I made a purchase on Indiatimes for a cake and bunch of flowers for my father. I checked on the site it showed me a status of **Delivered**.However when I called my father **he hadn’t received it** at all.
My contact number mobile and landline were listed on the site and so were my fathers. None of us received any calls. **I wonder what happens to people who go for bulk gifting through their sites.*
When I called up their customer service they said they would refund me the money. A week later I received a gift voucher as refund which I an forced to spend on Indiatimes. I replied back saying I did not want to spend any money on Indiatimes and to credit my account with the said amount. They replied
’ *we are unable to process your request. It is already updated in terms and conditions that “All sub orders cancelled and have the order value below or equal to Rs. 2000/- will be refunded in the form of Indiatimes Gift Certificate within 2 working days via email’when I pointed out that it was not my mistake nor was it a cancellation but a failure of delivery they refused to accept it and said I have already been refunded via gift certificate. * Numerous calls were made and mails written to no avail. I asked them for an escalation procedure which again they did not have. Their mails to some ids just bounce.
*The gist of the matter is
1.**16th Jan 2009 Order placed requesting a delivery date of 19th Jan 2009.
*2.**Not delivered till the 20th of Jan 2009 though t**he status on the website shows delivered**.
*3.**Raised a complaint (Complaint No. XXXXXX ) on the 20th of Jan 2009. Spoke to Mr.Abhishek.
*4.**Did not receive any call from your customer service.
*5.** No update on the status which still shows delivered.Had to call customer service again spoke to a (Ms. Hema).
*6.** Received assurance of having my transaction cancelled and money refunded within 48 hours
*7.**.Now I am told that my money will be refunded only in the form of Indiatimes vouchers, as it is a company policy
.I refuse to accept gift vouchers as I DO NOT want to spend my money on Indiatimes now.
I have been asking for a refund which is being refused.
The reason I had chosen Indiatimes was because of it being associated with a reputed business group. This is not the kind of service I expected. Furthermore I am sorry for such strong words but showing a status of delivered without actually delivering the order amounts to cheating and a breach of trust.
This is not something I had expected from such an esteemed group.I do not think that any of the above is my fault, then my am I being FORCED to spend money on Indiatimes for their poor service. Anywhere else in the world I would have got a compensation for the way this whole thing has been conducted, here I have to fight even to get my own money back. Being in an age where media claims to be the champion of the common man, I wonder how the TIMES group would react to this?