Byju’s has agreed to conduct an affordability test of parents before selling them courses and loans.
Sparing low income families
They have agreed that they will not be selling courses to families with monthly income of less than Rs 25,000.
It also agreed to revise its refund policy, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chief Priyank Kanoongo said.
Revised refund policy
They will refund the full course fees to parents who would have failed the affordability test but were sold courses and loans.
Two company officials represented the edtech company on behalf of the CEO (Byju Raveendran) and presented a letter before the NCPCR.
Kanoongo said that the NCPCR would provide them with written recommendations on Monday.
Reports painting it in bad light
The NCPCR issued a summons to Byju’s CEO Byju Raveendran on December 17 in response to media reports that it exploits students by aggressively selling and misrepresenting its courses.
In those reports some parents claimed that they were exploited and deceived, putting their savings and future at risk.
It also mentioned that the ed-tech platform has been “actively tricking” customers to enter into loan-based agreements for courses which may not be refunded even if the customer wanted.
In addition, Byju’s reportedly received multiple complaints from the parents but did not address them.
Police verification of sales people
Byju’s has been told to conduct police verification of all the sales employees, who are directly in touch with students and parents.
“Now we have asked for some more documents from them, which would be presented before us on Monday. We have told them all these things verbally and would be giving them in writing on Monday,” Kanoongo added.
Loans business
Byju’s said that it does not directly offer loans to its users.
In order to assist students that require financial support, upon request the company connects the parents to reputed third-party banks or financial institutions, the company said.
It also claimed that 98.5 percent of the refund requests that are submitted through official channels are processed within 48 hours.
“By design, every sale is unapproved until it is verified by a triple-layered audit mechanism that reaches out to the interested customer through SMS, audio and video calls,” a spokesperson for Byju’s said, denying any mis-selling.
Sales business
The spokesperson added, “The completion of a sale happens at the central level.
BYJU’S does not encourage, order or incentivize its sales staff and/or managers to pursue customers who are uninterested in or unable to pay for its products.
A reputed international consulting firm in an independently conducted rigorous survey unequivocally confirmed this recently.”
Details required
Raveendran has been asked to produce “details of all the courses run by Byju’s for children, the structure of these courses and the fees details, the number of students currently enrolled in each course, the refund policy of Byju’s, the legal documents regarding the recognition of Byju’s as a valid edtech company and all other relevant documents regarding the claims made in the media report.”
A couple of days after issuing a summons NCPCR disclosed that it had learned that Byju’s allegedly purchases the phone numbers of children and their parents which it uses to threaten them with a ruined future if they do not purchase its courses.
This is something Byju’s has “strongly denied.”
