Shine.com — Deficiency of service

Address:

Bangalore, Karnataka

To
Mrs. Shobhana Bhartia,
Managing Director
Hindustan Times,
19, Friends Colony(West),
New Delhi-110 065. Dated : 28th Dec 2013

Dear Madam,

DEFICIENCY OF SERVICE - SHINE.COM JOB PORTAL

Aggrieved by the stonewalling, callous, indifferent attitude and poor customer service dished out by your team members, Shri Athiulla Khan & Shri Rahul Sharma, which has caused immense mental trauma and heart burning we are compelled to escalate the issue to you, details of which are furnished below :-

We had availed the services of your Job Portal Shine.com on 30th July, 2013 by entering into a contract and making an advance payment of Rs.71, 185/-. The list of offerings made by your Company on sign up of the contract is detailed in Annexure-I. Shri Rahul Sharma, Assistant Manager (Sales) and Shri Athiulla Khan (Sales) were hell bent to get the contract executed before 30th July, 2013, as they had to meet their month end target.

2. The services were activated by your Co. on 2nd September, 2013. With respect to the data base, we had no issues. However, the mailer campaign initiated by your team of Shri Sharma and Shri Khan was a total failure and the subsequent re-campaign of 50, 000 mailers was also not effective. We received only 19 enquiries pursuant to this campaign and that too from candidates staying at far away locations from our office. Inspite of repeated requests made to Shri Sharma and Khan, they have till date not submitted to us the report of the first campaign. Our request for initiation of 25, 000 Mailer campaign was not done even after repeated follow-ups. To add insult to injury, the logo of our Co. and Microsite is not yet displayed in your Shine.Com Home Page under Top Companies. As we were totally dissatisfied with the services of your job portal, we requested for cancellation of the service and refund of the payment made to Shine.com after deducting the payment for 50, 000 mail campaign that was initiated. The copy of the email dated 7th October, 2013 is attached as Annexure –II.

3. Our emails dated 11th October, 2013 (Annexure –III) and 20th October, 2013 (Annexure –IV) elicited no responses. Finally, Shri Khan responded with a mail dated 22nd October, 2013 (Annexure –V) with an apology for the dilatory tactic adopted by them and promised to fix up the issue regarding the Logo and Microsite and shooting the emails, as desired by us. As we felt that the services were below par and the response time was deliberately being extended to test our patience, we reverted with an email dated 23rd October, 2013 (Annexure – VI) to cancel the services and arrange for the refund immediately. We followed up with a mail dated 24th October, 2013 (Annexure –VII) to arrange for refund the amount since your Co. had not kept up the commitment of displaying our Co. logo and making the Microsite live.

4. We addressed an email dated 7th November, 2013 (Annexure –VIII) requesting for refund and cancellation of the services. Shri Khan and Shri Rahul resorted to stone-walling tactics and deliberately avoided our calls and furnished flimsy reasons of being busy in the meeting etc. They had no courtesy to revert and were repeatedly disconnecting our calls.

5. In response to our above email and telecom, Shri Khan has sent an email dated 7th November, 2013 (Annexure IX) taking shelter under some provisions to deny us the refund demanded by us. instead they are trying to appease and placate us by intending to give us some value Ads, as a pacifier which we do not require at all at this point of time from your Co. Further, Shri Rahul and Shri Khan to cover up their lapses, are coming up with newly cooked up formula through the email dated 15/11/2013 (Annexure –X) to deny us our refund.

6. We reverted with an email dated 15/11/2013 stating that we do not want any other alternative proposal and clearing asking for a refund since we did not trust the credentials of Shri Khan and Shri Rahul as they failed to come up with any tangible report of the email campaign. This clearly indicates that they are bluffing, and therefore, we are not interested in continuing with your services any further.

7. We regret having taken the services of Shine.Com going by the reputation of Hindustan Times Newspaper. We decided to experiment with a new service provide like Shine.com, instead of going for a tried and tested job portal which was being used by us for the past 5 years without break. We have burnt our hands badly and are business is severely affected by taking the services of Shine.com. We will never again venture to go in for Shine.com and would also share our bitter experience with others, when they ask for the feedback of the services of Shine.com

8. Since there has been a big let down by your service provider and no tangible solution appears to be in sight, we are left with no other alternative than escalating the issue and seeking intervention of your good offices to arrange for the refund at the earliest.

8. In case nothing is heard from your end by 15th January, 2014, we shall be compelled to approach the Consumer Forum for redressal of our grievances.