Name of Complainant	Badrinarayan
Date of Complaint	November 18, 2024
Name(s) of companies complained against	Banjara electronics
Category of complaint	Electronic Appliances
Permanent link of complaint	Right click to copy link
Share your complaint on social media for wider reach

I was in the market for a premium soundbar system when I found this DODGY website pop up on my search list selling items at very low prices. They were selling unboxed items and were quite transparent about it; so, to their credit, I knew what I was getting myself into from the start. However, that’s the only positive thing about this business. The website itself was poorly built with descriptions and policies apparently copy-pasted from other platforms. The text was so badly written that a layman could spot the mistakes in it.

I placed my order on the 8th of October for a Samsung HW Q900A soundbar which cost me exactly Rs.25,915 – a good Rs.20,000 less than the closest second offered on the online market. And I had to pay in advance for the order. Once placed, the only response I got was a very brief confirmation message on whatsapp from a parent company called Dukaan. The seller didn’t bother to send me a proper confirmation. I then had to message customer care only to learn that the dispatch would take 2-3 days. What followed was a very long 4-day gap when the seller kept me in the dark about shipping the order. When I tried calling them at the end, the number went unanswered several times on the trot. And the customer service lady took hours to respond to my message only to say that the item was not available with them but they were looking to procure it from elsewhere and that it would be ready to ship in 2 days’ time. Hence the wait persisted for 2 more days. It was a Monday morning and the same thing repeated. They had my money, the item was clearly not available with them and on top of that they hadn’t sent a single email officially acknowledging the order or about the delay, giving me absolutely no leverage on this trade. The best part of this was when they stopped answering my calls or messages. At the end the person texted me a two-word ‘Not available’. Now, as a responsible customer, I started spamming their Help number in the hope that they would reply but the lady on the other side picked up the call after several failed attempts and started shouting at me for it. After a heated conversation, she had the audacity to say that she cannot refund the money immediately and that it would take 30 days. To quote the lady word for word when I asked her for the money to be returned immediately and to have an email sent to me about the cancellation, she said, “I cannot refund, what now? I cannot send email, now?”  What ticked me off was the fact that she sternly refused to send me an official email acknowledging the failure on the seller’s part, or even a promise of refund on a later date. That would have helped build some confidence but no, the seller, one of the Malviya duo – I think – running the business thinks she’s above all the marketing obligations of a seller to a customer. 15 days on, no information about the refund. 20 days and now she picks up the call on the 3rd or 4th attempt, she shouts at me again for enquiring and hangs up on me. She says, ‘I’ve told you to wait for 30 days. It takes what it takes. Why do you keep asking me every 3 days about the refund?’ when I clearly called her up only 13-14 days later. Moreover, why should a refund policy govern a cancelled order? How is it even natural that you pay for a product, discover it’s not available and then you’re asked to wait for 30 days for nothing? If a seller can’t send me the item I need immediate action taken to refund the money! 
If anything the customer service needs to apologise for being unresponsive for such a long time, but instead, she shouts at an aggrieved customer for repeatedly trying to get in touch! Have you got no shame? No sensible person expects an instant reply from anyone much less from a merchant. But you delayed answering by days if not more. What do you expect a customer who’s paid so much for nothing in return to do? Just believe you when after all this drama that went on for a month you say ‘refund hoga’? And you had the balls to say: You just have to believe me. I can’t do anything! 

After 30 days of this most unnatural purchase, they tell me that the refund will ‘happen’ after midnight. A midnight that never arrives for this seller because 4 days on from the date the refund was due, they still asked me to wait till midnight, and again after 2 more days, having absolutely no clue when they might refund. 
I’ve called them no less than 20-30 times and this lady refuses to answer, and even disconnects my calls while it rings. Once or twice that she picked up, she said absolutely nothing except that she’s the owner and she will see to it that I get refunded. 

40 days on and I have not received my money.

Image Uploaded by Badrinarayan: