[Resolved]  Bajaao — Cancellation of Disney Byju's Early Learning programme

With reference to the concerned subject, I would like to inform you that on being allured by one of your sales executives ( student counselors as you name them), named Mr Vivek George through repeated phone calls in November 2020 and thereafter by the misrepresentation and concealment of facts given by various executives in your enterprise, I had opted for registration of my nephew in Byju's Early learn programme for Class 3. It is noteworthy that at the time of payment of registration fees and signing the documents, I was made aware of my non-negotiable right as a customer to recall the registration at any point of time on being dissatisfied by the mode of learning programme.

After starting to use the product, we found the learning mode and style to be totally unsatisfactory and unsuitable for my nephew ( as well as his parents' opinion) and hence I approached Vivek George within a week to get everything cancelled. He assured me then that everything has been taken care of, along with the initiation of the cancellation process and that I just would have to wait for the next steps to happen from their end.

At the time of registration, I had made an initial payment of Rs 5, 000 towards the course which was done via UPI mode. I was asked by Vivek to provide a letter in white paper authorising Byju's to process a loan account with Avanse for Rs 30, 000 to be split into 12 tranches of Rs 2, 500 each, supposed to start debiting my account on the 7th of every month from January 7, 2021 onwards. He had also clearly mentioned that whenever the package is cancelled, Byju's shall also stop debiting the monthly payouts henceforth. This NACH mandate has not been cancelled (at the time of writing this)even now by Byju's despite informing them last year.

Upon receiving no communication from Byju's, I have been reaching out to the various helpline numbers for cancellation. Meanwhile, all Byju's executives/ call centers have mysteriously stopped attending my calls from the registered number and there was no communication from any of the central relationship advisors ( contrary to the initial days when people used to call me daily). I would be able to connect and talk to an agent only if I call from a number other than the registered number.

I long suspected something was amiss and after much following up in December itself, I could get through again to this person called Mr Akhilesh Anil who again informed me that the cancellation is in process and that they would require to speak to the child's parent (my brother in law, since the child is my nephew) upon which I duly passed it on as well. Unfortunately, they never got back to him while I had to narrate the same story to multiple people at the helpline numbers who kept on assuring a call-back in the next 15 minutes. This would never happen, though.

All of this happened in December while I got an SMS in Avanse's name stating that the EMI debit would start on January 7th much to my shock. I would have made atleast a hundred calls, written similar number of mails looping all Byju's email IDs but till date ( as on March 12, 2021), I haven't received a single call back from the team. Further debits happened for February 2021 while for March 2021, it didn't happen automatically despite my account having sufficient balance and later, Byju's/Avanse collection executives called me and asked to pay them directly as the scheduled debit didn't materialize, again due to no fault of mine on an urgent basis, barring which they would file a report that could negatively impact my credit scores. Due to an absolute lack of any communication or commitment in emails from Byju's customer care, I chose not to take any chances and made a payment at the link provided by the executive, all for a product, that I have been requesting Byju's to cancel since November 2020.

In view of all the above traumatic experiences dealing with the utterly unprofessional work ethic of your company executives, I have been repeatedly requesting and reminding you to cancel my registration with Byju's e-learning programme but till date, all my requests through mail/call have been left unheard and unredressed. I have further requested you to suspend the process of NACH already instituted against my account but the same has also not been paid any need. This is gross misconduct from your part as for the last 4 months, I have made over a hundred phone calls to your customer support numbers, mentor helpline numbers, various employees etc and everytime, they would promise a call back immediately ( either 15 minutes or 24 hours at max) which is purely a fake commitment.

Sir/Madam, by not cancelling the said registration and by initiating the process of pulling funds from my account through NACH transfer mode when I have clearly told and communicated that you shouldn't, you have grossly misused the authorization taken from me and you are requested to stop this with immediate effect and confirm to me in writing about the same.

You are also expected to cancel the programme registation with immediate effect and process my refunds, failing which I shall be initiating all possible legal recourses provided to me as an aggrieved consumer, in accordance with the rule of the land, against you and all of your executives, both current & past, who have been a part of this immense harassment that has been meted out to me in the last few months ever since I subscribed to your product/service and chose to exercise my right to cancel it.

I further request you to stop the misuse of my authorization for automatic money transfer from my account with immediate effect as I have cancelled the authorisation as well as the mandate for you to pull money from my account.

As my authorization for such money transfer stands withdrawn, if at all any amount is pulled out from my account or any charges for declined transaction are levelled against me, it shall be treated as a clear case o[censored]nauthorized money transfer and hence the officials of Byju's shall be held responsible for such monetary loss and other damages.

In anticipation of the impending cancellation of registration as well as the long due refund of the money that has been falsely siphoned off from me through clear-cut wrongful and illegal ways of doing business by Byju's, I'm sending in a conditional note of thanks in advance.

Regards