No investment is risk free and contrary to popular belief fixed deposits carry their own risk, especially if you are depositing your money with a corporate instead of banks. Many people have risked their life time savings by investing them in corporate FD’s and end up losing either interest or even the principal amount. Corporate FD’s are not always bad, but because of greed people end up investing in companies which have low or no rating.

Unfortunately if you are one who has been facing challenges in trying to recover money from these companies, here is what steps can be taken to recover the same

As a first step try contacting company in both the written mode. Send emails and registered posts to the investor grievance cell of the company mentioned on the website or the application form. After repeated attempts if the company fails to respond or refund the money approach to the next step.

One should use both the steps mentioned below for more robust actions

On MCA website on the top menu click “MCA services” under ‘Complaints’ click on ‘Create Investor Complaint’. It will provide you Investor Complaint Form. Fill in all the necessary information and submit your complaint online.

Ones the complaint is filed you can track the status of the complaint

The other step is that you file a case against company with the Company Law Board (CLB) under section 58A (9) of Companies Act, 1956 or under section 45QA of the RBI Act, 1934.

You need to fill form no. 4 of Company Law Board Regulations and submit it with a demand draft of Rs50 to nearest CLB Bench.

These are strong steps against the company and will ensure stringent actions against them. As simple as this may sound but the battle is not over with these actions. You would need to invest time effort and some more money to get your money back. But it’s worth taking the action instead waiting for something to happen.

Please note a few points that one should always remember while investing in a corporate FD

• Always preserve a copy of the application form, and original deposit receipts
• Like bank deposits corporate deposits are also unsecured
• Always invest in companies having good rating by reputed rating agencies
• Preserve any form of communication received from the company
• Compare the returns with bank rates and gauge the risk reward ratio

Please give your feedback and comments.