sellers stating that the company has defaulted on payments on numerous occasions.
The company has also initiated legal action against about 35 sellers for alleged fraudulent practices.
On Tuesday, The Times of India reported that the All India Online Vendors’ Association (AIOVA), which has about 2,000 sellers as members, had written to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, seeking the ministry’s intervention in resolving payments related grievances.
“We would like to inform you via this email that more than 500 sellers have complained to us regarding unsettled financial matters with the current management of Snapdeal. We had compiled and submitted a small list to the management of Snapdeal informally in March, however, they never acted on the same,” the letter said, according to The Times of India report.
Snapdeal said in a statement on Thursday that sellers are paid six to ten times a month and that they receive payments within three to five days of the sale of goods. The company claimed to have a grievance redressal system to resolve “any occasional seller disputes”.
“In these cases, sellers have so far failed to provide required justification for their claims despite multiple attempts by Snapdeal to facilitate these settlements. These are minor amounts, which will get paid basis information provided by sellers and in accordance with the contracts and seller policies,” Sanjay Agarwal, senior vice-president (finance operations) at Snapdeal, said in a statement.
“Over the last many months, we have further reinforced the internal audit and control processes to detect fraudulent practices by the sellers and impose suitable penalties and deductions towards such exceptions. Legal action has been taken against nearly 35 sellers, including initiation of criminal proceedings where required,” Agarwal added.
Snapdeal, which lost out to bigger rivals Flipkart and Amazon India, is in talks for a sale with Flipkart in a deal orchestrated by its largest investor SoftBank Group Corp. The company, which has so far raised at least $1.6 billion from investors, is likely to be sold for about $1 billion.
Snapdeal was valued at $6.5 billion in its last funding round in February 2016.