Flipkart’s shady business practices.

[mayanks_098]

1. I saw the image flipkart guys sent you. It does have Indian film board certification. So legally they are entitled to sell the product in Indian market.

1. Aren't they entitled required to sell Indian region compatible or region free content only. Even if they are not, why label a non-Indian product and sell it as Indian?

2. You say that they have to stop selling the product as it has wrong region encoding. On your part you are correct.
But if out of 120 or 200 (whatever the number be), there are 2 complaints, what is the percentage of failure?
On top of it they have offered you replacement as well as full refund.As a reseller, they have given both the options they have.

2. There have been 3 confirmed defects (2 tested by me and one of that other customer). There may be more, and probably there are. FK may not be telling the truth (why would they) or people may simply be playing it on correct player/pc or may be ignorant.

3. Since you said that the issue is with the media company, they have contacted them as well.
Its a different story that those guys turned out to be bigger jack asses.

Now, think of a vendor who will be ready to do atleast this for a complaint which is 1st or 2nd after 120 or 200 sales (They are not legally bound to give you their sales figures).

3. Correct. FK is not responsible for incorrect labeling, but for selling it after they were informed that it was not correct. No?

I am not a flipkart fanboy, but think from their end. They have tried to help you to their best. If they were selling something illegal and you told them, then there might be a case.

This is ALL I want to know. I am not holding FK responsible for selling an incorrect labelled product w/o knowing. I am holding them responsible for selling an incorrect product after knowing. All I am saying is I want the refund (why wouldn't I? I don't want to decorate my living room with 24 useless discs), and that they should not sell it or atleast sell it with the correct product description after verification.

Regarding solving the issue -
You should knock Disney's door. They are the culprits. Though they have got the Indian certification done, they are putting the wrong discs. If you want to go for any legal remedy, you have to go against Disney for selling illegal content and wrongly showing on the covers that its legal.

I did. But their CS is surprisingly amazing. They don't even care to respond/ follow-up.

---------- Post added at 09:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:40 AM ----------

This is (one reason) why i want amazon to come to India (along with their awesome customer service).

Oh can't wait that day to come soon. All others will eat dirt.

---------- Post added at 09:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 AM ----------

i know, you want to prove FK is wrong, dude. But that's the problem. FK is only a third party seller. They are like Ebay. They list for sellers, and sellers like Disney ship it out to you. You should be gunning for Disney, not FK. I'm saying this even after all my deals with FK went bad. really. FK can only offer a replacement. They dont have any facility to test products or do any research on stuff, and can only take what's printed on the cover as golden. They will keep selling stuff as long as they have a deal to sell it. You cant hold them responsible for stuff that is not in their hands.

What's your take on the S2 dilemma, the i9100 and i9100G. Samsung had packed it in a box which describes it as i9100 but the fact is some may be i9100 and some can be i9100G.

After reporting to FK, that they sell i9100G ,not i9100. Bcoz the manufacturer has given them the description.

Now shouldn't FK take up the responsibilty to list correct product with correct description ? Yes. Samsung is wrong but isn't FK responsible to correct the listing when user complains ?

Yes. What did they do eventually?

 

[windhawk91]

Hey, I understand FKs mistake but OP, but here's my solution: since it works on the PC, if you have a laptop you can play the disc on your laptop after attaching your laptop to your home theater setup via a HDMI cable.

 

[mayanks_098]

Hey, I understand FKs mistake but OP, but here's my solution: since it works on the PC, if you have a laptop you can play the disc on your laptop after attaching your laptop to your home theater setup via a HDMI cable.

Thank you. for the reply. But I can also play HD LOST on my laptop and connect it to my receiver via HDMI too. What was the point of buying DVDs then?

 

[djmykey]

Just to bring some perspective, lets consider a scenario:

Suppose a mobile is sold saying it has 3G. Its printed all over the box and all. However the mobile does not receive 3G signals at all.
You go back to the shop and say this is not working. He says take it up with the mobile manufacturer. Else he will take it back and send it to SC on your behalf.
In this case the shop keeper is not at fault; coz he is merely a vendor. He is responsible for selling the mobiles and not ensuring that whats written on the box is what is delivered, That is the responsibility of the manufacturer.
In this scenario if a consumer launches a legal complaint, its filed against the manufacturer. Then if the court orders that all the orders be stopped and stock be pulled off the market only then something that you are expecting FK to do will be done. Till then there is nothing that you can do.
Also it might be an one off situation too where you got the wrong region DVD's in which case you will get a replacement and that might work for you.
Instead of following up with FK to get this product pulled off of their shelves, think about getting your money's worth. And be happy

 

[asingh]

@djmykey:
That example is not in perspective. There is no manufacturing defect with the discs. The phone in your hypothesis is defunct. The difference is minor but intrinsic. Of course it is the shop keepers onus and due diligence to makes sure what is printed is being sold. i.e.; if that does not happen, then the shop keeper has to reach back to the manufacturer and sort it out. So he is just as much at fault. Those are the pros and cons of being a middle man. You get the cut for making the sale, but you are held liable for a manufacturer mistake, and should do the communication in between. If this has to be avoided, then companies can retail at factory rates and remove the middle man. The price is baked in of the middle man and we levy that surcharge for service, smooth transactions, and follow up with the manufacturer. Disney, should not even been contacted here, by the OP. Okay, if it had been something like a CPU over heating which is difficult for FK to check out, they can go back to Intel, but these are just media encrypted files. How long does that take to verify. It is just being monopolistic and ignorant of end-consumers. Or passing the buck, and throwing money at a problem, refund.

 

[mayanks_098]

Just to bring some perspective, lets consider a scenario:

Suppose a mobile is sold saying it has 3G. Its printed all over the box and all. However the mobile does not receive 3G signals at all.
You go back to the shop and say this is not working. He says take it up with the mobile manufacturer. Else he will take it back and send it to SC on your behalf.
In this case the shop keeper is not at fault; coz he is merely a vendor. He is responsible for selling the mobiles and not ensuring that whats written on the box is what is delivered, That is the responsibility of the manufacturer.
In this scenario if a consumer launches a legal complaint, its filed against the manufacturer. Then if the court orders that all the orders be stopped and stock be pulled off the market only then something that you are expecting FK to do will be done. Till then there is nothing that you can do.
Also it might be an one off situation too where you got the wrong region DVD's in which case you will get a replacement and that might work for you.
Instead of following up with FK to get this product pulled off of their shelves, think about getting your money's worth. And be happy

@djmykey:
That example is not in perspective. There is no manufacturing defect with the discs. The phone in your hypothesis is defunct. The difference is minor but intrinsic. Of course it is the shop keepers onus and due diligence to makes sure what is printed is being sold. i.e.; if that does not happen, then the shop keeper has to reach back to the manufacturer and sort it out. So he is just as much at fault. Those are the pros and cons of being a middle man. You get the cut for making the sale, but you are held liable for a manufacturer mistake, and should do the communication in between. If this has to be avoided, then companies can retail at factory rates and remove the middle man. The price is baked in of the middle man and we levy that surcharge for service, smooth transactions, and follow up with the manufacturer. Disney, should not even been contacted here, by the OP. Okay, if it had been something like a CPU over heating which is difficult for FK to check out, they can go back to Intel, but these are just media encrypted files. How long does that take to verify. It is just being monopolistic and ignorant of end-consumers. Or passing the buck, and throwing money at a problem, refund.

@jymykey
For the bold part: All I am asking/ contmplating i if the following statement holds: Holding Disney responsible for incorrect description and Flipkart for continuing selling it on their website even after it was brought into their notice.

And as asingh said, although the example you gave is similar, it is not exactly the same.

 

[terence_fdes]

I fully support mayanks_098 in his fight to get justice against a powerful setup like FK or Disney. He has gone about it in a rational & logical manner. The onus lies primarily with Disney who decided to off-load their stuff onto us in India without verifying whether it was compatible or not...... [Note: "Corporate Responsibility" is a term that we hear of only in manifesto's in India, when it come's to actual practice it's another story altogether].

The easiest solution's as suggested by many was, "Take the money & be happy" (and keep your mouth shut!!)...... or look out for a "region-free player" to resolve all such woes. However, by doing so we are only skirting the issue (as elaborated by OP out here).

I for one will always want to carry on the fight until we really force all such "mega-store's" and "corporate giant's (sic)" to comply by the same rule's and practices that are offered to their customer's in the first world countries.

Keep up the fight and stay focussed and calm throughout.

Terry

 

[asingh]

They have made it "out of stock".

 

[mayanks_098]

They have made it "out of stock".

I have said this in OP

Where things stand as per our last telephonic conversation (last Friday): They say they aren’t denying that I am facing the issue, but they reject that they are selling a wrong region encoded product and they reject my proposal/ suggestion to stop selling it. The product is now “Not in stock”. It continued to sell for a long time since I registered this complaint, and I am assuming they sold it till their stocks were exhausted?

Like I said, the product was selling even after I gave the feedback. I have also mentioned that they have told me that they do not accept the wrong product scenario and WILL Continue to sell it on the website. And it was out of stock before I wrote the blog post or these threads.

 

[quixand]

Retailers hire product specialists at their end to prevent such kind of cases. Flipkart obv does not have one.
How did the vendor get a certificate to distribute this? Bigger fish?

 

[random2]

1. Aren't they entitled required to sell Indian region compatible or region free content only. Even if they are not, why label a non-Indian product and sell it as Indian?

The package says that its for Indian market. And the manufacturer has confirmed the same.
Take any failed or problamatic product. Do shops stop selling those?

2. There have been 3 confirmed defects (2 tested by me and one of that other customer). There may be more, and probably there are. FK may not be telling the truth (why would they) or people may simply be playing it on correct player/pc or may be ignorant.

I say still 2. You just tried out the replacement. Its not that you accidentally got wrongly encoded discs. I would bet that if you had bought it from any other source in India you would have got the same. Why dont you contact all resellers and ask them to stop selling? why just FK?

And why is that just Flipkart has to stop selling, though the same is being sold by any other shop/online store?

All I am saying is that you are barking up the wrong tree. If you have to get attention of someone who can act at it, it has to be from Disney. They are the people who can correct this.

3. Correct. FK is not responsible for incorrect labeling, but for selling it after they were informed that it was not correct. No?

If I were to have bought this, I wouldnt have had any problem. Probably I would not have even come to know that its wrongly encoded.
Imagine you are selling a bunch of SD cards. You sell around 200 and people are pretty happy with it. One guy comes back and says that it doesnt work on his device because of some esoteric bug in the card. What would you do? Will you stop selling the product? If I were to be in that place, I would have offered him a replacement or a refund. And max would have contacted the manufacturer to inform about the same. These are the exact things they have done. It just doesnt make sense for them to stop selling.

This is ALL I want to know. I am not holding FK responsible for selling an incorrect labelled product w/o knowing. I am holding them responsible for selling an incorrect product after knowing. All I am saying is I want the refund (why wouldn't I? I don't want to decorate my living room with 24 useless discs), and that they should not sell it or atleast sell it with the correct product description after verification.

Tell me which online seller is opening a product, testing them and only then selling it? That too trying things out in various devices and making sure each spec is right.
I have a LG dvd player, My uncle has a Onida and I have tried my Region 1 discs on a Haier player. All these play the discs without any issue. Thats why I said that if i were to buy this product I would not even have known that its wrongly encoded.

I did. But their CS is surprisingly amazing. They don't even care to respond/ follow-up.

So basically you are putting the blame on an entity whose only mistake was that they listened to you and tried what they could. In my sense thats what it is.
If you really want to make this right, make the Disney people to do something.

I have to agree on one thing. They do delete all negative reviews. They are going to loose in the long term if they keep doing it. People will stop relying on the reviews on their site.

 

[Brendon]

The package says that its for Indian market. And the manufacturer has confirmed the same.
Take any failed or problamatic product. Do shops stop selling those?

My take on the issue is that Flipkart is in the clear here. They have to go as per what their vendor says. IMO Disney is at fault here and its the only entity who is to be held accountable.

FK checked with their vendor when the OP faced the problem and their vendor has certified that the discs are fine. FK is obliged to agree with what their vendor says (considering the vendor is supposed to know their product the best) and FK isn't a company that can certify if the product is question is fine or not.

 

[paarkhi]

@mayanks_098, atleast Flipkart is offering you a refund, if you'd have purchased from some offline store, they'd try on their DVD player and if it works on theirs', then they will not even offer you a refund, they'll just say it works over here, maybe something wrong with your DVD player and not many shopkeepers know/care about regions (Had a personal experience)

 

[cybertechie]

Hi,

I won't blame flipkart here. Flipkart is a retailer who sells many products online. The specifications mentioned on their website are what the manufacturer's of the product gave them. As a customer when you buy a product from a retailer and later realize that the item is not as described you go back to the retailer who will in turn give you an option of either a refund or replacement. as a reliable retailer flipkart did give you a full refund or replacement option.You need to realise that flipkart is just a retailer and they cannot test the products themselves.

The blame completely lies on Disney's part. they Should have taken your feedback seriously and worked on it. Flipkart is not obliged to change the specifications on their website until Disney asks them to do so or you provide them with some solid proof like a link to manufacture's website where the correct specifications are mentioned.

As a customer your best option is to get a complete refund and be done with the mess and hope disney corrects their fault.
as someone mentioned above if it was a offline store you would have neither got a replacement nor refund. they would have simply told you that you should have checked the specs on the box before placing the order. Flipkart is already going out of their way and offering a refund beyond their 30 days replacement policy.

 

[mehrotra.akash]

read the blog post, skimmed through the thread

barring the deletion of the review, the case could have been solved without so much of effort!!

flipkart listed a product

product was ordered

product was insufficient in some way

flipkart offered full refund

really dont see why so much time had to be spent on this!!!

if Flipkart actually got too many returns, they will automatically remove the listing

if Flipkart is not getting too many complaints, maybe people are playing it on region free players (the fault in the product is within the tolerance of the customer) and hence they would rather continue selling it...

converting the player to region free used to be a common practice during "installation" till a few years ago atleast

 

[djmykey]

*unsubscribed*

 

[AbhijithS]

Dude.. take the refund & move on.. I dont think this its worth the time/effort.

 

[babhishek]

Yes and that too in all forums tech non tech lifestyle auto audio video name it
Too much time at hand ?
Or else itchy ctrl c ctrl v fingers of OP

 

[manoja2k]

Hey, FK is good (may be best among Indian retail sites), but it is no where near Amazon and comparing FK to Amazon is like expecting too much from an Indian site. It is actually the attitude of the people managing the site which is pretty unprofessional. This is true for any Indian site. Even if Amazon open an Indian site, it won't be much different from any other local site.

 

[6pack]

any updates on this matter, @TS?