Ekstop — EkStop: Big Fraud & Scamming Customers

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Mumbai City, Maharashtra

I recently saw an offer on EkStop which said product B (worth ₹. X) free with product A. I ordered (ORD523777) for product A, along with a few more. At the time of delivery I only received product A, and another product similar to B, and only worth ₹ Y (Y < X/3). This I believe is cheating the customer, if you say you would give product B worth ₹ X, you are bound to provide the same, you can’t send product C worth ₹ Y (Y < X/3). I have purposely used X & Y, so that the values (low or high being subjective) of goods don’t diminish the fraud going around.On posting a complaint (##12157##, 5th October), I got a response, on 6th October, saying I would be credited with the balance amount. I waited for a two full weeks nothing happened, so I sent another response on 19th October. This time they credit Eks points to my account, but only worth ₹ X/2-Y, claiming“We present you half of the offer product amount in Eks points. For any offer which we offer to our customer and not get delivered or some other issue we refund them half of the offer amount in Eks points.”This was unacceptable, you can’t sell a product with an offer, and then not honor that offer as well as be unwilling to refund for return. The customer should at least have an option to either the take the alternative offer and get refund and return goods. Big fraud going on at EkStop in my opinion.Let’s take an example to understand this scam. Assume they have an offer which says, buy onions worth ₹ 1000 and get Tomatoes worth ₹ 200 free. But at the time of delivery, you actually get free ketchup worth ₹ 80. And if you bother to complain, and follow up, you get credited ₹ 20 and that too in Eks points. Look at the very convenient math scam here, even while they credit half amount, they don’t do (200-80)/2 = ₹ 60, they try to squeeze as much money as possible from their so called valued customers and do (200/2-80) = ₹ 20, not to mention the fatter margin they have on ketchup over raw tomatoes.My demands were very reasonable, either give me what you promised to give, or take back what you instead provided and give my money back. They instead just want to loot customers by posing fake offers and then not honoring the offer. Checking their terms @ http://www.ekstop.com/TermsOfUse.aspx I do not see any mention of half value credit points for non-availability of offer.In another instance, although I never placed a formal complaint for this, for my ORD518254, the delivery time slot I had chosen was Oct 1 (or may have been 2 or 3) time 10PM-12AM. I get a call from their delivery guy at 6-7PM, I could not receive that and called back a few minutes later, he was calling to check if he could deliver at 7PM instead. I did not mind that, but the delivery guy had left for the next delivery and said he would instead deliver at the initially agreed slot of 10PM-2AM, which worked for me and we agreed and I told him we would be available at the said time. But the delivery did not happen that day, next day I get an email stating the delivery has been rescheduled for Oct 6! And why? Apparently I did not respond to their call!!! I agree I did miss their call at 7PM, but that wasn’t the agreed time slot anyway, and I courteously called the delivery person back and confirmed my availability for the agreed time slot. If EkStop can’t make a delivery, they should own up, apologize and provide delivery immediately the next day. Instead they choose to blame the customer for no fault of his own, and reschedule the delivery for a week later! This also wasn’t my first order, so they had delivered before and knew I was genuine customer and the delivery address was genuine, I see no reason to not come to my doorsteps and try to deliver. If I had to guess, it was the start of a long weekend and the city witnessed massive jams that night, this might have caused the failure to deliver. I would have appreciated if they had owed up to the real reason, and not blame me for their misdoings, and provide me delivery the immediate next day.I have checked all their terms @ http://www.ekstop.com/Delivery.aspx & http://www.ekstop.com/TermsOfUse.aspx and I see no mention which states the customer is obligated to receive and call, and failing to which the order would be rescheduled. Instead it says“If you were not available to accept the delivery we will attempt to contact you for alternate delivery instructions. If no contact is established then we will leave a note at your door with our customer contact number to reschedule the delivery.”Whereas I was very much available to accept the delivery, I did not miss any doorbells for sure, and definitely did not see any note.At both these instances one thing stands out, EkStop does not care about their commitment to the customers, they don’t value their customers. They only value money and can go to any lengths to loot customers.Source: http://ahumbleopinion.com/ekstop-big-fraud-scamming-customers/