The Pricing Fraud at Amazon.in
Amazon bought with it what they call the “Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company” when it started operating in India. I realized a little darker side of fraud on Amazon.
Few months ago there was all in shopping season, I bought the product WD My Passport Ultra 1TB for Rs 3999 under Lightening Deal Order# 403–7512029–#######. It arrived in a few days in all good shape, on time.
It was Review Time: But wait, Fake discounts???
Few days later, it was time for writing a Review for the product, but to my surprise the product was available at the same price without discounts. During the sale this product was available in Lightning Deal for a price of Rs 3999 [MRP Rs 6930 — Rs 2,931.00 (42%)]. But post sales even without discount the offer price was Rs 3999.
How can a product be available at the same price when it was discounted and now, without discount. There was no discount, just the illusion. This is known to happen across multiple E-Commerce sites. But was not expected at Amazon.
Help me Amazon
I thought this was an error and needed to be fixed, I was feeling cheated. So I contacted Amazon support. The service experience I got with Amazon was on par with what you expect with Government organisations here, they keep you moving here and there no resolutions.
The executives were beating around the bush always and passing the buck over. Not ready to even acknowledge that something was wrong.
Replies were like :
- It depends on Sellers.
If we go by this, we should be more and more cautious with the Marketplace model as the representatives here portray that they have no control over the sellers, which is incorrect as a Marketplace they have atleast some control by SLAs and Agreements with the sellers.
2. Product Prices Vary
Its Okay for the MRP to be different than whats shown on Amazon.in
One rep said that its okay to have different MRPs and you can conveniently report this by clicking “Tell us about a lower price”. However, this solution was misleading, this doesn’t report fraud but: in Amazons Own words:
Tell Us About a Lower Price is a feature that lets you to notify us of a lower price you found elsewhere, for items sold on our website. We convey the feedback received through this feature to sellers.
Let us take if Offline
Now Amazon Support was getting defensive. They tried to derail the conversation by saying that it’s an account related issue and “we need to verify few security questions related to your account, payment methods, etc and it is not safe to get account details via email due to security reasons”
You get to see such reasons only from crooks who are trying to lure you into a trap. It was ironic because to reset my Amazon account password i answer security questions and all online. I don’t call or write a letter.
I responded accordingly:
Plain Fraud…. MRP label was tampered,
In the meantime, I was looking at the packaging of the product and to my shock, the MRP label was covered under another label, that was added by either CloudTail Or Amazon because this product was Fulfilled By Amazon.
The real MRP was 5350 and it was mentioned as 6930 MRP…
Now this was a clear fraud and not an oversight or error of “fake disccount, but the MRP was intentionally hidden beneath the label.
At this point, i was sure to get a resolution by all means but standard modes of support provided by Earth’s Most Customer Centric company were not helping. Even after highlighting this fraud.
Contact Jeff… maybe?
After 10–20 Emails and chats, getting no resolution it clicked my mind that Jeff had provided a public email jeff@amazon.com in response to the famous NYTimes Story Inside Amazon Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. I thought this is the Last resort.
Yeah, Jeff’s Email was yet another Team Mailbox here, but these guys were at least bit sensitive and taking cognizance of the issue. After some conversations, they agreed it was a Problem and fixed the pricing on the product page and as a token of apology they asked if I would like to have the difference credited to my Amazon Account as Gift Card.
NOT ALONE: I was not alone who was affected in this fraud.
My problem was sort of resolved, though I did not get the money back I used the difference for some other purchases. However on the same day of sale, there were numerous other people who purchased the same product .
What about others who were also cheated?
I have heard of stories about Amazon being responsible, caring in many instances. So I thought what actions Amazon would take to ensure that such thing never happens again.
I asked simply:
- What possible actions are they going to take against CloudTail.
- What process changes are they going to implement if any? Because Amazon talks a lot about Ethics and Lawful practices here Supply Chain Standards:
The Executive Support team gave crappy reasons of Privacy for Not disclosing the progress / detail of the Investigation.
I asked who’s privacy are they concerned about, if it was CloudTail, which is a Company the information can be easily found on publicly accessible records like Zauba Or at the MCA website.
To this they replied:
Any further inquiries on this matter will not receive a response.
You may ask : Why write months later.
Point is, i was procrastinating since a good time. The most recent Amazon Sales email few days ago forced me to write it now as it will be better for some people to know, though the sale is over now. Because when you buy on Amazon, you cant just leave it to Trust…
Next time you go for buying a product on Amazon follow this:
1. Don’t buy if its Sales :D
2. Just so we know such products (Electronics) are always sold below the MRP (that’s why its called maximum retail price).
3. Once you get the product, ensure it has the MRP label intact.
4. Return product if no price label is mentioned.
And if you experience any issues, be ready for an email war probably by the 15th or 20th email your issue would be resolved.
Or just better leave it for destiny.
Conclusion ?
Overall, Amazon did not live up to the expectations that it sets by self. Amazon doesn’t want to get this resolved as it is either a part of this scheme Or it doesn’t want to disturb its relation with CloudTail which appears to be popular seller on the marketplace.
A slight hint, that they would work with the partner and come up with changes in process or agreements, would have been enough.
Their arrogance over not entertaining a customer towards such critical issue is pathetic.