I feel that the rejection rate of PF claims has gone up in the recent past. Some of the rejection reasons that I have come across recently are:
a) "Break in Service Certificate" - The most common reason for rejection in pension cases these days. I do not understand why this is required even when accounts are merged and NCP details are filed by the employer—all data is available with EPFO, yet they ask for this. The problem for the member is to obtain this certificate from past employer/employers. We have seen enough cases where both present and past employers just do not respond to employee requests.
b) "Update Reason for Leaving" - The employee, upon his resignation, was exited with the reason "CESSATION (SHORT SERVICE) - Any Other reason." We have asked the member to register a grievance.
c) "Bank AC found linked to another Member ID" - I found this strange as the member in question had worked ONLY with us in his entire working life, and his bank KYC was with the same account throughout. This is probably an outlier event where transposition/error in typing of the account number by some other member resulted in this strange case; one of them is incorrect. The PF member filed a grievance and received a totally vague reply: "For any update in Aadhar number/member name/.../.../Date of Joining, the member needs to submit or email a joint declaration along with documentary evidence attested by the employee and employer and forward to the EPFO Office." In any case, we have asked the affected member to do a new bank KYC and reapply for withdrawal.
EPFO has ample reasons for this overly cautious approach with so many cases of false claims, unscrupulous employers keeping their personal/company account as bank KYC, etc., but in this, the genuine and honest member gets harassed with unnecessary delays in his settlement.
Another very common thing I see is the hesitation of employers to help employees, past and present, in resolving such issues.
Just thinking out loud!!
Regards