Hakuna Matata

I ordered a Samsung LCD TV from flipkart on 9th Dec 2011:

It arrived a good 2 weeks later, well after the promised delivery date. Flipkart interestingly has no policy w.r.t. delayed payments and there's no provision of compensation to the customer for the delay. They don't even tell you about the delay unless you call them.

My family had visited me for a month and I primarily bought the TV for them and to watch movies once in a while. Given that flipkart at times delivers the order next day, I was hoping it'd be quick and was extremely annoyed at the delay. When I shouted at them, they promised me a 5% wallet credit acknowledging the problem. That wallet credit took a good 10 reminder calls over the next ten days before I finally saw it in my account.

Anyway, then a day after delivery, Samsung guy came for installation and told me at the outset that this TV doesn't support videos via USB wonder why you bought it. You can just see photos and play music on USB. Since I didn't begin to use the TV, I checked again on flipkart and found out that there are other reviews (posted after I bought the TV) on the TV's page pointing out the same problem. I was expecting something like "USB doesn't support video" on the TV's page in specs but didn't find it. So I called up flipkart and asked them if they can replace it because I would prefer a TV with USB video and the website is missing this info.

They told me that replacement policy is only for products with a manufacturing defect or a damage in transit. I pointed out to them that there are other customers facing the same problem and you might want to consider highlighting this problem in RED on the TV's page.

Then I found one sane guy in their replacement team who understood the problem and then checked the logistics and told me that the TV will be replaced in 48 hours, and the money will be given back as store credit which I can use to buy a different model.

When nothing happened in the next 48 hours I called them again to check and this time flipkart replacement team said that NEITHER ARE WE GOING TO REPLACE THE TV NOR DO THEY HAVE ANY RECORD OF THE GUY WHO PROMISED A REPLACEMENT.

Whatever happened to "your calls will be recorded for internal training and audit purpose".

Worse, these guys insinuated that I'm lying and never had such a conversation. They kept asking me the complete name and department of the guy who made that promise and keep telling me that there's nobody called so and so.

I got tired of talking to them and posted a review on the TV's page so that other customers are not mislead. I again got a call from some Robert Peter from facebook/twitter team of flipkart due to that review saying we take reviews very seriously and will try to do the best we can to right this wrong. An hour later that guy called me again saying sorry we can't do much.

Next thing I see is that my review is deleted from the TV's page:

http://www.flipkart.com/tv-video/televisions/itmd29nnjtvv6dte?pid=tvsd29nhbjnf9hdh

There was another user review after my review which said that the page is probably modified by flipkart after my review to add (JPEG) after USB in the specifications. Flipkart folks deleted that too!

I've had good experience with flipkart in the past but I realize that I should've restricted it to books only.

A few problems stand out here:

- Flipkart has no clear policy about delayed shipments and how to compensate or at least inform the customer so that he can cancel the order and get it from somewhere else.

- Flipkart's so called 30 day Replacement guarantee is ONLY for goods damaged during shipping or having a manufacturing defect. Don't be mislead.

- Flipkart's will NOT stand by the promises and statements made by its own execs. Be prepared for statements like:forget what the last flipkart guy told you on phone, here's what I'm telling you and you need to believe me not the last guy.

As a customer calling flipkart, to be safe, you should ask for complete name and department of the person you're talking to and remind him that he needs to record the conversation in your case-history so that you don't have to explain the whole thing again next time you call. Don't believe "your call will be recorded ...." message.

- Flipkart guys don't take unfavorable reviews nicely and promptly delete them. Don't bother posting reviews on flipkart.com unless you only want to shower praises at them.

Update 1: Turns out Flipkart has a habit of manipulating reviews:

Update 2: Posted another review on flipkart.com and took a screenshot this time :) : http://t.co/fl7x6H5