And The Worst Customer Service Experience Award of the Year Goes To Paytm

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E-commerce business is a boon to the technology industry, if done with proper Customer Service. There are so many companies available and others are planing to jump into the business. My first worst experience was shared in the post Freecharge.in Is A Scam For Me What About You? and after that I stopped making any purchase via such portals. I always preferred to do direct transactions on the vendor's site.

After the launch of Amazon India, I started shopping online again as I trust Amazon and glad that till now they are providing the best products with amazing customer service. I don't shop from sites like Flipkart, Myntra, ShopClues etc. The only two sites that I trust and use are Amazon and Jabong. Glitches happen at times but I never faced poor customer service or excuses for return.

At the beginning of this year, one of my office colleague "Nikhil Sareen" praised Paytm for their offers and discounts. Unofficially he is a brand ambassador of Paytm, who keep on purchasing stuff from the site. I was in need of an external hard drive and he informed me that he got one from Paytm. I had already got an external hard drive from Amazon, which was decent enough after a replacement from the company without any issues. I was in need of one more and was about to order another from Amazon India.
Freecharge.in Is A Scam For Me What About You? Beware Of Such Sites - See more at: http://www.apnidelhi.com/2011/04/freecharge-mobile-recharge-scam-site.html#sthash.d9EtIvzV.dpuf

Amazon has increased my trust on shopping portals and this time, I thought to give a try to Paytm. I know it was a bad decision but still another great experience of the digital era. Finally, I ordered an hard drive from the site and as a cash back offer was going on so it was a bit cheaper for me.

Before this order, I already got one from Amazon so I was aware about the new seal packed hard drive. Paytm displayed an estimated delivery of 4 days but I got the drive in 7 days, not an issue but it would have been better if they have mentioned the same at the time of order. Wrong expectations always hurt. As soon as I opened the drive, I understood that its not a new one. The drive was not sealed pack as shown below and it had an import date of October 2014, though I ordered the drive in March 2015. Could be because of less sale of 2 TB external drives via them but atleast it should be a non used drive, which it wasn't. I checked the warranty of the drive on WD site and it wasn't proper too.

Paytm External Hard Drive

The drive came from LEADTECH IT WORLD, BANGLORE as per the invoice dated 16th, March 2015 and was a used drive or not properly cared. As the seal was broken so I was not in a mood to use the drive. I didn't even plug the drive, as it could infect the PC. I went to Paytm website to contact the customer service but didn't find any phone number on the site. I was surprised to know that they don't have a customer service number to dial. Again, a new experience of its own.

Anyhow after few research, I was able to locate their email address and sent an email to "care@paytm.com" for the refund of the drive as shown below:

Paytm Refund Request Email

After that no reply from them on time and then I had to do more research to find out the email address for proper escalation. I found an email address which I guess was "head@paytm.com" and after that I always did a CC to this email address. I also didn't know that Paytm has terms and conditions for return as shown below. They asked for the pic of the drive, even when I intend to initiate the return on the delivery date. I sent an email to them within a day or two, once I was able to find the contact details.


Paytm Return Policy Condition


Even after that, guess what? They said that they can't arrange a pickup and asked me to do a courier. See their good business reply. Though they said that the courier charges would be credited, but who had all that time to do a courier for them.

                                                                                                                                                                         Paytm Unable Arranging Pickup Courier

And I was speechless on their awesome service. I am glad that Amazon and Jabong don't ask me for such exercises and the same was told to Paytm in my email.


Paytm Refund Procedure Experience

Finally they arranged a pickup and then the amount was refunded to my wallet which I transferred to my bank account as I wasn't in any mood to use their site ever after.

Paytm Initiated Bank Refund

Whatever amount was there in my wallet, I used for making few bill payments and I am glad that I didn't face any issue in that. I couldn't even think in dreams that an e-commerce site wouldn't provide a phone number to call. I am glad, that finally they have displayed a number on the site for those customer who still use their service.

I can understand that glitches happen and at times with Amazon customers as well. This is the reason I always order Amazon fulfilled products and till now haven't faced any issue. If they would have provided a proper return procedure then might be I would have kept using the services, but they taught a life long lesson again. Whenever buy stuff from any shopping portal then we must check the items immediately and don't sign the delievery slip without cross checking the stuff.

But again I am relaxed if the stuff is from Amazon, as I open and test the package when I have enough time on weekend, till then it keeps lying on my table. Anyhow, I won't use Paytm again, atleast till the time they provide something like Amazon Fulfilled type, where sellers send the stuff to the company and then the company send the product to the customer after proper checking and packing.

To be frank, the experience was a worst one and even if they provide such service then also I would avoid them. Still, they need to improve a lot in terms of the working of their site and the most important on something known as "Customer Service".

PS: They also need to stop tracking the browsing behavior and location of their customers in association with targeting mantra dot com

Special thanks to Manpreet for correcting the post title, a highly knowledgeable engineer from Microsoft Perf Team, for which he also won a 1 year license of Bitdefender Antivirus.


       

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