Quick Summary
The person who opened your account, calls you daily, and runs your trades is often not Motilal Oswal itself but its authorised person, a local agent the broker fully answers for. When that agent oversteps, the damage moves fast, and this page shows exactly how fast, through a real account where ₹7,47,387 vanished in 17 days, with brokerage alone crossing ₹6.3 lakh. You get the warning signs, the rule that makes the broker liable for its agent, and the complaint route that holds both accountable.
Most investors never meet Motilal Oswal. They meet a friendly local office, a familiar face, a number saved in their phone.
That face is usually an authorised person, and the trust feels personal in a way no faraway head office can match.
Which is exactly why it hurts differently when the losses come through that same trusted number.
Here is the fact that changes everything: the broker is legally responsible for every act of its authorised person, and this page shows you how to use that.
Who Is a Motilal Oswal Authorised Person or Sub Broker?
Before the story, the one rule this whole page stands on, because it decides where your complaint goes.
An authorised person, once called a sub-broker, is an agent registered under the broker to bring in clients and service them locally.
They open accounts, relay orders, and often become the only face of the broker you ever see.
But the rulebook is blunt about the hierarchy. The AP acts for the broker, and the broker answers for the AP, every act of omission and commission.
So a complaint about your local agent is never a small town dispute. It is a complaint against Motilal Oswal itself, filed through the same channels, carrying the same weight.
And the regulator has already documented how loosely this broker has supervised its APs, ghost terminals, uncertified operators, and client money in agent accounts; the full findings sit inside the ₹3 lakh order on our page on the SEBI penalty against Motilal Oswal.
Case Study: How ₹7.47 Lakh Vanished in 17 Days via Motilal Oswal’s Agent?
Now the story, told as it happened, because every warning sign this page teaches appears inside it.
On 20 July 2025, Ajay Kumar (name changed) received a phone call from people claiming to represent Motilal Oswal, offering trading assistance and assured help in generating profits.
Five days later, he opened his demat and trading account through Vishal Gupta (name changed), who introduced himself as an authorised person of Motilal Oswal.
Ajay hid nothing about himself. He said plainly that he had no prior understanding of trading and would depend fully on their guidance.
He was promised lower brokerage and constant support, added to a WhatsApp group, and calls began arriving from a team in Indore.
The advice started with equity shares. Ajay followed it, investing approximately ₹10.5 lakh entirely on their guidance.
Then the focus shifted to crude oil, a commodity market Ajay admitted he knew nothing about. Guided step by step over WhatsApp calls, the activity escalated until, in one session, nearly 10 trades ran in the same crude oil contract within minutes.
Look at what those minutes cost.
One trade lost a modest ₹3,853, but the repetition generated exceptionally high brokerage and statutory charges, driving the account into deep negative territory.
Within just 17 days of account opening, the total loss reached ₹7,47,387.
Then came the discoveries. Some of his holdings were sold without his consent, and even after those sales the account showed a negative balance around ₹5,57,660.
The trading had generated brokerage exceeding ₹6.3 lakh, and the promised reduced rates, he learned too late, applied only to equity, never to commodities.
Three things were never explained to him:
- What a lot means in commodity trading.
- That brokerage is charged per lot, per trade.
- That his trades ran in multiple lots, multiplying every charge.
When Ajay complained through official email, the calls multiplied. Settlement offers arrived, ranging from ₹63,000 to ₹2.52 lakh, one proposed in a call involving both the authorised person and the compliance officer.
He was even encouraged to recover the losses by trading more. He declined, and reported that the pressure caused him significant mental stress.
Ajay’s own conclusion carries the case.
The losses came from how the trades were executed, not from decisions he made, and that execution pattern, trades run by the broker’s people without real consent, has a name and a track record of losing at tribunals, told case by case on our page: Motilal Oswal unauthorised trading.
The Warning Signs Hiding Inside Ajay’s Story
Right now you may be thinking his story is extreme, something that happens to other people.
That thought is the most dangerous part, because none of his seventeen days looked extreme while they were happening. Each step felt like service.
Below, his case is broken back into the eight moves that built the loss, in the order they arrived.
Hold your own account beside them, and treat any match as a signal worth acting on today, not after your version of day seventeen:
- An unsolicited call promising profits, before any account existed.
- Lower brokerage dangled as the hook, with the fine print never explained.
- A WhatsApp group and daily calls replacing written advice.
- A sudden push from products you chose into products you never understood.
- Rapid-fire trades in the same contract within minutes.
- Charges growing faster than the losses themselves.
- Holdings sold without your consent.
- Settlement offers and trade-more advice the moment you complain.
Even two or three of these together mean the account deserves a formal review now, because in Ajay’s case, all eight ran their course in seventeen days.
And when the charges themselves become the engine of the damage, the way that ₹6.3 lakh brokerage did here, you are no longer fighting one violation but two.
Our guide on Motilal Oswal excess charges shows how investors got exactly such brokerage refunded, half of it to all of it.
What Should You Do Before Complaining?
A complaint against an Authorised person wins on records, so spend one evening building yours before filing anything.
- Understand what you actually signed, the products, lot sizes, and brokerage schedule.
- Download your contract notes, statements, and margin reports for the full period.
- Save every WhatsApp chat, call log, and message from the AP’s team.
- Mark every trade you never clearly approved, with dates and amounts.
- Note every unexpected charge and every question that went unanswered.
- Put your objection in writing to the broker, dated, from your registered email.
That written objection matters doubly here, because the broker cannot distance itself from its agent, and tribunals have already made Motilal Oswal pay for its representatives’ conduct, including a ₹1,13,642 award where the agent’s WhatsApp chats could not substitute for real order records.
Every one of the 32 published awards, and what separated the 18 winners from the rest, is counted inside our guide on Motilal Oswal arbitration.
Recognising your own WhatsApp group, your own friendly local number, somewhere in Ajay’s seventeen days?
We will review the trades, the charges, and the chats, map each one to the rule the authorised person broke, and file your case where the broker itself must answer for its agent, from the grievance desk to arbitration.
Where Does an Authorised Person Complaint Actually Go?
One decision confuses every AP victim: whether to fight the local office or the company, so here is the road, cleared.
You never complain to the AP. You complain about the AP to the broker and beyond, because the registration the AP works under belongs to Motilal Oswal.
The road starts with a written complaint to the broker’s grievance desk naming the authorised person and the conduct, climbs to SEBI’s SCORES platform when the answer disappoints, and ends in arbitration for money disputes.
Every stage, with the exact grievance emails, phone numbers, and timelines, is covered step by step in our guide on how to file complaint against Motilal Oswal.
Conclusion
The authorised person model runs on trust, a familiar local face carrying a national brand’s name.
Ajay’s seventeen days show what happens when that trust is spent instead of honoured, ₹7.47 lakh gone, ₹6.3 lakh of it to charges, and holdings sold without a yes.
But the same rulebook that lets an AP act in the broker’s name makes the broker answer for every act. Your complaint against the local face lands on the company’s desk, and the records you keep decide how hard it lands.
Report. Recover. Stay Fraud Free.
Yes, and it is filed against the broker itself, since the broker is responsible for every act of its authorised person. Write to the broker's grievance desk naming the AP and the conduct, then escalate to SCORES and arbitration if unresolved. Fully. SEBI's framework holds the stock broker liable for all acts of omission and commission of its authorised persons, and tribunals have applied this to award compensation where an AP's trades could not be backed by proper order records. An AP can service your account and relay your instructions, never replace them. Trading decisions, lot sizes, and product choices remain yours, and any AP directing trades, handling your login, or receiving your funds in personal accounts is breaking the rules. Preserve the WhatsApp chats, call records, and messages where advice and assurances were given, alongside contract notes showing the trades and charges. The gap between what was promised, what was explained, and what actually ran becomes the case. A first time investor guided entirely by an AP's team lost ₹7,47,387 within 17 days of account opening, with brokerage crossing ₹6.3 lakh, holdings sold without consent, and settlement offers following his complaint. The case is documented from his account records.Frequently Asked Questions
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