PayTM External Hard Drive - No Warranty!?

Bought a Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB drive from PayTM using the 1,700 cashback offer. Seller is Ragedeals.

Got the drive yesterday, 3 days after placing order. Mercifully, Javas delivered it almost intact (unlike Ecom Express which flattened an earlier parcel and delivered after some 10 days!), despite the bare minimal packaging that PayTM uses (just couple layers of small bubble wrap in a poly bag. This is a cause for much concern, as such items can suffer internal damage even there are no outer signs. But decided to take the risk, considering the offer. Else, I’m not very confident about PayTM for this reason, and also their customer care and more importantly, their return policy hasn’t helped bolster my confidence at all.

The drive was and still is being mentioned with a 3 year warranty.

Upon receiving, the 1st thing I checked was the warranty status on http://www.sdd.toshiba.com.tw/english/Toshiba_W…

To my shock, the Toshiba says the drive has no warranty at all.

However, the drive seems to have proper import sticker and manuf and import date is mentioned as February, 2015. So its hot off the assembly.

So I’m very concerned about the warranty. Strangely Toshiba also comments the following about the drive – “No Warranty. For bare drives, end users must return defective product to their place of purchase or to the maker of the product in which it was installed.”

Now this is extremely strange. This is surely not a “bare” drive!?

What does one make of this?

Further, the invoice does not contain the serial number. So even if there is warranty, will Toshiba deny it?

Any comments or experiences from anybody? Warranty is the most important for this kind of product, as its the only real reliable indicator on how reliable the drive may be. I’d not have chosen it even if it had a 2 year warranty.