Oh yes! There has been a lot of dirty air around the high-risk payment processor iPayTotal in recent weeks. First, a UK court order to wind-up the UK company was entered. Followed by the turmoil around the Octapay Group. The latter’s CEO, Christian van Biezen was fired on December 9, 2020, for various alleged misconduct. However, Biezen told FinTelegram that he refused to participate in the Octapay scam and was fired because of it. Moreover, the economic owners behind Octapay are said to be identical to those behind iPayTotal. Now a new Chief Experience Officer, Davina Mungroo (LinkedIn profile), has been appointed at iPayTotal. At the same time, an intensive PR campaign was carried out.
Then new chiefs
The new Chief Experience Officer – a nice job title, we find – is apparently to support iPayTotal (Global) President Sen Kugan (a/k/a Senthooran Kuganathan) in his duties. Besides, Ruchi Rathor continues to work as COO. According to Christian van Biezen, this same Ruchi Rathor (LinkedIn profile) is associated with iPayTotal and Octapay and operates under the stage name Rebecca Baker. The British-Indian citizen Madhumita Singh a/k/a Mita or Mita S. and her team are said to be the beneficial owners of both groups.
On November 20, 2020, just a few days after a UK court ordered the winding up of iPayTotal, Phillip Parker wrote a rather harsh review on CardPaymentOptions, which received some devastating comments purporting iPayTotal would be a total scam stealing merchants’ money. Not exactly good news, right? Against the bad news and rumors, a massive PR campaign was run around iPayTotal and Sen Kugan in recent weeks. With nice photos and nice PR texts.
Formally, Sen Kugan (LinkedIn profile) is the director of iPaySolutions Ltd (Companies House) in London at 7 Bell Yard. This is also where the entire iPayTotal group is based, according to the website’s information. Kugan is also listed as the only person with significant control via more than 75% of the shares. This would make him a beneficial owner. This, in turn, contradicts the statement that all iPayTotal companies are part of the iPayTotal Group, which seems to be a company in Lithuania – iPayTotal Group UAB (companies register data).
Problems in UK
iPayTotal Ltd filed for voluntary strike-off at UK Companies House in May 2020. This was suspended following an appeal in October 2020. Typically, this happens when a creditor objects to the strike off. In November 2020, The High Court of Justice has ordered the insolvency and wind-up of iPayTotal on the petition of creditor International PayGateway Ltd, a company registered in Mauritius.
Previously, in January 2020, Andrey Kovalchuk of Russia was appointed as a director and was registered as a person with significant control, which he had as a trustee. Until the appointment of Andrey Kovalchuk, iPayTotal was actually an Indian company controlled by Sidharth Shankar and Anurag Pratap Singh, born October 1973. The latter has a range of companies in the UK and India.
New brands and companies
That doesn’t make a customer feel good, does it? A high-risk payment processor that must be dissolved in its home country by a court order at the request of a creditor.
Since the filing of the voluntary dissolution of the UK Company in May 2020, other iPayTotal companies such as those in Lithuania or India have been established. Octapay Ltd and PSP Technology Ltd and PSP Network Ltd, led by Madhumita Singh, have also been established since then. These new companies may or may not be related to the iPayTotal troubles as suggested by the former Octapay CEO.
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We would like to know even more about iPayTotal and Octapay. If you have any experience with the platforms, the company, and/or the people involved, we would be grateful if you could share it with us.
