Paytm - A Big Scam

This blog is to share my horrible experience with paytm.com.

Paytm
Paytm is one of the mobile/dth recharge website, which recently came into the on-line retail business.
But I had a horrible experience with the site and it's so called "CUSTOMER CARE"
Here is the sequence of events happened to me in recent time.

New Order Placed (Worth Rs. 15199 )
1. Ordered B'TWIN Rockrider 5.1 Bicycle which was listed at price 15199 (Price on other websites were less than this.)

What made me to order overpriced product from Paytm.com?
Off course, there was cashback of whopping 5000 INR, which makes effective price of the product to just 10k, isn't this enough to order from paytm.com? But I think it was biggest mistake of my shopping experience ever.

What happened next?
Well everything appeared to be fine, when next day order got confirmed by the seller and I received sms and email as well. This made me happy, And I started  planning for my next buys from the cashback.

Next Series of events

While waiting eagerly for my product to be delivered, next mail was for the shipment. That made me happier, because with this amazing deal and timely shipment of the order made me feel positive about Paytm.com, and yes I recieved the cashback of Rs.5000 immediately after shipment, in my PAYTM wallet. But.....

• I checked the tracking link provided.. and it was  not traceable.

Said, the provided Tracking id is invalid. I thought, might it take some time to reflect on the website.

So waited for next update.

• Sigh of relief (Though temporary)

Received sms on my phone, that my product would be delivered next day. So I was happy and eagerly started waiting for my product. Felt awesome that I could utilize my weekend with the new product. But next day.. the date of delivery (Mentioned in the sms), whole day passed and no one turned up or called.

• I made my mind that if the product is not delivered till monday(7th July, I'll check with customer care. And on monday as well, the product was not delivered. Also the tracking id didn't worked still.
• Called customer care of Gati with provided tracking id. And as expected, they were too clueless with the provided tracking id and said, provide us the correct tracking id.
• Meanwhile, With cash back(5000Rs) lying in my Paytm wallet, I thought of utilizing, with my few pending purchases, so I bought products again from Paytm which were again listed overpriced on paytm.com
• Bought product for 1800Rs (cashback 668) Effective price came to be Rs 1170. Good enough? 

Same is available on flipkart.com Rs 1099+200 =1299Rs. So appeared to be a good deal to catch it at paytm.com

• Eventually called the customer care of Paytm.com (Had to find the customer care number from internet, which not easily appears on the website). It seems, paytm.com customer care are just trained to reply with same sentence always. "Sir We understand your concern, I have forwarded your query with related department and the product would be delivered in 3-4 days at max"  Really pathetic.
• Talked to customer care every alternate day with my product untraceable and non delivery, but got the same above replies everytime.
• It went till 12-july, when I raised my concern on #paytmcare on twitter. Again it was the same reply, that product will be delivered soon.
• After my tweet complaint, in evening, I received sms(), 

And with this sms, paytm order details showing I would receive a refund of 10001.

Paytm calculation 15001(Which I Paid through my account) - 5000(Cashback provided by paytm) = 10001. Sounds good?    NO

Why I feel I have been cheated by Paytm.com?

• With the above calculation, everything seems to be normal. But... What about my remaining money? After all still I have been charged 15001Rs from my account and the remaining amount(5k cashback) after my purchase on Paytm.com is still lying in my paytm wallet. But is this fair?
• Paytm has charged me for the product which it was not able to deliver, and providing me paytm cashback in the wallet, refund only deducting the cashback, and this will only force me to buy from paytm. I afraid, anyone with such a poor experience will ever continue to buy from Paytm.com
• Unwantedly paytm has charged my 5k extra and keeping it in the wallet under my account.(Remember, the product is not delivered at all even after advanced full payment)
• Without cashback, I wouldn't have bought any further product from paytm.com. With such huge amount in the wallet, I am forced to utilized it somehow.
• This way of providing cashback into the paytm wallet for the product which was never delivered, is kind of forfeiting the amount, and has intention to force customer to buy from their site only.

Now What I expect from Paytm.com?

1. Deliver the product which I ordered first with same price, I don't expect refund, but the product right away. Remember, as per sms, the product is delivered back to the vendor, so vendor should have this in stock?
2. If paytm.com is not able to deliver the product, with whatever the reason. provide me the full refund into my a/c and not in the paytm wallet.(Take away the remaining unutilized cashback from my wallet)
3. Stop using inflated listing prices (keep cashback to a limit where no one is at loss).
4. Keep your customer care more effective, and customer communicated everytime.
5. Keep a tab on vendor, whether the provided tracking id is working or not.
6. Change your business process of crediting the cashback immediately after product is shipped, Instead, provide cashback, once the product is successfully delivered and confirmed by vendor/courier or buyer. This would make sure that their remains no confusion while refund, as in my case.

People expect refund in their accounts and not in wallets, when their is no fault from customer side and especially when the amount is huge.

This experience could have been avoided, if on the very first complaint, tracking id issue has been sorted out with courier partner/ vendor.

So with such experience, I would suggest customers to 

STAY AWAY FROM WWW.PAYTM.COM 

and its so called CASHBACK offers.

Till then :

• I will keep on taking this issue with paytm escalations, support etc and off-course, to social media, if not resolved at earliest.
• Will not utilize my remaining cash in paytm wallet, until this is resolved.
• Will keep you guys posted with latest updated on this.

#PayTmMatKaro

Guys Requesting you to please share on your social network profiles, so that no other innocent guys are caught in trouble with these frauds. 

Avoid paytm.com and avoid getting duped.

P.S. All the screenshot and pictures are from my account and phone only. And further details/ proofs could be provided on request.

Update: Paytm Care called me, to credit back the amount from my wallet minus the amount which I have earned from my other orders :S . I agreed for this, atleast I would have some amount back in my CC. But why the hell should I have purchased, when these guys have not provided me a cashback at first? Paytm S@#$# Real time.