Dirty Social Media Tricks from Snapdeal?

First the story

1. A twitter handle- @vishukumar2011 tweeted following tweet on 6th of September. 
   
   It seems to be a tweet from a happy customer. It is re-tweeted by Snapdeal. Obviously they will like to acknowledge a happy customer and promote themselves. Absolutely fair. But it is also re-tweeted by two other handles - @VarunSadana and @SunitaSubra . Now, since I don't have suspicion about this tweet, I don't even care who they are.  
   Link to tweet - https://twitter.com/vishukumar2011/status/375694457208729600


2. Same person replies to another tweet on 23rd of September. 
   
   Now what is this. Obviously there is no value in that feedback. It is just appreciation. But I am not talking about that. I am wondering why a previously seemed snapdeal customer thanking on snapdeal behalf. This sounds suspicious. 


3. His Twitter Bio.
   
   Looks very normal. Doesn't seem to be from Snapdeal. Or possibly. Is he?


4. Let us search for his LinkedIn profile. 
   
   
   Here you go. He works for Snapdeal and He has been with Snapdeal since October 2011. Photo matches too.
   Link to his LinkedIn Profile - http://in.linkedin.com/pub/vishal-verma/35/99b/914
   
   
5. What about two other twitter handles who retweeted his previous tweet. I don't have any strong evidence (or I don't want to spend more time) but they too seem to work for Snapdeal.


6. On 23rd September, I confronted Vishal on twitter for an explanation.
   
   
   
   
   
   Instead of explaining, he chose to delete his tweet. He deleted both his tweets mentioned above. He changed his name, photo and bio on twitter.
   
   
   His tweet can still be accessed on google web cache (at least at time of writing this blog)- http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://twitter.com/vishukumar2011/status/375694457208729600
   
   
   Link to my above tweet - https://twitter.com/nitzien/status/382171028039811072
   
   
   Link to @TheBigBhookad tweet which was also a reply to Vishal's tweet- https://twitter.com/TheBigBhookad/status/377636066083487744

Story Ends

Do I need to explain anything? I believe not.

Do I have problem with an employee promoting his company? Absolutely not. I truly believe that every employee is salesman. Every employee represents a company and she should work toward success of company. I appreciate his intention in second tweet. He took pride in his customer appreciation. But what do you think of his first tweet? Is it fair for an employee to behave like a customer on social media? Snapdeal retweeted their employee's tweet. Were they aware of him being employee. Possibly, they were not. What about other two employees? Were they aware of him being employee? Did nobody from his company noticed his first tweet and told him that there is something wrong in it? All these questions could be debated. I just wanted to tell you the story. :)

Fake Waybill / Tracking Number - Snapdeal's Trick

Trust is one of most important factors in any business. It's importance only grows in e-commerce business where a customer buys a product without really touching it or trying it. In India, customers pay for non-COD transactions, days in advance of shipping or delivery. Any act from business that creates mistrust between business and customer is only going to put off customers and kill the business. I was target of once such act from Snapdeal.com recently. Snapdeal claims that shipment was returned back to Snapdeal by Bluedart surface service within 36 hours of originally shipping due to I being unavailable when delivery was attempted. I never received any call from Bluedart for delivery. I thought I should write about it to find out if anybody has been target of such trick from Snapdeal.

Short story

• I ordered an exercise bike on August 26th on snapdeal.com to be shipped by September 2nd. 
• I raised a ticket with snapdeal when it was not shipped by 2nd. I was told that it will be shipped in three days or they will refund my amount. 
• It was not shipped till 5th September 5:00 pm. I noticed at 11 pm that status of order is changed to shipped and tracking number from bluedart was available. 
• Shipment wasn't trackable on bluedart website even till September 7th, 8:00 am. That is when I raised another request. I was informed by email in less than two hours that my shipment is returned by courier service because no one was available on my end when delivery was attempted. I raised various questions to snapdeal (mentioned later in blog) which was promised to be answered by Monday (September 9th) . 
• My questions have not been answered yet. My order was canceled on September 8th. 
• My credit card account was refunded with amount on September 9th.

Important points 

• I never received any call from Bluedart regarding delivery. 
• This order was shipped using Bluedart surface as it was heavy good weighing around 25 kg. Order was delivered from Delhi to Bangalore. According to Bluedart website, it should take 4 days. But according to snapdeal, "shipment - attempt to delivery - return" happened within 36 hours. 
• Shipment was never trackable on bluedart website. 
• Snapdeal has not attempted to answer a single question that I have raised. 

Questions raised to snapdeal and not answered yet

• From which city was product shipped?
• At exactly what time was product shipped? According to my knowledge it is late night on September 5, 2013. I will take this as date and time, unless you give me proof from courier.
• Waybill Number from Bluedart and screenshot of receipt from Bluedart confirming this.
• Whom did Bluedart call and at what time before confirming non-delivery?
• At what time Snapdeal received information from Bluedart regarding shipment being returned? Please send proof of this from Bluedart (electronic or paperwork). 

Long Story

1. I ordered Viva Fitness KH 704 RB Programmable Magnetic Recumbent Bike from Snapdeal on August 26th 2013. Order No. 1213229730. It was suppose to be ship by September 2nd. Shipping address is of Bangalore.
2. Order was not shipped till September 2nd 2013. So, I raised a ticket (Request number 3082059) with them. I was told on September 3rd by email that they are unable to procure this item. They will ship my order in 3 days or cancel the order and refund money.
   
   
   
   
   
3. On September 5th, order was not shipped till 5 pm. It finally showed shipped on website at around 11 pm. It was sent by Bluedart courier Service, with tracking number - 50220143691. But I could not track the courier on blue dart website. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. I kept trying to check the bluedart courier website to track the shipment. On September 7th, 8:15 am (less than 36 hours after shipping), I raised another ticket with Snapdeal ( Request number 3134851) as I was unable to track shipment. I was responded back that my shipment has been returned to them "because no one was available when the delivery was attempted from their end." 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. I have raised earlier mentioned questions with snapdeal on call and by email but have not received any response. I was promised that I will get response by Monday September 9th. 
6. On September 7th (same day), 2:00 pm, I got email from snapdeal that my order has been canceled and I will be refunded back the amount.
   
   
   
   
   
7. On September 8th, I got survey from snapdeal for request number 3134851. I suspect they closed the ticket. In funny mail, they mentioned the last response from their team which was actually email that I sent to them. :)
   
   
   
   
   
8. On September 9th, I raised another ticket requesting to answer my question. They responded that Bluedart website has removed data regarding this waybill number from their website. Quite funny haan!! I once again asked them to get all the answers to my previous questions. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. On September 9th, Snapdeal refunded amount to my account. I must admit much refund was faster than I would have ever expected. 
10. On September 10th, I ordered another exercise bike from another website. :)

Another possibility 

As per the cancellation email, seller for this item is Walchemist Life Care Pvt. Ltd. who also have ecommerce website - healthee.in. When I ordered this item from snapdeal, same item was being sold on healthee.in for approximately Rs 15,500. I decided to shell out extra as I was more confident on snapdeal than healthee. But after couple of days of ordering on snapdeal, price on healthee.in raised to Rs 17,325. Snapdeal website still has same price of Rs 16823 on their website. Probably, seller Walchemist Life Care don't want to sell through / to Snapdeal for the lower price anymore. 

More Cases of fake waybill number from Snapdeal

• http://gearheads.in/showthread.php?17993-SnapDeal-Whats-the-deal/page2 (post by fernando and Mudhalaipatti )
• http://www.grahakseva.com/complaints/116754/snapdeal-is-misleading-the-people-by-giving-discounts-and-later-on-cancelling-it
• http://freekaamaal.com/discuss/Thread-beware-of-snapdeal (post by atherM)
• http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Snapdeal-com-review-ruqqlponrr (comment by nalinitagore)
• http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/snapdealcom-cheating-c826790.html
• http://consumer.admanya.com/review_snapdeal_com_online_shopping_e_com-5151.html
• https://twitter.com/amitrocksu/status/375600635967586306

Update - September 11th 2013

After publishing this post yesterday, I received a call from Snapdeal today at around 11 am. CSR was apologetic and empathetic. She accepted that mistake was from their end. From information available to her, she said that vendor has shipped but most probably courier service didn't accept the shipment. This is different from their previous stand that I was not  available when delivery was attempted. (I don't accept this story either). She said that she will talk to their logistic team and get back to me latest by tomorrow morning (September 12th). I have demanded a written reply from them confirming that order was never shipped.

Update - September 12th 2013

I did not get any email or call from Snapdeal. Got following reply on twitter. Snapdeal could not keep another promise.

Adarsh Munjal (@TheBigBhookad) started a hashtag - #SnapdealSucks on twitter. He was able to get his order shipped at 4 pm. Snapdeal missed two of their deadline - yesterday evening and today morning 10 am.

Update - September 13th 2013

As expected, Snapdeal didn't follow up with me on this. They didn't even have courtesy to reply me on this. 

Monica from snapdeal promised a reply to me by 11th September. I hope I am the last person to whom they didn't keep the commitment. Snapdeal also has changed the order status to returned which is a complete lie. It should be either in canceled status or never shipped. 

Also, price of the machine has been raised by Rs 1200. So, this proves my point that I put in section- Another Possibility above.

While I was fighting with Snapdeal, Healthkart shipped my order in less than 3 days. The would have shipped another 6 hours earlier if I would have been at home. :)

Since Snapdeal is showing such indifferent behavior towards it customer and rude to an extent of not replying, I am not going to try to communicate with them any further. Snapdeal, It was sad shopping at your site. 

Airtel 3G activation and Incorrect data usage metering

I have been quite-no-crib customer of Airtel for almost three years. I had initial issues but life was going pretty smooth with them since then. Only till August 16th when I got a call from Airtel regarding 3G migration and good plan where I was offered 500 local calls, 300 local and national sms, 200 MB 3G data free. Rental was Rs 600 but I was offered 50% discount for 24 months. I was currently on Rs 199 rental plan + Rs 99 gprs. So, this sounded good. I was told that new plan will be activated within 4 hours and I will get sms for confirmation.

I didn't get any confirmation on plan change till next day. I called the number back but it was switched off and then I tweeted to airtel_presence. All tweets screenshots posted at end of this blog. I got reply to tweet but no action till 20th when I got following sms.

The above sms, which I received on 20th August at 4:24 pm, talks about free local calls and sms but no information regarding free 3G data or discount on rental. In fact, it says data will be charged volume based. Since I don't want to pay airtel for talking to customer care, I chose to tweet to them. Again tweet was responded but no call for a day. I got a call on Tuesday 5:22 pm but since I was riding cycle from office to home, I couldn't take the call. I again chose to tweet. I got following sms.

This sms, which I received on 21st August at 7:07 pm, talks about discount on rental but again no information on free data plan. Shocker was to follow. After 7 minutes, I received following message.

Following are screenshots from airtel website which shows my unbilled usage till 20th and 21st. If I have used 740 MB, my unbilled usage should be more than Rs 4,500 in 2G plan or Rs 2,250 for 3G plan. But amount is much lesser and compared to my usual usage.

Folllowing important points to be noted

1. SMS talks about 3G data usage till 20th. 3G data got activated only on 20th at 4:24 pm
2. Timing of this sms – just 7 minutes after activating  discount on rental. Now what Airtel, recovering your rental discount?
3. According to my earlier 2g data plan, I should have been informed when I was near to 300 MB or crossed it. But that never happened.
4. My unbilled usage as per website is much lesser than what claimed by sms. 

I got a call on 22nd August. And lady confirmed that I have used data of 740 MB. And there is no way they can find detail till bill is generated. I got really pained by the answer. I asked her to cancel my 3G and put me back to my previous plan and 2G internet. My 3G got deactivated but 2G internet was not enabled. With no more option, I tweeted again. I got another call on 23rd August. I then came to realize that I am still on this new plan but without 3G network. My plan was switched then but informed that they can't do anything till bill is generated.

I have raised this issue with Airtel before the bill is generated. Instead of investigating the issue, I have been asked to wait till the bill is generated. And only then they can't check the usage detail. There are enough stories on net where fraud bill has been generated and then they have been harassed to pay the bill. Airtel even involves collection agency to collect the pending bill amount. I surely don't want to go through that. And I hope Airtel listens. 

Following are all twitter messages that I sent to Airtel. 

Sir, we can't register your complaint.

Indian telecom and Internet service providers are quite popular for their pathetic customer service. Mostly due to process issues between their customer center team and their engineering team where there is no mechanism for customer representative team to push their back-end teams to resolve issues or get a reverse feedback of an issue from the back-end team. But I was recently shocked when a reliance customer center executive told me that they can't register my complaint. Yes, you read it right he didn't register my complaint.

Here is how it started. I logged into to reliance website to pay Internet bill. I don't use any of reliance telecom product. And hate their website as much as their any other service. But have to log in every month once to just pay the bill for my wife. As a regular monthly ceremony, I initiated the payment from their website. Reliance telecom website uses billdesk for payment services. So, it directed me to bill desk site. After first level authentication of credit card number, name, expiry date and cvv code, it redirected me to my credit card website to enter my credit card password. After successful payment, I should be redirected to billdesk site and then automatic re-direction to reliance website for generating receipt. Instead I got an error which is from billdesk.

I had got text message from credit card company regarding usage of credit card and I was very confident that issue had happened between billdesk and reliance website. This means the amount have been debited from my credit card account.

Being a good appreciator of self service, once again I logged into reliance website to log a complain regarding this issue. I shuffled through their various categories and subcategories and couldn't find any relevant option to log this complain. I just decided to use one billing category, hoping that somebody will anyway look at complain. Surprisingly, they allow only 200 characters. Now, which complaint can be written in just 200 characters especially against Reliance service. Or they might have been influenced by twitter. If folks can raise their issues with Airtel_presence there, then why not here too. Nevertheless, cutting all possibles words that I could cut, I typed the complaint and click submit. As I should have expected, even logging complaint failed with an error.

I decided to call their customer center. Not that I like talking to them but I was left with no option. I patiently explained the issue to him. He suggested that I should call the bank. I once again attempted to explain that this is not really bank issue as issue happened after redirection back from bank. But he persevere as he might have been trained to. I am sure anybody who has talked to any of these telecom call center executive can imagine what I was going through. I actually tried third time. And when he repeated that I should talk to bank, I asked him if he can at least log a complain. And he repeated again that I should talk to bank first. Now, that was frustrating. I repeated – can you just log a complain? No sir, I can't do it – he replied. What, why – I exclaimed. Shocked me asked why can he log a ticket. He replied that he doesn't have option to log this ticket. Are you kidding – I seriously asked. I had a payment issue at your website and you can't log a ticket. And he was back to his perseverance that this is bank issue. I wasn't in for any further argument. I almost shouted - Can you just give me an email id or phone number where I can inform this issue. He was agitated too and gave me customer center email id.

I wrote a mail to this email id. Somebody called next day and informed that they have received the payment and replied the same on email. And now I wonder if something could be resolved on email, then why not the same could have been resolved through their ticketing system or call center. Indian telecom and ISP providers really need to work on their processes.