Reasons not to buy from Paytm

Dear Readers,

This post is specifically meant for Indian Consumers who shop Online. I am sharing a recent incident and my takeaway from the incident. I shop online on various sites, but am afraid to try any new website. Some of the sites on trusted list are Amazon.in, Flipkart.com, ebay.in, Myntra.com(which is now app only). When It comes to snapdeal I am a bit nervous.

I used Paytm to recharge and pay bills. Never had a problem with recharge. But paying electricity bill did not go through. One fine day I thought why not try their market to place to buy something. The discounts did catch my attention and they were very lucrative.  So finally I placed an order and ended up in a mess. My reasons not buy are:

 https://paytm.com/

No Paytm Customer Service over telephone. Only Email, Twitter, Facebook.

 This a huge problem. Paytm does not respond to emails. You tweet and they realize they have to respond. Most of the time it takes 24Hrs or more for a response.

Customer Service Executives are just insane

 The executives here do not read emails and respond. Maybe they don't understand English.  They ask you for product pictures in case you receive damaged or incorrect product. Once you send it to them they reply asking the same question over again.

Turn Around Time is way too high

Now unless you have all the time in the world and ready to let go off your money, this is not the place to buy. Let me share my incident.

Day1: Ordered a product (shipping/delivery: 4-6days.) Was happy that will get a cash back of Rs.300 on a purchase of Rs.900

Day2: Seller has not yet shipped the item.

Day3: Sellers ships the item.

Day4: Item arrives at my doorstep(wow that was quick)

I open the parcel in front of the delivery guy, just to ensure the product is in there. Here comes the surprise... its not what I ordered. I ask the delivery guy to take the parcel back. He denies and says...Sir agar aapko return karna hai to request dal do koi aur aakar el jayega(Translation: Sir, in case you want to return the product raise a request and somebody else will collect it.)

Now I was mad and furious. I emailed Paytm care... on their website they quote a turn around time of 4Hrs. but no response. I tweet and wait... no response.

Day5: I tweet and got a reply stating we have replied on your email. I check my email and they ask for a proof. They want me to send the images of the invoice, the picture of actual product and reason how is it different. No issues. I click some pictures and emailed.

Day6: No response. I tweet and another email drops in. Again they want me to send the proof. I suggest that I have already sent. Assuming some idiot might have deleted it, I send pictures again.

Day7: No response. I post on their Facebook account. Now they want me to fill another form on their FB page. So I tweet, same email and again asking for proof. (Now its driving me nuts), later got an email that a return request has been place. Product would be picked up in next 5-7days. Wonderful, now I have to wait for another 5 days. The experience does not end here..I am still awaiting for the product to be picked. Will update once somebody picks up the product.

Thanks for reading, please share you views and share this post as much as possible to help others from such agony.