Toll Free Investor Helpline

Before you file a complaint, or even before you know whether you have one, SEBI gives you a phone number to call. That is the Toll Free Investor Helpline: 1800 266 7575 or 1800 22 7575.

It is free, it works in 8 languages, and it is available every day from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm. Call it if you are confused about a listed company, a broker, a mutual fund or how to lodge a complaint — the helpline exists to point you in the right direction.

One limit to remember: the helpline does not offer legal opinion or investment advice. It answers questions and guides you to the right process. It does not tell you what to do with your money, and it does not represent you in a dispute.

The workbook lists what the helpline actually answers, in two groups.

Information it gives directly: the status of a company (unlisted, sick, delisted, wound up), name changes from a merger or demerger, the Registrar and Share Transfer Agent of a listed company, names and addresses of SEBI-registered intermediaries, where to find regulatory action taken by SEBI, corporate actions like dividends, bonus and rights issues, the latest NAV of a mutual fund scheme, how to lodge a complaint, against whom to complain on SCORES, the status of a complaint already lodged, and which regulator to approach for a grievance outside SEBI's purview — the workbook names RBI, IRDAI, PFRDA and MCA as examples.

Assistance with procedures: how to open a demat or trading account, transfer and transmission of shares, the documents needed for either, what to do if shares are lost, forged or faked, applying for duplicate shares, and applying in an IPO.

The SEBI head office number for queries and feedback — 022-26449188 / 26449199 / 40459188 / 40459199, or sebi@sebi.gov.in — sits alongside the toll-free numbers as a second channel, and SEBI also runs a dedicated Interactive Voice Response System at +91-22-26449950 / 40459950.

Farida in Lucknow has three separate questions in one week.

First, she wants to know the latest NAV of a mutual fund scheme her agent recommended. She calls 1800 266 7575, gets the answer directly from the helpline, and does not need to file anything.

Second, her father passed away holding shares in his own name, and she needs to know the process to have them moved to her name. The helpline explains what documents she will need for the transfer process — it does not carry out the transfer itself, but it tells her where to start.

Third, she wants to know whether to buy more units of the same fund. On this the helpline gives her nothing — it does not offer investment advice, however she asks the question. She has to make that decision herself, or through a SEBI-registered investment adviser.

Chapter 12 (Grievance Redressal Mechanism), Part B, gives the toll-free numbers, the operating hours, the 8 languages and the full lists of information and assistance the helpline provides; Chapter 15 repeats the two toll-free numbers under the SEBI head office contact block. Expect a direct-recall question on the two numbers, the 8 languages, the 9:30 am to 5:30 pm hours, and the fact that the helpline gives no legal opinion or investment advice.

• The helpline gives information and guidance, not legal opinion or investment advice. A question implying it will tell you whether an investment is good is testing this exact limit.
• Two numbers, both toll-free: 1800 266 7575 and 1800 22 7575. Either is a correct answer.
• 8 languages, every day, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm — learn the figure and the hours as printed.
• The helpline redirects grievances outside SEBI's purview — RBI, IRDAI, PFRDA and MCA are the workbook's own examples — but it does not resolve those complaints itself.
• This is the phone channel; SCORES is the online complaint-filing system. The helpline can tell you how to use SCORES; it is not SCORES itself.
• Do not confuse the toll-free helpline with the separate IVRS number or the head-office landlines — all three exist side by side in the same chapter, for different purposes.