I had heard of Zerodha(on Yourstory.com, and THEY had written a pretty favourable article about them, which piqued my interest - but the journalistic quality of that site is next to nil), went to their website, which looked really nice, so one fine day, decided to sign up. Filled out 1st page, including email, phone etc. THEN I get a page asking for "Net worth", "Marital Status", and other things like that! That was NOT OK, so didn't fill up the rest, decided to send some emails around(one of which was to RKSV, I assume, a competitor). But in the meantime THESE guys had my phone no., which the site had extracted out of me! Got a call, and I stated that I wasn't going to fill out all that stuff, failing which I would NOT sign up. Someone called "Gandhimati" said "If you can't help me, sorry, we can't help you either!" - this is a member of their staff! This woman was speaking in a Southy accent, which is hard to understand at best, and then it was an intercity phone call, and the voice kept breaking up - maddening to say the least! Some time later, got another call, presumably from someone higher up in the organisation, called Ashutosh. Explained, he said "In your place I would say the same thing, but the regulator wants all this info" I said - "Then tell them to STOP!" He said "But how can I do that Sir" - i.e he's just a simple clerk!
Ultimately, he said "Include a letter that you don't want to do this and we'll take it". He KEPT telling me that they want my bank statement, until he finally said "If you want to trade only in equities, we don't need it" - i.e these guys are out to get AS MUCH DATA ON YOU AS POSSIBLE!
So - after thinking about it for 2 days or so, decided to get back to it. Went to the website, and as I knew was going to happen, the site didn't let me progress until I filled out those fields - I knew this was going to happen, obviously they cannot make a customized site only for me, but this didn't strike Ashutosh! So had to email him! He sent me the PDF to print out, ie. I had to do the prodding! All the while, he kept trying to talk in Hindi, even though I'm Bengali, and I don't understand it fluently!
So - printed out the form, and that letter - itself a maddening task in the tiny little print shop near my home! The address to send to could have been marked clearly on the 1st page of the form, but no one at Zerodha apparently had this strike them! Had to again email Ashutosh and get the address - though I think it was mentioned on their site.
Mailed it at the post office after QUEUEING for ONE HOUR - enough to drive anybody crazy!(Anybody wishing to try this, remember - the Post Office doesn't have glue inside! - remember to carry your own!).
Then, TODAY I got a call saying a missed a signature on the form - the place where I authorise them to send me SMSes. Now, I specifically don't want them to do this - other people use my phone, and I don't want them to know what transactions I'm doing! That part in the form is clearly marked "voluntary", so I thought there wouldn't be a problem - but apparently they're not going to open an account without it! But the fact that I don't want these SMSes could not be impressed on Ashutosh -he's one of these cute MFs who keep saying "That's what I'm saying" before every sentence! By now, I had started shouting(as anyone would), and he the audacity to say - "But Sir why're you shouting at me?" Why do you THINK? So now I would have to print out that page of the form and post it ALL OVER AGAIN! I went to print it, and discovered it was page 11 I had to print - Ashutosh had told me it was page 10, he got even THAT wrong(thank God I checked!). I found that that section was marked "Voluntary' - and also, you guessed it, it asked for my PAN, which I didn't have on me!, so I had to come back home AGAIN!(even though I had already filled it in on the form elsewhere maybe 2/3 times!) - I could have asked THEM to fill that field up, but I hesitated - people with this kind of IQ may screw even THAT up!) Tried to then call Ashutosh to ask him why something marked "Voluntary" is compulsory, and HE NOW DIDN'T PICK UP THE PHONE! I was on the verge of tearing my HAIR out! I had also got a call from one of these "slow, clerk" types who said they didn't have the cancelled cheque I sent them! Now, I CLEARLY remember putting it inside the envelope, so these guys' clerical department must have lost it! Ashutosh, in the meantime, saw the opportunity and said "You have to include a bank statement" - goddamn it, these guys are DESPERATE to know that! I tried to impress to this old guy calling me - can I include ANOTHER CANCELLED CHEQUE instead of a bank statement - I couldn't impress this upon him, it was a good 5 mins before he got it! So - AGAIN went to the post office and mailed it, this time no Speed Post - the guys there are uninterested in telling you how much faster SpeedPost is than normal, and I wasn't in the mood for standing in that huge queue all over again! Hopefully they'll get it. And - I know that the SMSes for transactions will now come to my phone, regardless of what they say! I just KNOW it(that old guydid say that that was only for "Updates", no transaction info will come to my phone), . - that's just the way these guys function!:(
So - I came back, andnow there was a missed call from Ashutosh.can you IMAGINE my mental state by this time?!
The question is not what all these staff DID, but why these monkeys have been hired in the first place! What is an Internet company doing hiring so many bloo*dy HUMANS?! THESE kind of humans?! I(naturally) expected only a website, and a call centre - if the computers were doing the job, things would have moved much quicker and better - why the F didn't they do that?!
This is my experience with them SO far, and I haven't even traded yet! I'll try and update this review when that Finally happens! - maybe the "Buy" button will sell, and the "Sell" button might end up buying or something!:)
UPDATE:
OK, I've been using the site for some time now, I have to say - the interface is EXCELLENT! There are these little icons on the top of the screen which are impossible to understand - I have to see the URL at the bottom to understand that they are for, eg., "marketplace" or "holding" etc - a simple one word caption for each will do the trick. But besides that problem - the rest of it is GREAT! It's HTML 5, slick as hell, fast servers, uses VERY LITTLE DATA(I'm sure there's a lot of effort behind that!:), and there's a pic of a rocket on the login page which I love, all in all - GREAT!:) I wish a couple of things were different, like when you Buy a stock, a confirmation message saying "bought, -so many- of -so and so company-" would have been nice - you have to click the little bell icon on top to know whether the trade went through or not. And when you click the icon on the top right to logout, the menu unfolds down, with the "logout" option overlaying other stuff - just a quick "logout" button is needed.
I'm sure these things can be fixed. The rest of it I'm VERY HAPPY with.
Proves that the sooner we replace humans with servers(well PROGRAMMED ones), the better!:) Servers WORK!:)
.and I withdrew money once as well. Came into my bank within a day, just like it said. No problems. Thank God!:)
