Easy to setup
Cheq
Jun 19
Great Upi app for Foreigners
Wasted effort
After returning back, I called them asking for the refund of my registration fees. Despite several reminders, my fees were never returned. It's been three years now.
Great app for NRI’s to pay in India directly from US bank account!!!
Super convenient
Very bad customer support
Waste of time
Great app for Nri’s
very convenient
Puts govt offices to shame
Cheq, in its UX and backend processes, is right there with some of those iconic apps that tend to come from govt agencies, perhaps even worse!
Here is my journey with Cheq:
Downloaded the app and signed up and was instantly charged an activation fee. That all makes sense, only the activation won’t happen for another whole year.
I proceeded to verification which involved about 30-40 attempts to establish a video call with an agent for in-person verification. Of these 3 made it to the final level but only 1 was able to establish a video link. But unfortunately it too wasn’t strong enough to carry this immense responsibility, and the connection fell through before any meaningful progress could be made. During this time, the app showed me upload / download speeds for the video call. Not that one can do anything about it, but I found it to be a great way to set a user’s expectations on the kind of technology they are working with.
Well, this had happened over several days and I ended up leaving India without being able to actually use Cheq.
You cannot complete the verification process if you’re not in India and so we fast forward to a year later. I was back in India and decided to give it another shot.
This time the verification completed. But I had made a huge mistake: I had used an Indian phone number. Cheq determined that I am, therefore, a resident. You know, because how can you have an Indian number if you live abroad? Anyway, what this really meant was that I couldn’t add money to my account in any way except UPI. The irony!
I reached out to Cheq support and, to their credit, they were very responsive. Unfortunately, they were nowhere half as effective. They asked me to submit my documents again - over WhatsApp now! Hesitant while I was, I nevertheless complied. But this didn’t help them figure out what was wrong and, perhaps in hope of pulling off something like turning it off and on again, they asked me to do a re-KYC. For reference, the KYC is also what I had done on the video call.
Acknowledging how difficult this process had been for me, they offered to send an agent to my home to complete the application. The agent too contacted me not long after and we set up a time. He was also very communicative, to the extent that I often found myself in the small talk zone. Anyway, the time for the appointment came and went, but the agent did not show up, nor did he contact me thereafter.
A bit frustrated at this point, I messaged the support team stating that they’d be better off just closing my account. And they promptly did so.
So at this point, I do not have a Cheq account. All it took was one message venting my frustration. It was a fitting reminder to me about authority and my place in the system.
Cheq might be a privately held technology company at the surface, but in spirit it is quite the sarkaari daftar.
“A Must” in India
I tried to activate it when I was in Gurgaon but i was able to find the person to enable. In Bangalore, I was able to find Jazz who’s very helpful and help me get the UPI set up and make the process painless. Thank you Jazz
Finally able to pay like a local
Useless
First, it will not be able to transfer money between individuals meaning you won't be able to pay for taxi drivers, shops or other individuals. You can only pay for merchant accounts who are registered as business. This is a huge restriction. After I put a lot of money to Cheq, I found out I cannot use it on most of my activities.
Second, it says 0% on transactions. This is a lie. It will charge you 3% during your deposit time. They will charge you first then they say it is 0%. This is dishonest.
Third, I tried to withdraw the money from an ATM that supports UPI. It deducted the amount and it said it failed. Then it told me the money would be returned on 3 to 5 days. This is totally locked a lot of money during my visit.
I gave it 1 star because I can't give 0. The app doesn't deliver what it promised, they are dishonest and broken. Do not use this app you will be disappointed.
Limited use
I was planning to use it to manage payments for a tour group (ie. tour guides, drivers) but as it turns out, you can’t make payments to people, only companies which makes it pretty useless.
Too expensive
Works well but CX is Rubbish
The CX is still the same rubbish, the screen is out of sync with the landscape of my phone. It should not take more than 24 hours to fix the CX. I cannot read my balance on the phone, I’m always second guessing how much money I have left.
Other than that, the top up service keeps going down every now and then. Please keep your uptimes as high as you can.
