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
- Every month, download your salary slip, match it with the PAN, UAN, bank details in the epfo portal. Make it a routine/habit/chore.
- Merge your
- scanned copy pf bank passbook to be uploaded has to be under 500kb
- 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
- Joint Declaration to confirm the name mismatch of my father in my company records compared to my aadhar card.
- 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.
