New Delhi: To his 1,25,000 followers on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), finance influencer (finfluencer) Ravisutanjani Kumar would have appeared to have been living the dream life. He claimed to have travelled to 525 cities in 15 countries, flaunted his 30-plus credit cards, dispensed financial advice on TV channels, and even managed to impress Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier this month, Union Commerce and Industries Minister Piyush Goyal shared a video featuring the finfluencer, captioned “the future of fintech”. The video featured Kumar excitedly making a cardless cash withdrawal of Rs 500 using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), promoted heavily by the government. In January, the PM himself tagged Kumar in a social media post, saying, “I like how you have brought out the popularity of UPI”.
This week, the dream seemed to implode. An anonymous X user, @SatarkAadmi, put up a series of posts on 12 September, claiming Kumar had fabricated his educational qualifications.
A former colleague of Kumar’s, speaking to ThePrint on the condition of anonymity, also claimed that he had allegedly been accused of violating the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) Act, although they did not specify when this purported incident took place.
“He had left this company after working for nearly two years and joined another startup. He returned from the second company after some months. A woman employee levelled allegations of misbehaviour and he was asked to leave,” the former colleague claimed.
They added: “He also couldn’t deliver on time, but the management focused on the harassment. There were murmurs about his degree from MDI (Management Development Institute) being fake but that wasn’t really discussed by the top management.”
ThePrint has reached the company referred to by the former colleague over email for comment. The report will be updated once a response is received.
Notably, after the controversy erupted, Kumar’s X account, LinkedIn page, and fintech blog abruptly went offline.
It is not known at this point if any police complaint has been registered against Kumar.
Meanwhile, the allegations have caused many to wonder about the accuracy of Kumar’s carefully woven narrative of being a small-town boy from Uttar Pradesh who left home at 15 to conquer the fintech world, and his claims of now pursuing a Ph.D.
The controversy has also raised questions about how influencers acquire importance, the diligence politicians and business leaders exercise before promoting them, and why millions of people believe claims that have never been verified.
ThePrint had earlier reported how some finfluencers believe the government should regulate this growing segment in some manner.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in April warned about the prevalence of unethical finfluencers, and suggested that consumers of online content should be alert and should use their discretion when following the advice of finfluencers.
Lofty claims in question
According to Kumar’s LinkedIn profile, which was still deactivated at the time of publishing this report, he’s had a successful run so far in the fintech industry and various startups, including Jar, Oyo, and Zomato. His bio said he currently worked as the vice-president of Testbook, a website that claims to help aspirants prepare for government exams.
Kumar also portrayed himself as an adventurer who left home at the tender age of 15 to embark on a quest to master the art of earning and spending.
His profile further highlighted that he had given a “TED talk” and featured in three television interviews on career and industry development.
On LinkedIn, Kumar listed his education qualifications as a graduate of the Management Development Institute, Gurugram, HEC Paris, and the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Allahabad.
However, X user SatarkAadmi pointed out in his thread that IIIT Allahabad does not offer a Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree in computer engineering, as stated by Kumar on his LinkedIn profile.
The institute’s website currently only lists Information Technology and Business Informatics as BTech courses.
The X user also alleged that Kumar falsely claimed to have completed a postgraduate programme in business management and marketing at MDI Gurgaon. According to him, alumni from the institute who studied between 2016 and 2021 denied Kumar had ever studied there.
Oh god! Another degree.
B.Arch, Landscape & Building Construction, School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi
IIT Delhi | 2016-2020
A graphics from his blogpost on "Resume Kaise Banaye – नौकरी पाने के अनोखे Tips" in May 2018, before starting at Zomatohttps://t.co/di2oyCbf5x
— #WearMaskSaveLives 😷 (@SatarkAadmi) September 12, 2023
Additionally, SatarkAadmi posted what appeared to be a certificate of Kumar from the National Council of Vocational Training. The certificate identified the institute as the “Industrial Training Institute” with the trade specialisation noted as “wireman”.
In another thread, he shared a document with the name “Ravisutanjani Kumar” in a list of names of people who purportedly qualified for an interview for the TES 35 10+2 Technical Entry Scheme in 2015.
This is a programme which allows candidates who have passed the 10+2 examination with physics, chemistry, and mathematics (PCM) subjects to join the Indian Army as technical officers.
“Were you really eligible or faked that too?” SatarkAadmi asked.
Kumar’s alleged embellishments extended to a blog post purportedly written by him about how to craft a resume. Here, he claimed an additional degree—a B.Arch in Landscape & Building Construction—from the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi, spanning 2016 to 2020.
In a previous X post, Kumar mentioned his unfulfilled dream of attending his favourite IIT but noted that he was currently hiring graduates from IITs and IIMs.
Amidst the social media furore, various X users expressed their scepticism.
One social media user, Abhishek Asthana, known as Gabbar Singh on X, identified Kumar as “a great specimen of how much of a fraud you can pull off in the Fintech space”.
Another user emphasised how Kumar once charged ₹30,000 per day for digital consultation and training “and now everything is shut down”.
ThePrint contacted Kumar’s former employer Nishchay AG, the founder of automated investment app Jar, through email. However, he refused to comment on the allegations of fake degrees against Kumar, citing company policy. (This is an updated version of the report.)
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Also Read: How Neel Patel ‘conned’ Indians out of crores, with dreams of Atmanirbhar Bharat & a cheap iPhone