My PF withdrawal journey

 Reposting from reddit to here since the posts get archived there automatically after 6 months.

Many months ago, I quit my job. I waited till today to apply for withdrawal of pf, online. Here is the journey.

Retired: 15oct2024

date: 15jan2025.

I realised quickly that the site only works on firefox. captcha for https://passbook.epfindia.gov.in/MemberPassBook/login isnt visible on IE/ms edge/google chrome/opera.

When I switched job in the past they generated another UAN number for no reason. They were supposed to be unique but this is indian government for you. So When I logged in with them on

https://unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in/memberinterface/ for each/any of them, they asked me to change password afterwrods, which I did and apaprently they dont take effect immediately on the same website https://passbook.epfindia.gov.in/MemberPassBook/login Same website, different subdomain. It looks like a different Database altogether which get synced. I shall wait anothe day.

after an hour: I can login with the new password but the bank details were missing, with one of the UAN number, the PAN is missing which requires digital verifiation by my ex employer, added my bank details to both the UANs and now their verification is pending.

16jan2025: did my kyc with my private bank. wait time is 24 hours for it to complete. Then I should add it to the pf portal.

website is crappy and not working

after serveral tries, the form submitted successfully.

17jan2025: for UAN1 the status for withdrawal is pending. for UAN2, the added citibank account (which is not closed in india) is of no use so I am failing to add another bank account. Name as per PAN has one letter middlename, where as in the banks that I am trying to add here, have fullname (of father) as middlename. Hence they keep rejecting it as name mismatch. The option to add a new bank account doesnt allow us to change/mention the name as per bank, it automatically chooses it as per existing dead citibank account details. I am also unable to delete that citibank too, since there is no option to delete it. If I try to add another bank account today, when I click verify IFSC, it is a success but when I click on save, it times out, errors out as

Visited the PF office but same error. Went to SBI bank, got the name corrected as per Aadhar+PAN but even with the exact match, I still get the same error as shown above.

^{An error occurred while sending AADHAAR OTP. Error :Error: I/O error on POST request for "https://epfoauadc.epfindia.gov.in/aua/auth":Connection timed out; nested exception is java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out}

I might have to visit the office again tomorrow.

24jan2025:

on my old UAN the withdraw claim got rejected. Reason for rejection: Claim Rejected return member is active in another uan ,member is requested to transfer to the latest account::FATHER NAME IN OFFICE RECORD DIFFRES WITH BANK/AADHAR. SUBMIT JOINT DECLARATION FOR CORRECTION.

I now logged into my latest UAN, requested to merge the old UAN and chose the option to attest from previous employer since I am retired, I am not sure whether it means the my last employer or the employer of the oldest UAN, the oldest UAN has 2 employers attached to it, so it could be either one of them too. So, 3 more reasons for them to reject my claim.

Learnings for PF account holders

1. Every month, download your salary slip, match it with the PAN, UAN, bank details in the epfo portal. Make it a routine/habit/chore.
2. Merge your
3. scanned copy pf bank passbook to be uploaded has to be under 500kb
4. Ensure that name on the PAN+aadhar+bank account is exactly the same, letter by letter. If your middle name is just one letter in one document, full middle name in another, then you are in trouble.

Govt doesnt ask any of these details while taking your money, but to give back our money, they have all these rules and make it as troublesome as possible.

27jan2025

epfo rejected my request to merge my 2 UANs, no reason provided. Now I reapplied to merge the 2 UANs but this time I Selected the most recent employer as my last employer. Let us see what happens.

2025feb11

*ERR_SQE[0] Unable to get the connection* now this is what I keep getting when I try to login to check on the status of merger request for my UANs but no go. 5th month, no job, no pf; thanks to govt.

2025feb20

Today I was made to visit 3 pf offices. I was told that I can go to the nearest pf office but they asked me to go to the central pf office in the city which told me to fill a physical form and go to my home branch (where my office had an account) and when I went there, they told me that there is nothing to do from my end, the pending backoffice task is at the central pf office and I can call them after a week or two. the pain continues.

2025feb24

The status on one of my UAN changed to accepted by field office from pending at field office. I am unsure how many more weeks/months it will take for it to proceed further. The money is still divided between 2 UAN, first they need to be merged so that I can withdraw my pf.

2025mar02

Today I saw that the transfer of one UAN's money to another was done, I submitted for online withdrawal of pf. Let us see how long it will take or what all the other excuses they will come up with.

2025mar19

Claim Rejected as per transfer received eps member but from B************9 eps contribution and service not received . pls clarify ::NOT ELIGIBLE FOR WITHDRAWAL - WAITING PERIOD OF 2 MONTHS (PARA 69)/1 MONTH (PARA 68 HH) NOT COMPLETED.

I am out of a job from 4 months but they say that I have not met 2 months minimum requirement of being jobless. The last contribution of pf was nov 2024 as per passbook overview. I somehow feel that someone is expecting some bribe and they arent going to ask first but waiting for me to offer it instead. Their online phone number is 1800118005 is of no help. They keep asking you to check that hand up. 2/10 times it gets disconnected or you can't hear them or they just mute & wait for you to hang up, if you dont hang up, they hang up.

I was given another website link to file a grievance and you cant file within 30 days of the claim. Lol. Imagine every time they reject something, you have to wait 30 days to file a grievance. This shall take for decades to solve because usually they take weeks to address a claim. So one month + 2-3 weeks to address your query+one month wait+another grievance...cycle continues? Finally indian bureacracy has made online services more delayed, late and inefficient than offline & onsite approach. If you try lodging a grievance without the claim ID, then the OTP keeps failing, usually an OTP is 6 digits, but you will only receive 5 digits. Finally after 10-15 trials, you might get lucky to authenticate and proceed. So I did and now I am waiting for another babudon to show his thuggery.

2025mar24

No reply from so called grievance department. So I re applied to withdraw my pf. Let us see how it goes.

2025april10
Claim rejected again. To reject it for the same reason inspite of providing clarification via grievances, they took 20 days. So every communication from me the owner of the money is answered after 20- years. Imagine you are talking on the phone but you only get a reply from the other side very 20 days.
Claim Rejected RETURN PRESENT SERVICE RECEIVED TO LATEST AND EPS SERVICE NOT RECEIVED KINDLY CLARIFY::FATHER NAME IN OFFICE RECORD DIFFRES WITH BANK/AADHAR. SUBMIT JOINT DECLARATION FOR CORRECTION.

2025april11
Visited the epfo office again today. I was told that the funds have been transferred to one UAN but not the EPS and there is no record of my previous employer ever contributing EPS. I was told to contact my employer's payroll guys. I emailed him about this and he is now asking me the details of my last 4 employers first 4 months pf, eps, salary details. How and why would I collect that? Does it mean that everyone should collect pf, eps details of every month from the day they join? Who would have thought that decades ago ,fresh out of the college, I would need all this in the future?. I emailed him every data point in pdf from my epfo, epfo passbook and let us see what happens.
I have been emailing my most recent employer everyday since they need to

1. Joint Declaration to confirm the name mismatch of my father in my company records compared to my aadhar card.
2. EPS not credited but no results yet.

2025may07

The 3rd party team/org (allsec) which does the finance/payroll for my last company (AMD) told me that since there is no limit of time set by the govt for EPS, it might take anywhere from 3 months to 3 years; yes 3 years.

2025may19
I was informed by my office that they have sent the necessary details to epfo and I should raise a grievance with the grievance department to speeden things up. I did and of course it got closed after few dayson 13 june with no solution.

2025june12
I got an sms saying the epfo claim has been rejected and when I logged into the portal, there was no information about it May be it takes a day to see it in the portal but it didnt, then I realised that they rejected without providing a reason. This is done to force a face to face meeting to extract bribe to return my pf.

2025july11

My pf withdrawal claim got rejected again without any reason. As long as I dont pay bribe, it seems they won't give back my own pf and if you are not employed, you won't receive any interest on your money which is with pf office. What am I going to do? Apply again, what else can I do, they keep rejecting, I keep applying, may be I have to contact a lawyer and go to court to get my own pf, then again that will take years (indian judiciary system works in decades), it will cost more time, money too. I can only imagine the state of regula folks who aren't as educated or tech savvy or know how to use the internet, what is their state of being?!. The govt bureacracy is a disease. Our people are too tolerant and afraid and now accepted this tyranny as normal state of being & existence. Shameful part is, you cannot re apply for withdrawal of your pf on the same day, it errors out saying *The transfer claim is currently pending in the system.*
The toll fre number 14470 is a joke. If you dial that number 10 times, 1 time it connects, only options are hindi, english, no support for any other language. If you choose english, then 9/10 times, call drops, if you choose hindi then you have atleast 3/10 chances of connecting to a human. After 23 attempts, I just gave up. May be it is one of those govt employee's extended legendary lunch break which lasts for 2 hours. I shall try after 2 hours.
I raised my concern in https://pgportal.gov.in/ this time. Let us see what happens.

2025july18
So, the grievance dept finally gave a valid reason about what might be the reason. Apparently the pf, EPS is transferred from my last company to to the new epfo office & new UAN but the EPS from my 1st company HP isnt transferred to the new office & the pf of the 1st company HP should also be transferred to the new UAN. So, now I gotta do a run around to get my PF & EPS transferred from the 1st company to the new epfo office & to the new UAN. God know how many years this will take.

I would if i could 27: Controlling the growth of others (countries or groups) via infotainment

 There are those who are still trying to gain world dominance with best weaponry, there are those who have mastered economic warfare where they just control the economy of others. There are those who are doing or can do or may be working on it to achieve global dominance via controlling other's growth with infotainment. Here when I say infotainment, I mean both information & entertainment, especially entertainment.

Let us say I am the empire state and I want to control the growth of my opponents & colonies & allies, both negatively and positively. Let us take the example of video games. I will have huge video game industry as part of this operation. The top 1% (name, fame, earners) of this userbase will my people, Almost all the companies which publish these games will be me. All the top 1% earners who professionally play video game, who stream video game or who get the fame or wealth by playing games should be my people to showcase to the world that we too are users. This gives the illusion that if it was a bad thing then why all the top players are them! The rest 99%. The goal is to eat the most precious thing about our opponents, their youth and the time of their youth. Making money is 2ndary objective, primary objective is to ensure they spend the most amount of time on our games. Do not let them be top 10% but keep them at the bottom 10% via bots or allowing cheatbots to target specific users of a location, culture, religion, race or ehtnicity. The primary measurement of how well we are doing in this segment is, how much time are they spending on our games. Same logic is with movies, music and all audio, visual entertainment outlets. The top 90% here should all be us since people in this industry are usually influencers, so we want majority of influencers to be our people, the rest 10% can be others as token celebs who act as a bridge to infect their followers with our content. Same logic applies to social media. Own all social media outlets, control them, control the narrative.

Today the imperial empire USA is a master in all 3.

1. Weapons of mass destruction
2. Weapons of mass manipulation 
3. Weapons of entertainment

Counter: No non opensource videos games are allowed, both server & client side should be opensource. Tariff games, music, movies which are not made in or made by or owned by your country, why put a tariff on just physical goods?! why not broaden it?!

I would if I could 26: Spying on everyone, everywhere, anytime

 The major selling point of open-source software is transparency—you know what you’re getting, with fewer zero-day security issues, etc. But what if I told you that this selling point is a smokescreen? Of course, it’s not as opaque as closed-source software, but the illusion of security persists.

Now, imagine I’m an empire that wants to control and ensure my supremacy remains unchallenged. I’m not content with merely stationing troops in subordinate countries and regions—I want to hear and see what every individual is saying or doing at any time.

Welcome to modern software and applications.

For this to work, the empire must compromise the top investors and owners of the most widely used operating systems and applications. These companies only need a few employees in key roles—positions where they can push custom updates to targeted individuals—to also work for the government. These updates, disguised as routine patches, could enable surveillance on specific users.

The compromised software could be anything: hardware drivers (keyboard, mouse, GPU, audio), productivity tools (PDF readers, office suites, browsers), or even the OS itself. While regular users receive legitimate updates, targeted individuals get malicious ones that temporarily grant the empire access to their devices.

Example Scenario

The empire wants to spy on a foreign scientist. First, they identify all the software used by the scientist and their family. Then, they exploit their double agents in tech companies to push custom "updates" that install spyware. Since modern systems and apps update frequently (sometimes daily), these malicious updates blend in seamlessly.

To maintain the illusion of opposition, the empire stages public conflicts with these tech companies—fining them occasionally, feigning regulatory battles, and even awarding them lucrative government contracts to offset penalties. Meanwhile, the empire ensures these companies operate in a legal gray area, where non-compliance with surveillance demands can be used as leverage to force cooperation.

The Open-Source Deception

If you’ve used Linux, you know how updates work: hundreds of small packages are updated regularly, with some distributions pushing daily patches. Even if you use only open-source software, how can you verify that every update is genuine? Could a malicious package slip in unnoticed?

A prime example is Android. While it’s open-source in theory, most phones run heavily modified versions that are effectively closed-source. Even if you find a phone that lets you compile your own Android OS, the hardware is often low-quality and expensive. The preinstalled versions? They could easily include dormant spyware, remotely activated when needed.

The Solution: Transparent, Verifiable Builds

All software should have its source code publicly available on platforms like GitHub or GitLab, with built-in CI/CD workflows that compile and publish packages automatically. This ensures that the software you install matches the publicly visible code.

Each device (phones, computers) should have local CI/CD software that:

1. Downloads the source code.
2. Compiles it locally.
3. Verifies the hash against the public release to ensure integrity.

This is the only way to minimize the risk of spyware. Additionally, hosting code on public platforms ensures zero-day vulnerabilities are reported and patched quickly.

Governments should mandate this framework for all software sold in their regions. Without it, true security is impossible.

I would if I could 25: permanent solution to all infrastructure problems to all of the world

In today’s world, incentives drive actions more than rules, laws, or morals. For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, continuous business lies in treatment, not in cures. As a result, pharmaceutical companies are incentivized to focus on ongoing treatments rather than permanent cures, ensuring their business remains active and profitable.

Similarly, the business of politics thrives on problems and issues rather than permanent solutions. Politicians are therefore incentivized to ensure that every solution either creates new problems or only solves issues temporarily, keeping the cycle of political engagement and relevance alive.When it comes to war, the real money is in the ongoing conflict, not in achieving victory. Countries like the USA and other imperial powers rarely seek to completely win wars or eliminate their enemies. Instead, they often leave conflicts unresolved, ensuring future wars and ongoing economic benefits.The same logic applies to infrastructure. If a company builds a high-quality road, bridge, or building that lasts for decades, there is less repeat business. However, if infrastructure needs frequent rebuilding, it generates continuous work and opportunities for profit. Both permanent bureaucrats and temporary elected officials, who typically serve less than a decade, have more opportunities to receive direct or indirect kickbacks if projects need to be redone regularly.

Proposed Solution

A potential solution is to award permanent contracts for roads and other public infrastructure—such as gardens or parks—to companies. These companies would receive a one-time construction payment and a quarterly allowance for ongoing maintenance. This structure incentivizes them to build durable infrastructure and maintain it properly.To ensure quality, an automated system—without human intervention—should routinely check the infrastructure. If the quality does not meet standards, the contract should be re-auctioned, with the current company and its affiliates barred from bidding. Only stock market-listed companies should be eligible for such contracts to ensure maximum transparency. All related work, such as digging, underground cabling, or piping, should be handled by the contracted company. If the government needs to lay new cables or pipes, it should pay the company to do the work. Currently, in countries like India, where corruption is rampant, one government body often waits for a road to be completed before digging it up for underground work, resulting in repeated construction and unnecessary spending.

The compensation for such projects should be based on pre-existing standards, considering factors like road type, thickness, number of layers, and whether it’s a national highway or city road. For underground work, payment should be calculated based on the length, width, and level of service disruption, using a standardized formula. The quarterly allowance should also be adjusted for inflation.

As long as the automated quality checks are passed, payments should be made directly from the central government to the company, and these amounts should be recorded as debt against the state government. This system minimizes opportunities for corruption, as there would be no need for bribes in each transaction.

No lease should be granted to companies outside the state; all projects must be owned by businesses that originated and are based in the state. Owners must be at least second-generation residents. By "business," I mean the company that receives the lifetime maintenance and ownership contract for the road, allowing public use in exchange for a quarterly fee paid by the government on behalf of the public.

For national highways, the government could also lease adjacent land—up to 50% of the total road width—to these companies. This land could be developed for shops, hotels, or rented out to others, providing additional revenue streams for the maintenance companies.

Finactivism

 Financial fact based activism to propagate or promate your belief system. It can be either a choise of purchase or sale or investment. Basically you use your spending or earning power to support your ideology. 

Iactivism or Invactivism is one of such behaviour where you (Investment+activism) use your investment power to support your ideology. If you are a muslim then you may choose to invest only in a mutual fund which is halal certified or sharia compliant index. May be there is someone who likes to support Small & medium businesses because most of the innovation, invention is done by small & medium businesses which are then bought by bigger businesses or when these SMBs become big, their capacity to invent, innovate criples. So you might want to just invest a big, as big as 50% of your investment in small & mid cap mutual funds. You have capitalism ? Then what better way there is not invest all of your investment in only small to mid cap mutual funds. There are many who use their purchasing power for religious ideology, halal or kosher are a few of those. You only buy products which are halal certified or from muslim vendor to retain your money within the community of your religion. What about you? You wanna show a finger to the capitalism, say fuck you to big businesses and invest against them by investing in small & midcap mutual funds or you will invest in big whales of the stock market & keep virtue signaling the others.

Corrective or vengeful reciprocation

 Over years, I have become convinced about "corrective reciprocation" being the safest moral principle that an individual or a group can employ. Reciprocation is a principle where you treat others the way they treat you. So, you expect to be treated the way you treat them. You will do unto them what they did to you. There is a flaw in the principle of reciprocation. Let us say there is an encroacher. He kept on encroaching your territory from ages and you start reciprocating, once he realises it, the encroacher stops encroaching and wants to come to a treaty with you to stop mutual destruction. If you agree, then it is your loss because you have already lost a lot of territory to him since he has started exploiting a lot earlier than you started encroaching him. Let us say china & pakistan are encroaching indian territory. They have been doing it from a long time, then india starts reacting and starts claiming it back and then they come to the table and in the name of peace want all of us to stop encroaching on each others territory but if india agrees then india got fooled because after few years, they will do it again because if they encroach 20km and you start reciprocating and claim back 10km, they come to peace talks and all agree to stop encroachment, then they still gained 10km from you. 2 steps forward, 1 step back == 1 step forward. This is the weakness of recriprocation. Corrective reciprocation is something where you keep reciprocating untill 1 of 2 things happen. 1) reciprocation for a time period == the time duration of opponents act 2) untill you get back what you lost. 2nd one is more sensible and accurate since it is result & impact based. However to be on a safer side, I suggest vengeful reciprocation where you reciprocate the opponent's behaviour against him untill you not only gain what you lost but you get back with interest. If they took 10, you take your 10 back and a bit more, usually at least 10%. I choose 3.

1. Reciprocation 
2. Corrective reciprocation 
3. vengeful reciprocation 

Define their values, threaten it and make them give up what you want

Let us take the example of Hindus. The values of Hindus were defined by their scriptures. The most important principle for them was Dharma, whereas for the desert religions—Islam and Judaism—it was peace, and for Christianity, it was prosperity and salvation. This distinction is also reflected in their greetings. Muslims and Jews wish for peace when they meet and greet, whereas such a concept was never central to Hindu values. Dharma dictates doing the right thing, choosing the right path—not necessarily the easiest or most beneficial choice, as they are not always the same.

Instead of upholding Dharma, the Hindu value system was replaced with new ideals—peace and global reputation—as the highest goals. For the sake of peace, Hindus were made to divide their country into three parts, giving two to Islam. Hindus did not even get one out of the three countries exclusively; instead, India was made a secular nation. "Pakistan and Bangladesh are ours, but India is for everyone," declared the Muslims—and Hindus were forced to accept it in the name of peace. Two private accounts for Islam, one joint account for Hindus. 

Today, the land reserved for Muslims in India (Waqf properties) is larger than the size of Pakistan—and this was facilitated by Hindu leaders who pretended to be Hindu in speech, attire, and name but worked against Hindu interests. In the name of peace and brotherhood, Hindus are now expected to accept fewer rights than others.

• Hindus cannot own or manage their temples.
• They cannot independently run their schools.
• Their temple donations are taken by the government, which then funds non-Hindu religious institutions.

Since Hindus abandoned Dharma, they were fooled into accepting peace as their highest ideal. Now, their reputation as the "good boys" of the world matters more than righteousness, reciprocity, and choosing the right path—not the easiest or most convenient one. It is all heading towards -->"What is yours is ours, what is ours is mine, what is mine is mine.

"When I am weak, I ask for freedom because it is your principle; when I am strong, I take away your freedom because it is my principle" - Frank Herbert

Our principle was dharma, reciprocity not anything else, but they changed our principle to chasing brotherhood, chasing peace and give up anything when these are threatened.