beliscity.com, its back – Abid Beli speaks up! Exclusive interview

“We haven’t done any fraud, nor have we cheated anyone out of their money!”

In a strange turn of events, eTech Pakistan, the new company that took over Beli’s City and was to launch Pakistan’s largest ecommerce store under the name of etechpakistan.com, well…..turns out Beliscity.com is back, and its back under its own brand name!

Although now a part of eTech Pakistan, it retains it’s identity and is gearing up gradually for a relaunch.

“From my conversation with Mr. Beli, seems theyre coming back Bigger, Better & Bolder.”

Even stranger was that I was contacted by Mr. Abid Beli himself after he’d gone through the previous blog entry and he wanted to clarify certain claims that people had made against him, so we had a little “online interview”, giving him a chance to clear certain things that were being said by various people.

“We’re coming back, stronger than ever and inshAllah (god willing) we’re retain our #1 status in the ecommerce market in Pakistan”, said Abid Beli.

Upon me inquiring him regarding the reasons behind the website being shut down and all offices being closed, he replied:

“Basically the investor we had in Dubai wanted to gain partnership in Belis City, but I didn’t really want to work with him in that way, because I didn’t really want any partners in Belis City. As me and my family were settled in Dubai at the time, this individual had kept my passport as a security measure, and he threatened to give the passport to immigration and put in complaints if his invested amount was not returned within one day!

Given the circumstances I had to sell all stock ready there and also other things to try and repay the amount, but still after that he was not happy and I had to take my family and come back to Karachi! I was contacted by the person again and threatened that if he gets to me, then me and my family will definitely pay with our lives.

I had no other choice but to take my family and go into hiding for a while. I came back into the city and by then, due to one reason or another, the set up in Karachi had already been sold and eaten up by the people left behind. I don’t want to point any fingers or say why they did it, but I guess they thought that now I’m stuck and this is the best thing to do!

Well now that my family is in a safe place, I am myself back in Karachi, settling vendors amounts and everything.”

Me: So what about the employees of yours that say you had not paid salaries and cheated them of their money?

Abid Beli: “The only salaries I have not paid were of 3 employees, and even that because they had loans of triple the amount of their salaries pending with me! I also have not done any fraud with anyone, I have not cheated any dealer or vendor of any amount, even now that I’m back all settlements are being done in an installment manner agreed to by all the people.”

“The only mistake that I’ve made is that I wanted to take a web-based Pakistani company into an international market, even though I knew that the same Pakistani vendors would be the ones to pull the ground away from beneath my feet.”

Me: So you’re settling the amounts of all vendors etc who you owe in installments, and theyve agreed to it. No fraud cases?

Abid Beli: Whatever I owe I am here to pay it back as per their own agreements through installments. But people started to create cases of 3 crores rupees, then 5 crore rupees and then 2 million dollars against me! I started getting wierd calls that “what, are you going to eat up all the money on your own only?” Even the people who I thought I had good business relations with started to stab me in the back. Certain people who I had close business relations with even started to call up my father and bad-mouthed him! My father’s number was spread all over the place so that he can be bothered, and people made claims that I had stolen their money and ran away!”

Me: What’s the plan now then? How will things progress? Will you reopen the retail outlet or just be a totally online business?

Abid Beli:Unfortunately the Sasi Arcade retail outlet we had in Clifton, Karachi, was taken over by someone who used to work for me. But eTech Pakistan has opened an outlet in Defence, Karachi and also under way is the opening of a Lahore office. Contact details are available on our website (http://www.beliscity.com/pg2/contact_us/pages.html)

Well, that sorta concluded our “interview” with Mr. Beli, and one hopes that all the various things that people had said regarding them and the various opinions flying around have come to rest. Many questions were answered, others, if any, will be answered in due time it seems.

But for now, what we do know is that the Pakistani eCommerce pioneer is back.

From my conversation with Mr. Beli, seems theyre coming back Bigger, Better & Bolder.

Watch out… beliscity.com is back! 🙂

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