Flipkart.com - Beware of refunds. Review on Flipkart

So Flipkart.com is India's answer to Amazon.com and rightfully so - they have a pretty impressive collection of books and other consumer products and let's face it, their pricing is better than anywhere else. I have been an online shopper since 2006, so I know what I am talking about here.

After being a frequent customer of Ebay and Futurebazaar.com, I stumbled upon Flipkart.com and was immediately pleased by their website and the pricing of their products. So I started buying from their website.

All was going well, until I bought a Creative HS 390 headset for INR 526.00 which was faulty and I demanded a replacement under their 30 day replacement guarantee - I got a call from Flipkart informing me that the defective item would be picked up from my home within the next 2-3 days and I will be issued a store credit once the defective unit reaches their warehouse.

After a bit of following up, the courier guy came to my place and picked up the headphone on the 13th of September and I informed Flipkart on that very day of the pickup so that they can follow up with their logistics partner and expedite the return process. It's been 14 days now and as per Flipkart the product has not yet reached their warehouse. It's weird that when flipkart ships an item, it reaches within 2-3 business days but at the time of returning a product(using the same logistics company) it takes more than 14 days to reach the warehouse. To start off with, I don't buy this.

Secondly - it's been close to 20 - 25 days now that I have paid for the product which I am yet to receive. I keep following up with Flipkart and everytime they inform me that the product has not yet reached their warehouse and so they're unable to issue me a store credit.

Now my question is - Where did I go wrong? Why should I be paying the price for this delay?

Flipkart sent me a faulty product and assigned a logistics company of their choice to pick up the product from my end and deliver it to their warehouse. Then why on earth should I be kept waiting for the store credit to be issued? What role can I play in sending the product back to their warehouse apart from getting it properly packed, labelled and handing it over to the courier pick up guy, which I did. Then why should flipkart be holding on to my money until the product is delivered to their warehouse? Am I responsible for the delivery? Absolutely not!

As a customer I don't care if the product is lost in transit or is delayed for whatever reason it may be - I don't have a role to play in the return process, I am in no way responsible for the return - it's completely flipkart and their logistics partner who are responsible for it. Flipkart should have issued me the store credit the moment they got the confirmation from their logistics partner that the product has been picked up, that's where my responsibility ends.

This is what sets flipkart.com apart from it's foreign counterparts. Sachin Bansal talks about how Flipkart leaned customer service from Amazon and boasted about practising it religiously, but I don't see a proper customer service being practised here - it's nothing but mere stupidity.

I was starting to like flipkart and was already planning to make some big purchases from them but this recent incident portrayed how non-sense and lousy their return policy is - and in my opinion, a company who is not as proactive in their refunds/ replacements as they are with making sales, cannot be deemed as a trustworthy and customer friendly company.

I have decided to quit flipkart - I am a heavy online shopper and just cannot afford to spend money with a company who are callous, lousy and don't care about customer satisfaction.

I will not discourage the readers of this review from shopping at flipkart - but just wanted to share my experience with them all so that they can be aware of the "AFTER SALES" service that they offer. I mean, come on, everyone can sale stuff but only a few can provide after sales services with as much enthusiasm as while making the sale.

Everything is fun and games until someone loses an eye. I just lost mine at Flipkart.com and so wanted to caution you all.

Rest your decision

God Bless