Online Customer Cheating

This is for those who are into online shopping..

A warning..

I am not saying NO to online shopping..Surely not..

But there are real dangers in online shopping.. 

I will narrate a personal experience here, so that it will be a lesson for every one..

I already learned my lesson from my experience..

As I said above, I am not going to say that online shopping is bad..

In-fact, there are quite a good number of online sites like flipkart, infibeam..

I have done a lot of online shopping from these sites, I do not have any bad experience from them, atleast till now..

And perhaps this prompted me to go for further online shopping, looking for other online sites as well..

The intention of this blog post is to narrate my experience of doing an online purchase from a particular site.

I am not going to name the site - as of now.

Let me call it 'fraud_1' site.

Myself and my sister were looking to buy a mobile phone for my father. He had a CDMA set which had developed some problems, so we wanted to go for a new set.

With the good experiences we had with online shopping in flipkart, infibeam, we decided to got for online shopping.

A search in those sites on a CDMA phone did not yield a satisfactory result. That's when we decided to check other online sites.

And we came to 'fraud_1' site.

Found a Blackberry 8830 CDMA mobile.

Cost was Rs.3999.We went for Cash On Delivery option.

So with the 100 rupee shipping charge, the phone cost was Rs.4100.

An online purchase order was submitted.

After few days I got an sms on 12-April-2012, asking me to contact them regarding my order, because they were unable to contact me (which itself should be a blatant lie, because I am always reachable on my mobile).

I was given 2 numbers and asked to contact between 10AM & 7PM. Whenever I tried to call them, these numbers were either busy  or switched-off!!

When the delivery was getting delayed, I send a reminder in 'contact us' link of 'fraud_1' .

Eventually after I received it, I was in for a big disappointment when I opened the box and checked the phone.

It was a phone which was tagged to Verizon network. So effectively this phone cannot be used in India, unless you unlock it !!

I looked to reach out to 'fraud_1''s customer care through 'contact us' link, asking for help.

I got utterly irritated by their so-called customer care. No one contacted me.

So I decided to take things into my own hand and taking assistance from online material on how to unlock the phone, after a full night and day's effort, managed to make the phone to accept GSM SIM cards.

I am still not able to crack the CDMA part and I may have to go some where and pay for it !!

HERE, I want to warn whoever is thinking of doing an online purchase to be very careful.

Especially those who are looking to buy gadgets, BE CAREFUL.

The so-called customer care of 'fraud_1' - they don't even call you or reply to you, if you raise a concern with them for help. That's my experience.

The minimum they should have done, once an incident like this is reported back to them about a purchase from their site, is to either call the customer or contact through mail and atleast try to understand what's the problem.

Not responding at all is NOT A SOLUTION, I am afraid, it's a PROBLEM.

Especially, if you are into customer service.

Online Indian sites like  'fraud_1' should not be selling a MOBILE PHONE which is tagged to an American carrier - in this case Verizon - in India.

I think this is a phone purchased by 'fraud_1' in the grey market and made available for online customers.

Their website does not give any info to suggest that this phone is a locked one and is useless in India, unless you unlock the phone.

It's a mistake on my part as well that I did not do enough research about the phone before thinking of buying it. I should also have searched a bit to check for the reputation of 'fraud_1'.

After this incident when I searched net, I found  lot of materials where-in lot of customers complained about 'fraud_1'.

So before going for online shopping - talking from experience here - make sure to check the reputation of the site.

As for me personally, I will look at various options to make sure that no one else get into the 'fraud_1' trap !!

Awareness is required, and this blog post is one way in which I thought of getting to my fellow countrymen..

Please don't get cheated by fraud online sites like 'fraud_1'..!!

As I said earlier, I am not going to personally name the 'fraud_1' site.

Let me repeat :

Make sure to search and verify the reputation of the site before doing an online purchase.