Listen to Neha's Story and Decide for Yourself....

(This story based on a true event. The product, name of the consumer, dealer and company have been altered to protect the identities of the people involved in the incident)

Neha is a 33 year old housewife with an 8 year old daughter Pooja. Her husband Arun works in National Bank as a cashier. To ease her kitchen work, Neha wants to buy a mixie (blender). However, she is not sure which is the best mixie brand that is available in the market. After checking with the local newspaper and a few friends she visits Relionus Traders' showroom. Relionus Traders have been in the business for 10 years and deal with all the major brands of mixies. On reaching the store, Neha was greeted by a salesman to whom she asks for advice.

The salesman immediately replies that Blendo-Magic brand is the best in terms of price & features, and that the showroom never has had any complaints with this brand. Moreover, the mixie comes with a juicer jar and a dry blender, free with the purchase. Neha inquires about the warranty of the mixie, only to be informed that the mixie is made using the most superior technology and materials in the market and it is also covered by a 6 month limited warranty. In her excitement, Neha forgets to ask details of what the “limitations” of the warranty are.

The salesman also advises Neha that she can buy another 6 months of extra warranty for an additional charge, although it is unnecessary considering the exceptional quality of the product. Convinced about the brand, and hoping not to have many consumer complaints, Neha also decides to buy the additional warranty thereby obtaining a full year of warranty for the purchase. Content with her purchase, Neha goes back home excited to put the mixie to full use with the help of the complementary recipe book given to her by the showroom. The mixie is dutifully put to use for the next four days to prepare food for the family. The juicer jar has come in particularly handy to prepare fresh fruit juice which little Pooja seems to enjoy.

On the fifth day after the purchase while preparing mint chutney, a strange noise is heard and the mixie stops abruptly. Close inspection reveals a strong smell of electrical burns emitting from it and thereafter there is no response from the mixie after being plugged in. Neha fishes out the user manual of the mixie, and tries to find out what the fault is. She gives up on this futile effort after few minutes and decides to call the customer service of Blendo-Magic company. The only suggestion the Blendo-Magic customer service representative gave was to keep the mixie unplugged for 5 minutes and then try again. However, this did not seem to help.

Annoyed by the turn of events and her impulsive choice of the Blendo-Magic brand, Neha heads out to Relionus Traders’ showroom where she meets the salesman who sold her the mixie. The salesman tells her that he does not deal with consumer complaints and she has to go to the assistant manager who handles consumer complaints. After waiting for half an hour, Neha finally gets to meet the assistant manager who informs her that Relionus Traders have no repair arrangements for Blendo-Magic company’s products and she will need to take this consumer complaint up directly with the Blendo-Magic company.

After returning home, Neha places a call with Blendo-Magic company’s customer service again to find out what she has to do to claim the warranty. On inquiry, the Blendo-Magic company representative informs her that they do not have any local repair centers in Neha’s city and that the mixie will need to be shipped to their Mumbai office to claim the warranty along with a draft of Rs.250/- which covers labor charges. Incidentally the warranty covered only materials and not labor, and that has to be paid in advance by Neha along with the warranty claim. Neha is also shocked to find out that she will need to ship the mixie to Mumbai at her own cost to claim the warranty.

Cornered she reluctantly ships the mixie to Blendo-Magic company’s office in Mumbai. She calls the Mumbai office ever so often to find out the status. After a wait of around four and a half weeks, when she calls she is informed that the mixie’s transformer had burned out due to voltage fluctuations in her house and the limited warranty is void if the product has been damaged due to electrical or voltage problems. The damaged mixie is promptly returned to her by Blendo-Magic company. Left with no choice, Neha decides to file a consumer case in the district consumer forum, ie the consumer court with the jurisdiction, against Blendo-Magic company. Her advocate promises her of some kind of solution in 2-5 years since the consumer law in the country is quite ineffective and filing a consumer complaint in the consumer court is a very time intensive process in India.

One day, when browsing the internet for her daughter’s school project, Neha accidentally came across the consumerdaddy.com site. On browsing through the product reports, Neha discovered the consumer report for Blendo-Magic company, which lists 1280 complaints from other consumers. She also discovers that there are several other mixie brands that have zero or lesser complaints than Blendo-Magic. If only Neha had discovered this consumer report before she decided on the Blendo-Magic brand, she could have avoided the purchase of the Blendo-Magic brand. Currently she has lost the cost of the mixie, the Rs.250 she paid as labor charges, the shipping cost for shipping the product to Mumbai, the consumer court complaint filing charges, and the advocate’s fee!

Three years and five months later, Neha still awaits the day the consumer court will hear her complaint. Better late than never, Neha decides that she will never buy a product in the future without checking the consumer report of the company in consumerdaddy.com website. Neha also decides to file a complaint with the consumerdaddy.com site against Blendo-Magic company so that other consumers, who see the consumerdaddy.com report are informed of the deceitful practices of Blendo-Magic company, are protected against her ill fate….. Neha discovered than an informed consumer is a powerful consumer…. discover the power of information to you as a consumer by visiting the consumerdaddy.com website.