Flipkart asked to pay ₹10,000 to customer over an Apple iPhone order. Why?
E-commerce platform Flipkart has been ordered by a consumer disputes redressal panel in Mumbai to pay a customer ₹10,000 for mental harassment suffered by him after the company cancelled his iPhone order.
In its order, the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission said that the cancellation by Flipkart was ‘intentional’ to make extra profit and amounts to
“deficiency in service and unfair and restrictive trade practice” adopted by the online platform, PTI reported.
The panel noted that the customer did get a refund, but he needed to be compensated for the ‘mental harassment and agony’ suffered due to a unilateral cancellation of the order.
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What happened in case?
The customer, who hails from Mumbai’s Dadar, ordered an Apple iPhone from Flipkart on July 10, 2022 and paid ₹39,628 using his credit card. According to the complaint, the smartphone was supposed to be delivered on July 12 that year.
But six days later, the customer got an SMS from the company saying that his order was cancelled. When reached out, Flipkart told the customer that their delivery boy made several attempts to deliver the product but he was unavailable and hence the order was cancelled.
The complainant alleged that the cancellation not only caused loss, but also mental harassment and subjected him to online fraud, the PTI report added. The company’s delivery partner Ekart Logistics was also a party to the complaint. But the commission noted that it is a delivery partner and there is no consumer and service provider relationship between the complainant and the logistics firm, PTI reported.
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Flipkart’s response
In its written response, Flipkart argued that the complainant mistakenly took Ekart as the seller of the product. The online delivery platform said that it merely operates as an intermediary, and all the products on the platform are sold and supplied by independent third-party sellers.
The seller in this case was International Value Retail Private Limited, and Flipkart had no role to play in the entire transaction entered between the complainant and the seller, the company added.
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Flipkart also claimed that it informed the seller of the complainant’s grievance, the latter said the delivery person had made several attempts to deliver the product to the address but the complainant was unavailable and hence, the order was cancelled by the seller.
The money has been refunded and the dispute exists only between the complainant and the seller, and there is no cause of action against Flipkart, it said.
