Dharmesh Bohra, a legal consultant based in Mumbai, had ordered an Apple smart watch from Amazon on June 4 for his son as a birthday gift. The watch was available at a discounted price of Rs 81,900. Receiving it on June 5, Bohra noticed no discrepancy as all the details on the package tallied with the order. However, when his son unboxed the gift on his birthday eve, which was on June 23, they found that the watch was a counterfeit product.

Speaking to Decode, Bohra said, “I would have been easily fooled into believing that it was a genuine product if my tech-savvy son would not have pointed out that the interface and the dial of the watch seemed suspicious.” Without wasting any time further, Bohra contacted the customer care service of Amazon, who asked him to call in the morning as such matters are handled by a “separate department”.

On the next morning, Bohra was asked to obtain a written confirmation from an Apple Store/Service Centre that the watch he received was Fake, as the product had outlived Amazon's 7-day return window. “I visited the nearest Apple Service Centre with the fake watch and the invoice which came along with it. The Service Centre confirmed that the product’s Sl Number on the box matches with that mentioned in the invoice, but the product is fake.

The representative at the Centre also checked online and found that the genuine watch corresponding to the SI number was already in someone’s use since January. “It required a few rounds of pleading to make them believe that ours was a genuine case. Having agreed to help us, the Centre sent me an email confirming that this was a fake watch, “ said Bohra.

Thinking that now his problem was almost resolved, Bohra forwarded the email to Amazon. However, the mail did not help much. “Even after I got what they required, Amazon still wasn’t ready to help. They just sent me from one executive to another and never escalated the matter.”

Bohra has now decided to take the legal course and will be registering a case in the consumer court.

Bohra is not the sole victim to have received counterfeit or wrong products against their Amazon order. A Twitter thread   by a user name Sanaya, revealed multiple such cases to have happened in the last few months, all of whom flagged a frustrating redressal mechanism from Amazon’s end.

A user named Sandeep Srivastav took to Twitter to share that he was defrauded by Amazon as he received a fake Sony headphone, costing Rs 29,000 and the e-commerce portal has “refused to take action” in the matter. Another user, Arun Kumar Meher expressed his frustration on receiving a “packet of quinoa seeds” in place of a camera lens worth Rs 90,000. Meher added that an investigation from Amazon’s end was underway in the matter.

In a similar case, Devansh received “a used Sony 24mm lens in a non sealed box with no outer packaging”, against his order of a Sony 35mm master lens of Rs 1,30,000.

Deepak Gour, an avid Amazon customer, shared a similar experience with Decode, wherein he also received a fake Apple smart watch for which he had paid close to Rs 81,000. “When the order came, the outer package was intact but the inner box was tampered. I became suspicious and further opened the box to find that the watch had a different strap than the one I ordered,” said Gour.

But this was not it. Gour later realised that even the dial was fake and seemed like a used one. He immediately called Amazon customer service and provided them with the required proof in form of photos. Promising to escalate the matter further, the executive said that Gour will receive a call in three days.

After waiting for three days, Gour called back on the fourth day to see how far the redressal had reached. “I was surprised to hear a drastic change in their tone. They simply refused to acknowledge that they had sent a fake product.” Gour then sent an email to Amazon’s quality team who asked him to return the product.

Days after returning the product Gour still didn’t receive his refund. After being shunned by repeated calls he received a mail from Amazon where the e-commerce portal said that it was Gour who had sent back a fake product in place of the original one delivered by them. “The mail said that I need to return the original product in order to get a refund. I repeatedly tried to explain that this was the entire issue in the first place but they stopped entertaining my calls and mails,” said Gour.

Gour is skeptical of taking the matter to the court as it would mean additional expense with no guarantee of getting the money back.

The Common Link

Apart from the fact that these products were delivered by Amazon and that their redressal mechanism failed to reach a logical conclusion, there is one other common thread linking these cases. All these products had Appario Retail Pvt. Ltd. as their seller.

Appario Retail Private Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Frontizo Business Services Private Limited, a joint venture between Amazon and Patni group-owned Zodiac Wealth Management LLP. As of now Appario is listed as a seller of Amazon’s portal but will soon cease to be one.

In November 2022, Frontizo announced that Appario will “cease to be a seller on amazon.in and amazon.in/business within the next 12 months”, in compliance with the regulatory changes in the Indian e-commerce space. New e-commerce regulations restrict players from selling the products of companies in which they own an equity stake.

Responding to the allegations, Amazon’s spokesperson told Decode, “There is no place for fraud at Amazon. We are investigating the claims made by the customers and will continue to pursue all measures to protect our marketplace and hold bad actors accountable.”