This is not just a review, but a warning to all those who want to buy books at Rediff’s shopping site.
A few weeks back I placed an order with ’’Sankar’s The Book People’’ for a book called ’Postmodernism and Holocaust Denial’ by Robert Eaglestone. The price was Rs. 120; shipping and handling charges Rs. 50. The description page stated that it ’’Usually ships in 4 working days.’’ I paid Rs. 170 by credit card.
I waited for about three weeks after I ordered it, then last week I received a mail from them which said that the order was reversed as the item was out of stock (why list it if it’s out of stock?). Not a word about refunding the amount I paid.
I sent them a mail using a complaint form at their site. As my Mozilla Firefox 1.1 browser gave CGI errors, I had to use Internet Explorer (seems these guys don’t have any clue about browser compatibility). Before trying IE, I hunted for Rediff Shopping’s customer support e-mail address. I couldn’t find it anywhere. After mailing from the web form using IE, I waited and waited, but didn’t get any response.
After this I wrote to shopping@rediff.co.in (just making a wild guess), CC-ing it to Ajith Balakrishnan’s e-mail. Childishly, I expected him to forward that mail
I’ve had bad experience with Rediff Shopping some 3 years back, but I hadn’t lost any money. I simply had to grin and bear a two-month delay! At that time I told a friend of mine about this. He was with the now-defunct Computers Today promptly wrote about it in a story of his about Indian shopping sites. But Rediff hasn’t changed.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
(PS: it’s a small amount, but I’m thinking of approaching the consumer court and also alert the CyberCrime cell of Mumbai police, even if it doesn’t yield any results)