Star Shop Zambia Investment
| Fatwa #801 | Category: Business & Trade | Country: Zambia | Date: 3rd October 2022 |
| Fatwa #801 | Date: 3rd October 2022 |
| Category: Business & Trade | |
| Country: Zambia | |
Question
Assalamualaikum,
There’s a company that opened an online platform app by the name of Star Shop which enables one to make an income out of it.
This is the description of Star Shop according to them: Star Shop helps e-commerce companies like Amazon, Shopee, eBay and Lazada increase the number of product sales and product reviews, thereby increasing the popularity and sales of the business. Our company cooperates with large shopping platforms and has signed a large number of commodity order contracts. The merchants of the shopping platform distribute the commodity orders to the companies platform. The companies platform will match the corresponding price of commodities according to the worker’s account balance, and the company will extract the merchants. To put it simply, the sales merchant publishes product task orders through Star Shop and pays task commissions. Workers match product task orders through Star Shop and get commissions for completing the order.
That’s their description of Star Shop. So what basically happens is that a person signs up to make a Star Shop account and has to log in to complete the tasks. An investment of anywhere from k100 to k100,000 has to be deposited. They’re four levels available. Level is 1 is for completing Amazon task orders, Level 2 is for Shopee, Level 3 is for ebay and Level 4 is for Lazada. Each level has different commission percentages.
Someone showed me a demo of how everything works. So for example let’s say a person invests k1000 in level 1. Star Shop will gift that person k5 first for signing up as a gift and level 1 has a fixed commission of 7%. Thereafter the user has to complete 20 order tasks per day by tapping two buttons which write as COMPLETE ORDER and PAY. That it is how one task is easily completed with little to no effort. They show pictures of goods from Amazon whilst doing the task though it looks quite a bit fake and the products they show has got nothing to do with impermissible products for example wine e.t.c. The company claims they are recognized by Amazon and the user will be paid for completing tasks according to how much one invested but I feel they are not partnered with Amazon because the whole platform looks a bit fishy according to what they claim it is. So one just basically has to do 20 order tasks per day and then automatically gets a commission of k70 since the initial investment was k1,000 giving a return commission of 7%. If the investment is left at k1,000 then K70 profit/commission can be made everyday and withdrawn everyday aswell provided 20 tasks are done daily. The higher the investment the more one makes. There’s no risk at all for losing any investment made which slightly differentiates this platform to crypto and forex trading.
I personally feel this business model is impermissible but just wanted to be 100% sure. Please kindly let me know if this source of income is permissible or impermissible.
Jazakallah.
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
As-salāmu ‘alaykum wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh.
We commend you on your sensitivity to earn a halaal income.
Nabi (ﷺ) said:
طَلَبُ كَسْبِ الْحَلَالِ فَرِيضَةٌ بَعْدَ الْفَرِيضَةِ
Translation: Earning of Halal income is an obligation beyond other obligations.
(Shuabul Imaan/Sunan Al-kubra, Baihaqi)
Your understanding is correct.
The Star Shop Zambia investment app is not Shariah Compliant. Our understanding is based on the following reasons:
- Fixed Return: It is not permissible to engage into any business deal that guarantees a fixed return on the capital investment.
- No risk factor attached to the investment.
- There are conflicting views on the authenticity of the investment.
As such, it is not permissible to invest in the Star Shop business model you have described.
And Allah Ta’āla Knows Best
Mufti Muhammad I.V Patel
Checked and Approved by
Mufti Nabeel Valli
Darul Iftaa Mahmudiyyah
Lusaka, Zambia