They sound like the answer to all your nightmares while driving. Normally, your car works fine, but consider the case when suddenly your car stops in the middle of the journey, leaving you totally helpless. This could be because of a puncture, could be because some other vehicle hit your car, or could be some other problem that is not yet diagnosed (at least, you don’t have the capabilities of a motor mechanic that you can quickly diagnose the problem). Now, you are stuck in the middle of nowhere, and you may not be able to figure out what is wrong with a car; you may not be even in a position that you can change the wheel of the car yourself. In such cases, there are now a number of car distress helplines that promise to help you quickly. Some of these (atleast in the Delhi / NCR region) are FastTrack, Race, Cross-Roads; and before you think that this is an advertising blog for them, this post is to point out a few problems in their functioning.
I have tried out a few of them, and performance has dipped badly in the last few years. Their promise is that they will be there within 30 minutes of filing a complaint; now the most common scenario is that of female family members and friends; if they get a puncture, it is not feasible for some of them to do the actual changing of the tyre. Further, you don’t know where it can happen, and if you have a service where you can get a tire replaced within 30 minutes, that is great.
Now, that was the promise. Unfortunately, the promise is not getting fulfilled. With 2 of these vendors (Race and CrossRoads), I have had a bad experience. In both case, there was a puncture, and a lady was waiting after calling them. They promised 30 minutes, but even 1 hour later, no trace. You call them again, and they were getting rude (Ma’am, they are coming, you need to wait). Finally, after 1.5 hours, we managed to make some local arrangements (the good part was that this happened at a place where it was crowded, so there was no safety issue). However, this is bad customer service - promising something that involved safety and convenience, and then not delivering. I will be very hesitant the next time they ask me for money for this service.
I wonder what the experience of other people with such kind of services has been like ?

A few states in India have had an emergency helpline number for some time now - the number being 108 (followed by the states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand; and being pursued by the states of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and MP). This is a toll-free number styled on the US style 911 toll-free emergency helpline. The idea of such a number is that this will be the medical emergency number which can be used for contacting in the case of a medical emergency - whether this be an accident, heart attack, stroke, criminal attack that results in injuries, etc. In all such cases, the chances of saving life are much higher if medical help reaches early, in fact, there is the concept of the golden hour when emergency medical help acts as a life saver.

After negotiations for almost a year, telecom minister A Raja has indicated in a letter to health minister Anbumani
Ramadoss last week that 108 is being finalized as the national toll-free trauma care number. “Once a caller dials 108, a 24-hour call centre will receive the information, locate an ambulance closest to the emergency spot through GPRS technology and dispatch it within the golden hour,” a health ministry official said.
Ramadoss said the Centre has already sanctioned Rs 732 crore for the National Emergency and Trauma Care Programme, which was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on December 13.

When you are investing your hard earned money into the Indian market directly through the secondary market, or through Mutual Funds, it is essential that the people taking your money act professionally and displaying the best of ethics; they need to be honest. But there will be cases when people don’t behave that way; companies may setup buy or sell deals that benefit the promoters but not the common stock holders, or mutual funds may not be honoring redemption of dividend needs. Now you need to complain to some authority, since the company or broker or mutual fund is not responding. So here are some resources that you can use:

1. SEBI or external
agency
Investors can get in touch with the contact person named in the offer document, trustees and directors of the AMC with their grievances. Mutual funds are regulated by Sebi. The investor has the recourse to approach Sebi for any grievances towards a mutual fund in connection with non-receipt of dividends, redemption, account statement, etc. Various investor forums also take up the case of individual investors.

2. Investor Grievances & Arbitration
The Exchanges forward the complaints to the respective companies and directs them to resove the grievances of the Investors’ within 15 days. In spite of the above efforts, if the company fails to resolve the Investors’ Complaints and the total number of pending complaints against the company exceed 25 and if these complaints are pending for more than 45 days, then steps are initiated to suspend the trading in the securities of the company till grievances of the investors are resolved after issue of show cause notice.

3. About Kirit Somaiya

4. Complaint form for Mutual Funds
Summary of grievances

5. BSE Investor Desk and Investor Service Center Address

If are reading this have more resources that can help the normal investor, please leave a comment with details and I will add them

The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 is one of the benevolent social legislation intended to protect the large body of consumers from exploitation. The Act has come as a panacea for consumers all over the country and has assumed the shape of practically the most important legislation enacted in the country during the last few years. It has become the vehicle for enabling people to secure speedy and in-expensive redressal of their grievances. With the enactment of this law, consumers now feel that they are in a position to declare “sellers be aware” whereas previously the consumers were at the receiving end and generally told “buyers be aware”.
To provide cheap, speedy and simple redressal to consumer disputes, quasi-judicial machinery is set up at each District, State and National levels called District Forums, State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission and National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission respectively. At present, there are 604 District Forums, 35 State Commissions with apex body as a National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) having its office at Janpath Bhawan, A Wing, 5th Floor, Janpath, New Delhi. The District Forums are headed by the person who is or has been or is eligible to be appointed as a District Judge and the State Commissions are headed by a person who is or has been a Judge of High Court.
The provisions of this Act cover ‘Products’ as well as ‘Services’. The products are those which are manufactured or produced and sold to consumers through wholesalers and retailers. The services are of the nature of transport, telephones, electricity, constructions, banking, insurance, medical treatment etc. etc. The services are, by and large, include those provided by professionals such as Doctors, Engineers, Architects, Lawyers etc. A written complaint, as amended by Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act, 2002, can be filed before the District Consumer Forum (upto Rupees twenty lakhs), State Commission (upto Rupees One crore), National Commission ( above Rrupees One crore) in relation to a product or in respect of a service, but does not include rendering of any service free of cost or under a contract of personal service. The service can be of any description, the illustrations given above are only indicative and not exhaustive. If a consumer is not satisfied by the decision of the District Forum, he can challenge the same before the State Commission and against the order of the State Commission a consumer can come to the National Commission.

The addresses of the various District Consumer Redressal Forums across India are: