Exclusive: With 4,000 jobs lost, employees speak out about the horrible events at Askmebazaar that led to its downfall

After temporarily suspending operations a few weeks back, Gurgaon-based e-commerce website Askmebazaar has now reportedly shut down and laid off 4000 employees owing to a severe fund crunch. As of the moment, the website is non-operational as well.

However, the bad news for the company and its employees doesn’t just stop there. Alleging non-payment of dues running into crores, the vendors of the ecommerce site have also approached the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police to register a case against the company.
The vendors have named twelve people, which include a host of Indian officials of Getit Infoservices, Askmebazaar’s parent company and the top management of the website’s promoters- Malaysia-based Astro group.

As it turns out, the company’s decision to suspend operations not only affected a host of vendors but has also hit the employees hard- who allege that their salaries too haven’t been paid for months.

The company on their part is shifting the blame on Astro Entertainment Networks Ltd (AENL) which owns 98.5% of AskMe through various shell companies. According to them, not only has Astro failed to clear dues, but they have also fallen through when it came to talks for a management buyout. This came after Astro Holdings’ unplanned exit from Askme last month. They also claim that Astro was supposed to pay them $5 million by August 5 which they have failed to do.

However, the vendors are equally blaming the Indian arm while claiming that it has been four months since they’ve been paid, which in itself is a gross violation of the agreement signed.

“The company enrolled thousands of sellers to complete the orders they were receiving on Askmebazaar. At the time, written agreements were made with the seller which stated that payments would be disbursed in lieu of orders fulfilled by sellers within 15 days from the date of the items being dispatched. Not only did the company never fulfilled this, but they also went a step ahead and refused to clear our dues for the last four months,” said a vendor on request on anonymity. He added that the company went on extending days for payments every now and then despite making various assurances.

Rough estimates suggest that the company owes the vendors dues ranging between Rs 100-150 crores.

Infact, another vendor claims that he wouldn’t be surprised if the directors of the company ran away from the country without honouring the dues they owe to the vendors and to the 4000 employees.

The employees of Askme also have a similar story to tell. None of them have been paid their salaries since July. If that wasn’t bad enough, they also received an email from Getit in the first week of August advising them to reach out to the management of Astro with their demands as the Indian arm of AskMe was in no position to pay them their salaries. The email listed the names, phone numbers and email ids of the Astro management team for the employees to contact.

This was followed by a mail from the CFO, Anand Sonbhadra, a week later, said an employee. The mail stated that Askme, will be shut down temporarily and no transactions will be accepted.

On August 24, the employees received the final nail in the coffin- again, in the form of a mail that asked them to not report to office and work from home instead.

Shockingly, the 650 people who quit in April have also not received their full and final settlement as of yet.

The company also sent out a similar mail to staffing firm Innov informing them that August 31 would be the last working day for all the delivery boys engaged by Askme.

The frustrated employees and vendors have also taken to social media to voice their concerns apart from arranging a protest outside the company’s Noida office on Sunday.