Quick Summary
Rakesh Oberoi (name changed) watched his advisory invoice jump from 12,500 to 62,500 the day after he deposited more capital. His claim reached 4,73,000. Eleven invoices later, the pattern was unmistakable. The fee moved with his balance, not with any change in service. Our team recovered 2,60,000, a 55 percent share.
Rakesh deposited 1,00,000 with his advisory firm in January 2026 and received an invoice for 12,500 shortly after, which felt proportionate to the amount he had put in.
The next day, after he increased his capital further, a new invoice arrived for ₹62,500, five times higher than the first, with no explanation for the jump beyond a mention of an upgraded package.
Over the following weeks, more invoices followed the same pattern: ₹55,000, then ₹43,000, then ₹32,000. Each new deposit was followed by a fresh demand to upgrade and pay more.
By the end, Rakesh had received eleven invoices in total. The calls and the research alerts he received stayed the same throughout. The only thing that changed each time was his account balance.
This is the exact conflict SEBI’s fee rules are designed to prevent.
When a firm’s income rises with a client’s deposits rather than with the service it delivers, its incentive shifts toward asking for more capital rather than better outcomes.
Rakesh’s total advisory fees across all eleven invoices reached 3,33,500, against a claim of 4,73,000 once his trading losses were added in.
How Our Team Helped Build a Winning Legal Strategy Against Unfair Advisory Fees
We started by lining up all eleven invoices against Rakesh’s deposit dates, since the pattern only becomes obvious when both timelines sit side by side.
Step 1: Match invoices to deposit dates
We built a single timeline showing each deposit followed almost immediately by a new, higher invoice, establishing the pattern across all eleven payments.
Step 2: Calculate the fee-to-balance ratio
We showed that each invoice amount tracked Rakesh’s growing balance rather than any published fee slab tied to service level.
Step 3: Frame the conflict of interest
We argued that a fee structure rewarding higher deposits, regardless of service change, creates exactly the misaligned incentive SEBI’s investment adviser rules are meant to prevent.
Step 4: File with the full invoice timeline
Our complaint through the SEBI SCORES portal presented all eleven invoices in sequence alongside the deposit dates, making the pattern visible at a glance.
The firm argued each invoice reflected a genuine upgrade to a higher service tier. We showed that no actual change in calls, alerts, or service frequency accompanied any of the eleven upgrades, undercutting that explanation.
How Our Team Helped Secure a 55% Refund and Final Settlement?
With the invoice pattern laid out clearly against the deposit timeline, the firm agreed to settle. Rakesh recovered ₹2,60,000 of his ₹4,73,000 claim, a 55 percent share.
The recovery arrived through a direct NEFT transfer, with the transaction receipt kept on file as proof of settlement.
Register with us if your advisory fee has jumped right after you added funds. We will check the pattern for free.
Conclusion
A rising advisory fee is not automatically suspicious. A rising fee that tracks your account balance, with no matching change in service, is.
Line up your invoice dates against your deposit dates if you have ever felt pressured to add funds right after a fee increase. The pattern is often obvious once both are placed together.
Where a firm resists a documented pattern like this one, our team escalates through the SMART ODR portal to push the file toward resolution.
Report. Recover. Stay Fraud Free.
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no fixed number, but more instances make the pattern harder to dismiss as coincidence. Even three or four matching invoices and deposits can support a strong file.
Different names do not break the pattern if the underlying service stayed the same. What matters is whether anything you actually received changed alongside the price.
Yes. Fewer invoices with a clear correlation to deposit dates can still establish the same pattern, just with a smaller evidence set.
A portion of the claim reflected trading losses rather than fees paid, which is assessed separately from the fee pattern violation itself.
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