One
year after the crackdown on Speak Asia, more than 20 lakh investors are
not sure whether the company will refund their money. A little over a year ago, Jodhpur-based Ritu Bhayal was bubbling with enthusiasm. Within 4-5 months of chucking her job with an insurance company and joining Speak Asia, she was making good money by answering online surveys and enrolling new investors. "I earned about Rs 54,000 from an investment of Rs 33,000. Selling insurance was tougher than enrolling investors to conduct surveys," she says.
However, the stream of income dried up when the authorities cracked down on Speak Asia in June 2011. Top officials were arrested on charges of fraud and the company stopped its operations. Bhayal now runs a school in Jodhpur and hopes that the good times will return once the cases pending against Speak Asia are disposed of and the company resumes operations.
Ghaziabad-based government school teacher Sudhir Sharma is another optimist. An early mover, he made almost Rs 2 lakh from an investment of Rs 33,000 in Speak Asia. However, Delhi-based Ashok Vishwakarma is not so hopeful. A late entrant to the Speak Asia pyramid, this 40-year-old has not earned a rupee from the Rs 33,000 he put in the company in February 2011. "I invested the amount initially and earned about Rs 9,000 in two months. Then greed got the better of me and I bought another survey panel for Rs 11,000 in late April," he says. Vishwakarma is more worried about facing his colleagues, who invested Rs 44,000 in Speak Asia on his advice.
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