[Tejas@perioimpl]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

Just learnt a lesson against Flipkart the hard way.

Update:

Apple replaced the phone for free with a brand new phone. And it works and I managed to give mom on her birthday..

So the saga comes to an end. Thankfully I didn't get too burnt other than the mental trauma and the trips to the service centre.

BUT:

What I did do while waiting for the phone was to bombard twitter on Flipkart and every investor who has made an investment in Flipkart - Softbank, Tencent, Walmart, etc (all details available freely on the web) outlining my issue and asking them if their money is safe with a fraud business.

The result was a barrage of calls from Flipkart saying they will replace the phone. By then the phone was already with apple and I told them that only if apple doesn't replace the unit, I'll revert to them and get a refund. I don't want a new one from them now. Told them, if they had just offered this on day 1, this whole saga would have been moot!

Well, that's that for now folks. Have a good day.

[adisan]

Originally Posted by Habanero City

Have had similar experience with Flipkart in July/August 2019 and had shared this in the "online shopping thread".. My trauma continued for more than a month as the delivery agent updated the status as delivered.
I had to establish the fact of non-delivery and at the verge of filing for litigation and finally through one sensible person worked out the refund.

I had a similar experience with Amazon about 4 years back.

I was in a meeting when the delivery agent called. By the time I went to collect about 10 minutes later, he had left after marking the item as delivered. He did not pick any calls from my mobile. But he did pick the call when we called from a colleague's mobile, and said he would come back within half an hour. He did not come, neither did he pick calls from that number after that.

It took several emails to Amazon CS with all the above details before they issued a refund.

Post that I stopped placing prepaid orders on any e-commerce site, only COD.

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

Just learnt a lesson against Flipkart the hard way.

I am not a regular customer at Flipkart (used to be when they were selling books back in the day), anyway so i am not sure how good their returns/refund policies are but this is what it says for an iphone model sold by some seller:

"*Seller offers replacement only for missing items, product damaged on delivery, or wrong product delivery.

Brand assistance for device and other issues is subject to brand warranty guidelines and service policies. Please reach out to the nearest brand authorized service centre for more details."

[rajeevyes]

I recently had a very bad experience with Flipkart. They delivered a smartphone that had Jio sim lock which was not mentioned anywhere on the product description. Their return/refund policy especially for mobile phones is so bad that I went through multiple cycles of calling helpdesk multiple times and request for engineer visit. The engineer would visit , check the phone, verbally tell us its sim locked but would inform Flipkart that there is no issue with phone. Finally almost on the 7th day ( end of return period) I threatened to file a consumer court case when they budged to refund the money.
Will never buy anything again from Flipkart now onwards.

[dragonfire]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

Update:

Apple replaced the phone for free with a brand new phone. And it works and I managed to give mom on her birthday..

Apple and Google are no longer allowing merchants to handle returns. If you look at the return policy in Amazon/Flipkart you could see that. This is true not just in India, but for USA as well. I work for a US carrier, and we had recently updated the website with the new return policy. I heard Samsung is soon joining the bandwagon.

[Jangra]

Hi Tejas - Thanks for sharing. It’s hard not to think about the brick story while ordering through Flipkart. Over the years I’ve come to realise that the risk equals rewards. Sometimes Flipkart offers are unmatched.
I’m glad that your phone was replaced.

[DDiSLover]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

Just learnt a lesson against Flipkart the hard way.

My mom's birthday is coming up and I needed to gift her an iPhone. She still needs the home button type phone and the iPhone SE 2 was the only option.

First and last time I shop on Flipkart.

Thanks for sharing, and I'm glad to hear that everything turned out well eventually.

While Flipkart has a lot of issues, I do not see how they are at fault here. If the phone was given to them in a sealed manner, and they delivered it to you for physical inspection, they did their part.

I am a distributor for Samsung mobiles, and this happens to us too. We call these 'DoA' or Dead on Arrival. The way forward is to take the phone to the service center, who will take the call on replacement. If they decide to replace, we ship the damaged product back to Samsung, post which they will send us a replacement.
To make the customer's life easier, we go ahead and give them a new phone once the service center approves the replacement request. Once Samsung sends us a replacement, it is added back to our stock.

In your case, you were dealing with Apple directly, which is why it took time. I can understand that the warranty details are updated within 24/48 hours. Flipkart probably has a batch job that updates all phones sold in the last X hours/days.

Am I missing something? This is definitely a bad customer experience, but I wouldn't blame the seller (Flipkart) and this could happen with Amazon too.

Anyway, taking the phone to the authorized service center was the right thing to do, and I'm glad that they replaced the phone in time to save the birthday gift

[Tejas@perioimpl]

Originally Posted by DDiSLover

Am I missing something? This is definitely a bad customer experience, but I wouldn't blame the seller (Flipkart) and this could happen with Amazon too.

When I did a bit more forensic analysis I found some more details.

1. They should allow you to switch on phone for an unbox piece and not it’s check the physical condition.

2. Their supplier is Shreyas retail from Dehli. A simple google search for the name and up pops 2 pages of similar fraud complaints - stopped reading after that. Shouldn’t Flipkart then stop dealing with such vendors?

3. Have a better call centre experience. When you are already pissed you want to speak to a human.

4. The seller sent a phone which on apple’s system already showed out of warrantee - I spent 20 min on apple international helpline to get warrantee rectified. Should not Flipkart provide this service? Should Flipkart be liable for a bad service by the vendor who sells phone which is shown out of warrantee?

5. If I buy from an apple retailer and if the phone is DOA, they immediately replace. Why different rules for online vendors?

6. As for Amazon, maybe they have same policy, but customer service is leagues better. I recently ordered a blind for my balcony. They sent a wrong product and they expected me to return the product to Amritsar from mumbai. I said I don’t have the resources to go to a courier and send a 6’ long blind at my cost. Amazon immediately reverted saying get it picked up by any courier and share the invoice for shipping with us and we will return the shipping money to you. That’s customer service. Humans like speaking to humans.

[vinu_h]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

Update:

I guess it comes down to the people handling the package. In THIS case, Appario, of which Amazon owns a piece, happened to ship a fake Apple watch. If not for the unboxing video, buyer would have lost INR 50k.

[DDiSLover]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

When I did a bit more forensic analysis I found some more details.

Thanks for sharing Tejas. Agree with your points, especially 1, 2 and 3.

For 4, I wonder if they would have updated it within 24 hours, had you not faced the issue as soon as you got the product.
In the physical shops, you can switch on the phone immediately. There is an aspect of IMEI activation, which happens when a handset is turned on with an active SIM / WIFI for the very first time. Most manufacturers use this timestamp as an indicator of purchase, including sales tracking and warranties in some cases.

#5 its really subjective. Dealer is under no obligation to replace the phone since you already bought it. Once bought, service center is liable to replace. We offer immediate replacement as a service, even though we aren't obligated to do so. But you're right, FlipKart should do this as part of customer service.

#6 - I haven't dealt with Flipkart CS, but Amazon CS can be a pain too. All depends on the person you get. Trends clearly show Amazon to be miles above Flipkart, and that's the main reason why I only shop on Amazon.

[Maverick Avi]

90 percent of my online shopping is from Flipkart and I have not had many bad experiences.

Once my washing machine had a small dent which was almost hard to notice but they replaced it. Then an air purifier I bought was only under replacement policy but I told them that I don't see any effectiveness of the product and its useless for me. They offered return and full refund. Then my RO was dead on arrival, and it was promptly replaced. My recent laptop was delivered within 14 hours of order and completely company sealed and intact.

Some issues faced were during phone exchange which was again sorted though after quite a long followup. Then grocery items were having frequent issues which did get fixed but after followup which takes time as they don't allow easy access to human CS. So I switched to COD for all my grocery orders and no issues thereafter.

All being said I don't have preference for Flipkart. If my item is cheaper on Amazon I go for it. Things can go wrong sometimes but what matters is how has been the experience most of the times which is good in my case(fingers crossed ).

[Goandiaries]

I made a MSI laptop purchase using Flipkart(FK) in Nov 2020. I compared the prices with Amazon and FK gave the best price at that time. And the price difference was >20k between the sites. I placed the order and till I checked the laptop, I must say that I was worried. But the product was genuine, was able to register for warranty in MSI and even procured a replacement adaptor (directly through MSI, no FK involved) after the original fried during a power surge.

With the above positive experience with FK, I went on and purchased a mid-range Motorola phone for my grandfather and again it turned out to be positive. Before that, I placed an order in Amazon for a Nokia, and it turned out to be a used phone (or at least one which was opened before, with scratches and the pack not sealed). Returned it immediately.

I feel such things happen with electronics especially with online purchase. But yes, Amazon returns works quite quickly and efficiently. I have not had any dealing with FK returns so far to comment on.

[exhaustpipe]

In December I bought a gaming console from Flipkart. After delivery, when I opened the packed, it turned out to be a lower spec model. Emailed Flipkart right away and called them as well about the issue. I'm still the not-so-proud owner of that console.

Around the same time, I ordered a case for my Nintendo Switch OLED, the case turned out to be one for the original switch. Just slightly smaller to accommodate the OLED model. Once again, did all I could but nothing came out of it from Flipkart.

I order a lot of stuff online. Whenever I've had an incorrect item or broken item delivered to me, Amazon has sorted it out without any hassle while dealing with Flipkart has been like talking sense to a Zombie! Never going down that road again.

[delusional_fool]

I had 2 bad experiences with 'no return policy' products in Flipkart. Both the times, I received damaged product and had no way to get a refund or replacement.
I understand 'no return policy' but when the product itself is damaged/defective, there should be a way for the customers to get the refund right? Customer care was of no help after multiple calls.
I had no issues with getting refund for 'non returnable products' in amazon and I've got refunds couple of times for similar issues in Amazon.

So I've decided not to buy any products from Flipkart with 'no return policy'.

[ykamesh]

Even I am a victim of Flipkart's service. I fully agree that Flipkart is not responsible for any defects in the product. But, what if, if the dealer intentionally delivers a bad / defective / inferior product?

I think Flipkart has no control over its vendors and these vendors dent care for Flipkart. This is the sole reasons, why defective or inferior products are delivered with impunity by these vendors. This is my personal experience of my last 3/3 purchases from Flipkart.

Their customer service is pathetic. They never listen to us and keep on repeating the answer mechanically. Very bad training by Flipkart. More often than not, these guys are rude too.

I took a wow never to buy from Flipkart.

In the last 5-6 years, I have hand no issues from Amazon, even when the number of transactions are more than 500!. Hope Flipkart reads this.