Questions about Consumer Complaints
This video will show you how to file a consumer complaint on the Consumerdaddy website.
28. What is a consumer complaint? The first step to a consumer complaint is to qualify yourself as a consumer. If you consumed (bought, paid for, and/or used) a product for personal purposes, domestic purposes or for earning your livelihood, then you are qualified as a consumer. The product can be tangible goods or intangible services.
After you consumed the product, if any of your expectations were not met in the product, you have a consumer complaint. Your expectations may not be met because either the company selling you the product omitted / misrepresented some information, did not meet something promised, or the product's quality / reliability / durability was poor.
There are also circumstances where you have not actually consumed the product, but you can still have a consumer complaint. For example, you observe an advertisement where a company is willingly falsifying facts about a product. Another example would be when you wanted to buy a product, but did not buy it because the merchant was charging more than the maximum retail price (MRP). All these qualify as consumer complaints.
29. How does Consumerdaddy help with consumer complaints? Our customer support team, with their expertise handling consumer complaints will help you strengthen your consumer complaint in terms of its content and format. They will also guide you on how to effectively communicate with the company regarding your complaint.
Consumerdaddy will also introduce you, free of cost, to a Non-Governmental Consumer Organization (NGCO) who will negotiate on your behalf with the company. NGCOs are subject matter experts on Consumer Protection. When an NGCO is involved, your success rate with a complaint is significantly higher.
Lastly, all complaints from consumers that are validated are prominently publicized on our website. With the media and public attention that Consumerdaddy website gets as evidenced by the lakhs of visitors, this would be undesirable attention no company wants. This will encourage companies to respond faster to your consumer complaint. It is calculated that you have a 3000 times better chance of resolving your complaint through Consumerdaddy than on your own.
30. Why should we file a complaint at Consumerdaddy? We have a complaint closure success rate of 80% (approximately). We also close all complaints within 30 days (approximately). Please see our success on the right hand pane for our latest success statistics.
Additionally, as an introductory offer, we are running a lucky draw for consumers who have consumer complaints. In addition, to getting the consumer complaint addressed, the lucky winner will also get American Express Gift Cheques worth US$ 250 (INR 10,000/-)
31. What information should I have to file a consumer complaint? You must have: (1) a proof of purchase (2) your Consumerdaddy username, and (3) your Consumerdaddy password.
Proof of purchase is ANY evidence that establishes that YOU are a CONSUMER of the COMPANY. Proof of purchase can be a bill for the purchase of the product, but there are many circumstances where other evidences are satisfactory as well. Depending on the purchased product or the situation – the proof of purchase can also be a credit card statement, a delivery challan, an AMC agreement, a receipt for a cash / cheque payment, a payment voucher, an insurance policy, an insurance premium receipt, a vehicle registration certificate, a construction agreement, a warranty / guarantee card, a letter from the company, or even a sale deed. If you are filing a complaint before buying a product, then the proof of purchase may be a brochure of the product, an advertisement video, or even a photograph showing the company making false claims about the product or charging the wrong MRP.
You can obtain a Consumerdaddy username and a password through online user registration on our website. It is absolutely free of cost (see Section II for any questions).
32. Can you file a complaint on my behalf in your website, if I give you the details? We can guide you through the complaint process, and provide you all the support you need to file the complaint. But we cannot file a complaint on behalf of a consumer for ethical reasons. We don’t want anyone mistrusting the source of the complaints.
33. What are your charges / fees for consumer complaints? ALL stages of consumer complaints including filing, negotiations, resolutions etc., are provided ABSOLUTELY FREE. No charges, no fees, no taxes. However, for those who would like to avail additional services from us to resolve a complaint, there are some paid plans available. To know the pricing and details of these services please visit the Consumer Complaint Pricing page.
34. How long do you take to solve the complaint? A maximum of thirty (30) days.
35. Why do you solve consumer complaints free of cost for consumers? Consumerdaddy is creating India’s largest consumer reports database. This database contains statistics regarding companies that satisfy consumers and those that don’t. The best mechanism to measure how well a company satisfies its consumers is by checking how well the company addresses consumer complaints. If you are observant, you will note that the data from the complaint system actually feeds into the consumer statistics section of our consumer reports.
36. Will I be harmed in anyway by the company for filing a complaint against it? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Your information will always remain confidential with us and we will not reveal it to the company without your permission. If you wish, any compensation you want to receive from the company may also be done anonymously by channeling through us. Additionally, if you receive any threats from anyone for filing a bonafide complaint on our website, please notify us immediately. We assure you 100% LEGAL SUPPORT and will PROTECT YOU FULLY against any adverse actions.
37. Why do you capture so many details while filing the complaint? When our partner NGCOs take action based on your consumer complaint, the company will ask them all these details anyway. So we collect all detailed information regarding the complaint upfront to avoid unnecessary delays in the consumer complaint resolution process.
38. How do you find out if the complaint is a genuine complaint or not? There are two steps in determining the genuineness of a consumer complaint. The first step is to determine whether the person filing the complaint (complainant) is actually a consumer. We ascertain that using the proof of purchase and with the questionaire while filing the complaint.
The second step is to determine whether the complaint is bonafide. Our policy is to give the benefit of doubt to the consumer. In other words, Consumerdaddy takes the word of the consumer, unless and until the company can provide irrefutable proof disproving the consumer.
39. How many complaints can I file against a single product or a single company? Only one complaint can be filed by one consumer against one product. This limit is set to make sure one consumer cannot influence the CSL of a product more than once.
One consumer can file one complaint against each product of the company. So, against one company, you can file complaints equal to the number of products the company has.
40. I have a complaint about a product. But I can’t find the product on Consumerdaddy. What should I do? If you searched our website and cannot find the product against which you want to file a complaint, login to the system and request the product to be added by using the ‘add a product’ feature. Consumerdaddy will process your request if the product is not already in our database or point you to the product in our database if it exists already.
41. I have a complaint against a government department, agency or office. Can you help with the complaint? Our experience is that the governmental (both central and state) and quasi-governmental organizations such as IRCTC, Income Tax Offices, Regional Passport Offices, Provident Fund Offices, Fire Force, etc are not responsive to consumers like private businesses. So Consumerdaddy's ability to help consumers with the government is very limited currently. Therefore, currently we concentrate only on consumer complaints against private businesses.
42. I have a photocopying machine in my office, which is giving problems for past few months. Can I file a complaint against the company? Our website is meant only for consumers with consumer complaints. A consumer is a person who buys a product for personaly use in his/her household or to earn his/her livelihood. In this case, the photocopying machine does not belong to a consumer but to a business. We do not deal with business to business complaints.
43. How do you help me after I file a complaint in your website? We have consumer protection experts who will forward the complaint to the company and persuade the company to resolve your complaint. Through each step of the process, we will keep you informed via phone and email about the status of your complain. Most companies resolve the complaints. But some don’t. When companies don’t resolve your complaint, their consumer reports reflect the company’s callous attitude to consumers. Due to the large media and consumer attention that Consumerdaddy consumer reports have, most companies try to resolve all complaints filed through Consumerdaddy. For more details on the consumer complaint process, please read ithe complaint terms and conditions. You will see this page while filing a complaint.
44. How does the company come to know about the complaint? A copy of your complaint with optimized content will be sent to the company in a professional format through an electronic notification. Subsequent emails are also sent when the status of the complaint changes. In many cases, as necessary, our NGCO partners also send the complaint to the company via registered post.
45. Who are the consumer protection experts you rely on? Consumer protection experts are available internally and from a network of consumer activists and Non-Governmental Consumer Organizations (NGCOs). The experts specialize in topics related to the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and consumer rights. Depending on the circumstance, we charter the assistance of eminent lawyers or retired consumer court judges.
46. Where do the consumer protection experts get fund to work on the complaints?
Consumerdaddy gets advertisement revenues when consumers visiting our website. A portion of this revenue is paid as a fee by Consumerdaddy to the consumer protection experts and they help consumers with their complaints.
47. Is there any way to contact the experts and company personnel directly? Yes. Once you have filed a complaint on our website, you can communicate with the experts and the company personnel through the complaint messaging system.
48. Will I be informed about the progress of my complaint? Absolutely yes. Through each step of the process, we will keep you informed via phone and email.
49. Will I be able to contact other users who have filed complaints against the same company? For you to contact another user, we will need to reveal to you the personal contact details of that user. This a violation of the other user's privacy. So we cannot provide you the ability to contact other users on the website.
50. What happens if the complaint is not resolved? The vast majority of companies, when presented with your complaint, are more than happy to resolve your complaint, either because they value your business or they value their reputation on our consumer reports that have huge consumer and media attention.
However, occasionally we find little or no cooperation from some companies in solving your complaint. Since we are a private company with no statutory or regulatory powers, we cannot force a company to respond to or to resolve your complaint, nor issue any legally binding outcomes on your complaint. In such an event, the course of action we take is to reflect the disinclination of the company to resolve your complaint, by setting the complaint’s status as unresolved.
When any complaint’s status is set to unresolved, automatically, the CSL on the product’s consumer report also goes down by 10 percent. The fact that your complaint is unresolved and the lower CSLs become an integral part of our consumer reports viewed by millions of consumers.
51. What is the difference between a complaint and a criticism? Criticism is a negative review. You do not need a proof of purchase or a username and password to file a review. No action will be taken by us based on a review. A complaint can be filed only if you have a proof of purchase and a registration ID. We will take action based on a complaint by notifying the company. |