Customers should follow safety precautions while shopping on e-commerce websites.
Raksha Bandhan is a time when brothers express their love and affection for their sisters by buying gifts for them. Nowadays, many of them are using online shopping websites for delivering gifts to sisters. However, can one rely on these websites as large number of fraudulent transactions has been reported by customers using e-commerce websites. Nagpur resident Ankur Ramakant Kaple is one such customer who had become victim of online shopping fraud. Twenty five year old Ankur had placed an order for mobile phone through e-commerce website for delivering gift to his sister. The delivery boy of the courier firm had arrived at Ankur’s residence for delivering the mobile phone on 14th August. Ankur paid Rs 9245 for the equipment to him. After opening the packet, Ankur was surprised to find a cement brick instead of mobile phone. He then filed a complaint with the Ambajhari Police Station in Nagpur.
Police then filed a case against the firm’s Delhi office’s chief executive officer Kunal Bhai and Amit Thava CEO of the company’s Pune branch. A case was also registered against the Nagpur based courier firm. There have been several cases pertaining to e-commerce websites luring customers with heavy discounts and cheating them by failing to deliver the product order by them. Even reputed e-commerce companies names too feature in these kind of frauds. This is not the first instance when a brick has been delivered to customer instead of mobile. Earlier, a customer had received utensil cleaning bar instead of mobile. Cases of cheating have been registered at several regions across the country.
A cyber security expert said, “People should only buy products from reputed e-commerce companies as several fly by night operators are running this business and take customers for a ride. People should also follow safety precautions while ordering products from online shopping websites.”
“Customers should verify the credentials of the website before making paying through internet. They must read the terms and conditions mentioned in the website. Often companies offer free home delivery option only on goods worth Rs 500 or more. However several terms and conditions exist for delivering products. Often customers fail to read these conditions and hence they fall prey to the fraud,” he added.
Customers should open the packet in the presence of the delivery boy. If they find that goods delivered to them are different from those ordered by them they should immediately click its photo and send the same to the e-commerce firm. They can also call the customer care officials to file a complaint. If customers’ complaint is backed by evidence then it becomes easier for them claim the refund of money or replace the product. Often people find old goods or substandard quality of products being delivered to them.
