I had a very bad experience with Carwale.Com.
Some 2-3 months back, I was searching for a used car but lost my hopes of finding good Palio in Bangalore. Then I had talked to the dealer and finalized Palio Diesel and was about to place an order(All paperwork done) just then I saw 1 ad in Carwale.com for the model/year of Palio that I was looking for. I immediately spent 500 Rs to see the details of the car owner.
To my utter surprise, the ad and the address was complete fake. I called these carwale guys and they themselves claim that it cannot be possible that they have the fake ID because they check everything about the advertiser before uploading his details. But when I told them to check the details of that fake Id and threatened to escalate it then they agreed that unfortunately it was a fake id.
Now as I spent 500 rs only to check that Id, I demanded refund of 500 Rs.(It was not about money but the business ethics) they said its not there policy to refund money. Then I argue that is it your policy to provide fake IDs on your website. They said no then I told then if you can do exception in that then why not refund my money. But they never refunded my money.
I was very angry about the way they were quoting their policies and not following their own strict policy of providing only genuine Ids(being a paid site). I told them clearly that I cannot accept this kind of service from a paid site.
To my surprise they never refunded my money back even after arguments from me as if with my 500 Rs they will run their business. Very Very unethical way of doing the business. I do not care about my 500 rs but do feel strongly that if you want to run paid site then give service free of fake IDs.
Owner should think about some ethical practice. If mistake happened then refund the money of the customer instead of reciting policies made to grab hard earned money of the customer.
Its common in this site that car is already sold out but their ad remains there in the site to eat up other customers attempts(purchased by paying 500Rs or more) to see the contact details
_
Update 16Oct2008
Mr Banwari(Associate Director - Content, CarWale.com) and Mr Gaurav(V.P - Consumer Sales, CarWale.com) have sorted out the issue and expressed their apologies.
Indeed it was the fake id but it got its place on carwale.com because of some employee who did not performed his duty/job properly.
My 500Rs are now returned back to me.
Moreover Mr Gaurav and Mr Banwari told me that if anybody else had faced any other issue with Carwale then please bring it to their notice. They are ready to act on it if found genuine. I have their Email IDs with me so guys do let me know if you need it.