Amazon has been ordered by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission of Chandigarh to refund Rs 40,325 to a customer and pay a fine of Rs 18,000, which includes Rs 10,000 for mental agony and harassment, and Rs 8,000 for litigation costs. The ruling followed a complaint where Amazon was found to have sold a “hacked” phone to a woman, which was subsequently used for unauthorised purchases.
What had happened?
According to a Times of India report, the woman Samita Das, a resident of Sector 12, Chandigarh, purchased a smartphone via Amazon. In September 2023, fraudsters accessed her personal information, compromised her email ID and ICICI Bank credit card, and made unauthorised purchases from her Amazon account.
Despite Das’s attempts to decline the transactions and alert Amazon about the suspicious activity, the company failed to take timely action. While some orders were cancelled, others were processed by the company without proper verification, leading to charges against the customer Amazon Pay Later account.
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Das alleged, “The act of demand made it clear that amount has not been refunded by Amazon Retail India and Amazon Pay Later, and the amount collected has illegally been retained by them despite numerous requests for refund having been made.”
What did Amazon say in its reply to consumer commission?
Amazon India and Amazon Pay Later (the platform used to make the payments), in their reply to the consumer commission, claimed that they had cancelled the fraudulent orders. Additionally, they claimed to have provided “proper and efficient assistance” to the woman.
“The complainant contacted our customer support team wherein all orders which were placed had been cancelled and proper efficient assistance was provided to the complainant against the cancelled orders. Considering the complainant’s grievance that her account was hacked, they immediately checked internally and assisted the complainant with sanitising/suppressing her account and ensuring all orders were cancelled to avoid any further issues,” Amazon in its reply to the commission stated.
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Amazon, as per a report by Indian Express, further clarified, “The payment made into the nodal account is not a payment made to them herein, also that the nodal account is maintained and audited by a bank recognised for such purpose by the RBI, and not by them. They herein are not the account holder or owner of the nodal account and cannot transact at will without restriction on the said nodal account.”
What did the consumer commission say?
“It is a general practice of online platforms that particularly a product before collection at the time of return is verified thoroughly by the collecting agent and the same is collected only after the same is found to be the same as the item delivered. In case of any difference, the product is never collected by the collecting agent. More so, this plea was never communicated at any stage to the complainant and seems an afterthought of Amazon Retail India”, the commission said.
“All transactions of sale, collection of amounts, ensuring delivery of the product, processing cancellation request, return request and refund of amount are controlled and managed by Amazon Retail India only,” it added.
In this case, the commission said, that the US-based company failed to act promptly despite knowing about the suspicious activity.
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