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A software engineer from Technopark, shares his bitter experience with Big Bazaar, one of the biggest retail outlets in Trivandrum.
Beware of Big Bazaar cheating!!??
Now a days even a small retailer will replace sold goods if they seem to be not working. See this case where the dealer is Big Bazaar (One of the largest retail chain in India), Trivandrum.
I purchased a 4 GB Transcend Pen drive from Big Bazaar(Kesavadapuram) on August 1st. At the time of buying they claimed that the product has 2 year warranty. After buying that I came home and checked it with my PC. It was not detected by my PC. (Win XP OS ). Then I tried another configuration but that too did not detect the device. That day itself I went to Big Bazaar, Kesavadapuram with the bill and the box including the Warranty card and other packaging.
I directly contacted the manager who was in charge of the Electronic goods section. He said that he is helpless and they can’t replace it with a new one. I argued that at the time of selling they had said that they would provide full service for the product. But he said they don’t service ‘Transcend’ and I have to send it to the ‘Transcend’ service center in Bangalore. I contacted other persons in their office and complained but everyone said the same story.
Then I went to the Big Bazaar office at East fort (the time was around 8 pm). I told the matter to the security. He refused to let me inside with the packet and told me to come the next day. There was a large crowd and I told this matter to people surrounded there. At last the security allowed me to go inside and I met the manger. I told him that I had just opened the pack and inserted the Pen drive into my PC but was it not detected. This guy also repeated the same words I heard earlier.
Next day I registered a complaint with Transcend, US through their website(http://www.transcendusa.com ) . But they said that they didn’t have any authorized service center in India and Big Bazaar is not a dealer of their product. But Big Bazaar claimed that Transcend has a service center at Bangalore. The address given by ‘Big Bazaar’ for the Transcend service was ‘Intellic systems, Bangalore’. I didn’t send the damaged item to Bangalore (I don’t want to loose the courier charge too).
My doubt is whether they are they selling the genuine goods or duplicates? It is apparent from my experience that Transcend is not responsible for their products sold by Big Bazaar. So please think twice while buying goods from there.
Thanks and Regards,
Ajith Raj
Software Engineer,
Technopark, Trivandrum
Please post your comments and suggestions to Ajith and please make sure that the goods you buy from any shop are genuine ones and that you are not spending your money on fake goods/services.
Readers,
Thank you so much for your overwhelming response for the Big Bazaar post. Your comments and feedbacks spread across the globe, and it’s got a good result. see the testimony from Mr.Ajith Raj.
“I got a very positive response from Bigbazaar,Yesterday(20-08-2008) morning Mr. Sujith Kumar(Assistant manager, Big Bazaar Trivandrum) and Akhilesh called me. Then Sujith came to our Technopark office and discussed the issue. He apologized for the incident and handled the issue in a very efficient and professional manner. Then he replaced the device with a new one and gave me a gift(pack of sweets). His behavior was very good. Akhilesh also called me and apologized about the incident.”
It is really great to see the Big Bazaar people realized the issue, and they responded accordingly. we should appreciate them for that.
it is very unfortunate and not expected from a world class retail player like big bazaar. its alleged that the goods which is sold by BigBazaar trivandrum are very less quality.
And who says Big Bazaar is world class? Even the rice grain they sell is of inferior quality compared to those that you get in margin free stores.
Sorry Ajith for what happened to you… i think every item sold in Big Bazaar is a product manufactured by them. It is same like in the UK and US, but they sell it under their brand along with other brand. Here in this country Seller is the king (Not to blame him), our fellow country men and women will accept any crap that comes in their way. I think it is the right of the consumer to return any product which dose not give you the satisfaction or service as told by the retailer.
I was in Big Bazaar with my Father to buy a DVD player for around RS 1200, we asked them to show us a demo, it was crap. Really crap. These people working with Big Bazaar doesn’t know any thing, not even what they are selling. The brand was called Passion. Thank God we decided not to take it.
Ladies and Gentlemen who are reading this please be sure that you check all electronic item sold in Big Bazaar. If they refuse to check it for you, do not buy. Please make sure that you take in writing that the item will be taken back if it is not working in later stage, within the warranty period. If they Say that the warranty is provided only by the producer, buy it from the producer.
For e.g.: you are buying a Nike shoe spending Rs. 3500.00, if they say that they cannot provide grantee go to the Nike showroom.
The HDD TV sold in Big Bazaar, is not good. HDD is only good when viewed using a HDD TV compatible box, which I think is not available in India at the moment. It is not the box that you get with Asianet.
So dear, friends take care. I’m not against Big Bazaar or any big retail chain, I’m against the polices in India as a whole, against people who doesn’t care for the value of money, the new generation who start work at the age of 20 and get 20,000 and month.
Any way, takes care and all the best
Regards
Alex
BigBazaar is selling cheap quality goods in kerala.the only attraction is the biggest shopping space A/c and elevators, thats a new experience to the shoppers in trivandrum.
Bigbazaar has their own brand in many products. but all of them are not quality products. they are playing trics with buyers and they are being cheated.
Dear All
I think people who work with Techno park belive that they are Americans. The kind of attitude they show on is quite unimaginable for a indian. Dear techies working in a us company does not make you people americans. Dear Ajith it is quite out of commensence that when you you buy a product and if it is defective you contact the retailer and if the retailer is not helping you you contact the service center in india rather in US. and even i had the same problem with a trancend pendrive which i brought from chennai. i contacted the service cener in baglore and then send the same by courrier to them which hardly cost me 20RS. and i got my pen drive replaced. I think you are lacking in either commensence to contact someone in india because you are still in US or your comapny is paying you too less to send a corrier. Dear Ajith having a blog and working in technocpark does not give you the right to post any non-sense aginst any individul or company. Dear friend in our consumeristic society it for the consumer to be aware of what they are buying and if a problem occurs get it resolved.. Rather than posting nonsence in public. coz recently also happend to see simlar post against another organisation.HSBC bank were another techiee was going hayware against them claiming entire HSBC bank is suriving because of the Technopark…… cant belive such things.
Dear techiee it is request that by doing such things you are creating or spoiling a already spoiled image of techiee in trivandrum.. stop considering yourself as god, trivandrum and it economy and people are not surviving be coz of you people, rather you people are suriving because of trivandrum. i still dont belive that the techiee are out to change the world through their blog, they are out to creat a coult of arrogant indian americans. who belivethat techopark is in Washington…………………… and they are all loyal citizen of the great president Bush
A Humble citizen…………..of India
Yes…
One of my relative also had bitter experience from BigBazaar… There was some offer like, if we take two bed sheets one will get on free… so they go for it, when the bill was printed they have taken money for all the three bedsheet… now a days we dont have the habit of cross checking the bill, what the cashier asks we used to pay… luckly they just checked the bill and find out the problem… when they told the matter to the cashier, he said.. sorry its a mistake….
in my opinion.. just go to bigbazaar to roam around not to buy..
its place to have good sight seeing.. 🙂
Why didn’t you consider the option of going to consumer court? I think you deserve the justice. Its not about money. But what will happen to common man if the retail ppl start cheating them and if no one does anything against it? Usually they replace the stuff with new one.
So in this case, I think you have to contact the area manager of Big Bazaar or India headquarters regarding this issue. I have did a googling about Big Bazaar and found out its owned by Pantaloon Retail. Here is the wiki link. Send a mail first and see what happens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bazaar
I think they will help you or atleast do something about it. You can also fwd that mail along with a detailed letter (this blog may be) with all the proof to the media also, both magazines and news papers. Don’t stop because you are fed up, we have to fight against it. I have done something similar around 2 yrs back, when I booked my 2 wheeler and the retailer was not at all helping. The result was amazing. My problem was solved in a couple of days 🙂
– Manu
Definitely we will get justice for any cheating.
Please see the addresses below. Anyone can go there and give complaints. You don’t have to enlist the support of a counsel to argue there.
KERALA STATE CONSUMER DISPUTE REDRESSAL COMMISSION
President,
State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission,
T.C.14/407,
Extra Police Road,
Palayam, Museum P.O
Thiruvananthapuram,
Kerala- Pin – 695033.
President,
Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum,
T.C.No. 9/2159, Faja Bhavan,Near S.B.T., Sasthamangalam, Thiruvananthapuram Pin – 695010.
(0471) 329451, (0471) 331069,
Binu, those days are gone… to satisfy with whatever the shops sells. it is the world of customers. they will decide which items to buy or not.
When a shop sells something, they are 100% responsible for the quality and quantity. you are not getting it as FREE. its the hard earned currency we are giving. Why the Technopark people are always bothering about it? because they are conscious about the customer rights and quality of products. shoppers can cheat the poor illiterate people. who doesn’t know how to protest of get their rights. so please don’t blame technopark employees.
thats true. customer has all rights to question, if the products not meeting the quality they offered. that was not happening in india, and that was the biggest drawback of indian retail industry and now it is improving.
Its applicable not only in technopark, everywhere in this business world
Hi
Place a complaint and get a copy of the complaint and acceptance receipt from the KERALA STATE CONSUMER DISPUTE REDRESSAL COMMISSION and give the copies of that to all news paper offices. I think at least Deshabhimani will publish that.
Naturally Big Bazaar people will contact you.
regards
harikrishnan
http://www.oneindia.in
http://www.thatsmalayalam.com
I too had a bitter experience with a large retail chain, not in Trivandrum but in Bangalore. I had ordered a book from Fabmall’s online service since the book was not available in the local market in Kerala at that time. The book was supposed to cost me Rs.3500/- for “Sun Certified Web Component Developer Study Guide”. I paid the money online using my friend’s credit cards (I don’t keep one). 3 months after the deal there was still no response from Fabmall. Fortunately I had a chance to go to Bangalore for 3 months soon after that. So I went to the Fabmall showroom in Forum and demanded the status of the book delivery. They said they didn’t deal with online purchases and I had to contact their head office. I went to their head office near MG Road only to find that they had moved elsewhere. Luckily I had the phone number of the person whom I had talked to in the Fabmall office at Forum. After several phone calls he gave me the phone number of the department that dealt with online purchases. This guy told me that there was no stock, as the book had to be imported from the US and they were waiting for new stock. This continued for two months when finally this guy said they didn’t have any stock and were not planning to get it either, so the money would be refunded back to my account. It did not end there. I had to make at least 15-20 calls to this guy in charge of online sales before finally the money was credited back to my account. By this time I was back in Kochi and I found a cheap paper back edition of the same book at just Rs. 350/- It was not a pirated book but an Indian edition of the same book. I think I spent that much money just on my phone calls to Fabmall.
I have heard some people saying they never had a bad experience with Fabmall, but this is my true story. Big retail chains are so huge that for them that a single customer who is not satisfied, is treated as dirt. Luckily I happened to be at Bangalore during this interaction. I don’t know how many others have undergone the same treatment and have not told their story, and maybe losing the entire amount on the online tranasction.
Gandhiji said that for the sales person the customer was god.. it doesn’t seem true any longer. It is the sales person who is god and we have to bear his whims and fancies in the process losing valuable time and money. My advice is don’t buy anything from these big malls, just go there and have a nice look at what is at sale- I say window shopping 🙂 Unless you are a high end buyer and don’t care for some money lost…..
Hi all,
I am from Kasaragod district. 5 yr back, all products are comparatively cheap here. Common people also complaining the technopark. we Engineers buy products as per sellers price. We are not bargaining, that is why they continuously increasing the price also. I am buying almost all the items from my place only because all products are cheaper than that of here. I am staying with ISRO peoples, so for me rent also cheap. Before 5yrs back, ISRO people has a chance to buy land for less than 3000 Rs/cent. Now for the same land it is 10-15 lack/cent. I just put the sentence above to give an example. Likewise for all the products they are increasing price without any standardisation.
Regards
Sukumaran
Want to highlight my horrible experience of shopping in Big Bazaar outlet in Palakkad. Unfortunately it’s not over yet as my order is yet to be delivered. I am hoping that someone accountable will look into this and push for a resolution soon please.
We purchased ~2 Lakh worth of furniture & electronic items for our new house…Dc no 199 and 1694 dated 25/Jan/2009. Since all the stock was not immediately available and we were told some of it had to brought in from Bangalore etc…we agreed with the local store rep Mr.Dilip, that we will pay in full for the purchase and the delivery will be made before 25/Feb (in 1 month). Mr. Dilip was confident that he will deliver in 15 days but I told him to take a month just so I factor in some ‘over commitment’ contingency.
Its 6/March and none of the items have been delivered yet. This is absolutely appalling given that I was charged the full price and given a promise. I am really tired of chasing the people who most of the times are completely clueless and poorly trained. Also spoke to the Regional Head in Bangalore Mr. Rajesh…twice…who promised that all the purchase will be delivered by this weekend but nothing has arrived so far (all fart no s**t) and the shop staff tell us that a few items are not in stock and not sure when it will arrive…disconnect between local leadership and people on the ground.. signs of a poorly run operation.
The lack of customer support and respect for good business is so obvious….we are so pissed that I am going to put this experience on every blog out there on Big Bazaar, will NEVER visit a BB shop EVER and will go out of my way to discourage customers to go to your shop.
I have seen bad customer service but this one beats the worst experience I have had in India
hi
as i m doing my project with big bazaar, i think that it is common sence that u a product sell in the market, but it will get repaired only in the service station. and that is all tell to the customer when he made the purchase for the product. i hope u understand my point .
and i m happy that u get ur product exchange.
A handsome earning techie should not be shopping in BB. If you have some brand consciousness, you would never go to BB. A place which openly sells stuff of smuggled quality. It is a good place for cheap kitchen plastics and nothing else. We have heard numerous stories of BB selling poor quality. It is a HUGE mess.
Still BigBazaar is the biggest shop in kerala
Hey – nice write-up. As we all know, the healthcare plan is getting its own reform. We still need to do plenty of research on the implications, but one thing that’s sure is that it won’t be cheap. How much of the original bill will be kept? Anyhow… cool blog – I’m subscribed to your RSS feed now so I’ll check in more often!
I Love your website. I’m gonna post a link on my Facebook Page!
Big bazaar is big but their customer service is the worst.