Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Don’t worry – this is not another review with a spoiler, since I haven’t read it yet. This is a post on Indiaplaza which offered the book at a throwaway price, and now proudly proclaims that it has already delivered 15000 copies since the release 3 days ago.
Well, I don’t know how well they are managing to supply all the Harry Potter orders that they’ve received, since my order for some other books, placed on July 5th is still pending, with no response from their customer service either. Let me begin the story from where it actually starts.
On July 5th, I placed an order for 3 books, Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, Ambai’s Purple Sea, and Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Teheran. Ofcourse the standard delivery time was listed as 3 to 4 working days. Till July 11th, the status on the website, kept showing up as ‘Ready to Ship’, upon which I fired off a mail.
I got a response immediately that there was some delay and the order would be shipped out by the 14th. Fair enough, I thought, a few days delay on account of some unforeseen problem was not such a big deal.
Just a few minutes later though, I got another mail that one of the books I had ordered, Reading Lolita in Teheran was not available, and my money for that would be refunded.
I was a little annoyed and wrote back to them, that this should have reflected on their site. But still. It wasn’t such a big deal.
Then. The 14th went past. And the 15th and 16th. And the shipping status on the site remained unchanged. So I wrote in again, asking for my books. I received a reply from the customer service team, that both titles had been shipped out on the 16th and I was receiving them on the 17th.
Sure enough, I received a parcel on the 17th. With only the Magic Mountain, no sign of Ambai’s Purple Sea. And. Including a statement inside that both books had been delivered. By now, I was getting quite irritated. The fact that my neighbour had picked up the parcel in my absence, meant that I couldn’t even open it in front of the courier and check. So I wrote back a slightly snarky mail, asking why I was being cheated.
Not just the goof-ups, it is practically impossible to speak to a customer service person. There is one line, which is perenially engaged. So instead, I asked for a senior manager’s number whom I could speak to. Ofcourse I got a standard response, although it acknowledged that the second book was missing, and promising to revert in 2 working days.
No such luck ofcourse. So. I wrote again. If this sounds tedious to read, imagine my plight!
Again, a request for more time.
By now, I had come to the end of my patience, so I replied that I could not waste more time, and asked for a refund on the missing book. That was on saturday, the 21st.
Till date, though I have followed up on this twice, including mentioning that I am considering going to the consumer court to get back my money, Indiaplaza hasn’t bothered to answer. Honestly speaking, I don’t have the time or the energy to actually do anything about it. Infact, I think my money is sort of written off.
Harry Potter fans who have placed their orders on Indiaplaza – if you haven’t already got your copy, you know what to expect, don’t you?
