[Resolved]  Bata India Limited — Shoe Sole Crack - Defective Product and Poor customer Service

Address:

Gurgaon, Haryana

Dear Sirs I had visited BATA showroom located at 418/02 sector 17, Gurgaon on Feb 24, 2013 to buy a pair of quality leather shoe. The sales staff at the showroom showed me the pair of shoe bearing article number 8546884 from the Hush Puppies range brand. I was a bit hesitant considering the high price of the shoe – Rs 2999. The staff told me that it was the most superior quality shoe in the whole range of Bata and advised me to buy the same pair. They also told me that the said shoe was guaranteed to last a long life and given that they have never had any complaint against it, it would easily last a minimum of three years. Based on their assurances I bought the same pair of Hush Puppies shoes (article number 8546884) vide cash memo number 24-02-13/[protected] for an amount of Rs 2999.00. I was feeling good that I had made a supposedly good purchase and was expecting a long and quality service life from the said shoe. But to my utter disappointment, after a very short span o[censored]se, the sole of the right-foot-shoe torn off. This was all the more shocking as the product had been bought of such a reputed brand as Bata and for a hefty price and with very tall claims of quality and long service life. I visited the same showroom on 28-Sep-2013 with the said pair of shoes and the cash memo and met the store manager Mr. S L Gupta. Mr. Gupta appreciated my complaint and observed that since the shoe was in a good condition and only sole had torn off, and hence, such a defect was, without doubt, to be termed as DEFECTIVE PRODUCT and entitled for a full refund. But he expressed in inability to process a refund at his level as he said that he was authorized to process a refund only if the complaint was brought to his notice within 6 months of purchase. He further advised me that now I will have to approach Customer service (customer.[protected]@bata.co.in) and the refund will be processed by them. Hence I wrote an email to customer.[protected]@bata.co.in on Oct 09, 2013 requesting them to process a refund for the amount of Rs 2999 that I had paid towards the purchase of the defective shoe. The customer service replied on Oct 14, 2013 that the shoe was warranted only for a period of 60 days and hence, they would not provide any refund, repair or replacement option as complaint was being made after 60 days period had passed away. The complaint reference number was provided as 97921. This is utterly shocking that such a reputed brand as Bata has stopped so low as to outright reject a claim against their defective product, in the garb of such an abysmally small warranty period. Or they are themselves not confident of their products’ quality and they know the same will not last more than 2 months. If that’s true then their dealer’s practice of claiming 3 years life of Bata products is nothing short of cheating and unfair trade practice for undue monetary gain which is again a violation of my rights as a consumer. And the company too seems to be hand in glove with the dealers. Request you to please take up the issue with the company for a resolution in this case and improvement in the overall quality standards thereby improving the customer satisfaction. Thank You Dheeraj Bansal Contact No. :[protected] Email : dheeraj.[protected]@gmail.com