Be warned when you buy from Pepperfry! A sad story!

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johnsonmathew

2012-12-06

Mod's Edit -[Kindly post your thoughts/reviews in proper section,as fellow dimers reads every section its not only hot deal section which is hot] Admins/mods, please don't move this to the dost and dimers section until this story is read by maximum fellow dimers. So, what exactly is the coupon that you have for the day from Pepperfry? 50%? 40%? 25%? Whatever it be, from now on, if you are buying from Pepperfry, be prepared to be in struggle with their Customer Service to your great disappointment and that too at your own expense. Yes, they have changed their customer friendly face now and turned out to be one among the most fraudulent sites... While it's true that their prices are the most competitive (for at least some of the items), these days they have the worst policy for shipping and refund. As everyone know, pepperfry has the worst policy regarding shipping - only after you place an order you come to know that your order will be shipped in 7-8 working days. Since they don't include Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays in the so-called working days, if you happen to place an order on a Friday (say for example Dec 7th), and if their magic order say that the items will be shipped in 8 days, you will have to wait until Dec 18th to know if your order gets through. And to add to this, when they just start to think about your order at this 11th hour, they will send you an update on 19th December saying that unfortunately your item is getting delayed and we will send you an update in next 3 days. Note that 22nd and 23rd are not working days. So on 24th you will get a message saying that your order is cancelled and you will get pepper points in Lieu of your cash in another 48 hours. So you will get a clear information about your order only 20 days after you have placed the order. And if you choose to get cash instead of pepper points, it will take another 7-10 days to get your cash refund. In a nut shell, if something goes wrong with one of your orders, your money will be in the air for more than a month and that too in the ideal case. You may have to call them so many times to initiate each and everything that is needed to resolve the issue and get your money back. There was a time when people used to pray that their order gets cancelled so that they get an extra 300 pepper points 'for the inconvenience caused'. Now things have changed. In such cases you will be lucky if you get 59 extra pepper points towards the shipping fee you paid. To add to all these they have started sending different items that the one you have ordered. You are in trouble in that case also. As many other good sites do, they do not replace the wrong item, they cancel the order and refund the money in pepper points. This process will also take some where around 10-15 calendar days if you are lucky enough. You need to ship the item back to them and only Rs. 150 of the shipping charge will be given back. Fortunately, the shipping charges will be directly deposited to your bank account. You will have to call the customer service to inform that your item has been successfully delivered back to their warehouse - they will never get to know about the fact that the item has reached their warehouse. They will never mail/call you to go forward with the refund - you will have to call them. I have so many experiences where the average turnaround time for a case would be around 10-15 mins - what if you need to make a STD call to Mumbai that lasts around 15 mins, you probably won't call, rather you will wait for a couple of days to see if they contact you. Recently they have changed their toll free customer care numbers just to keep us customers away from calling them for any issues like this. Now if you want to buy the same item again, you will have to spend another 15 Rs more than the pepper points. That is another trap. You will never be able to find any item that is worth Rs 15 in Pepperfry. The cheapest item costs around 45 Rs and most of the low cost items are useless or over priced. So with the pepper points they are forcing the customers to buy overpriced and useless items. Now beware when you ask for refund in terms of cash rather than pepper points - you will be shocked to know that they don't give you back what you expect. Say for example, you buy 3 items worth Rs 1000: Item 1 - Rs 500, Item 2 - Rs 300, Item 3 - Rs 200. You have a coupon for 500 and you pay only 500 and you are happy. Now pray hard that they deliver you the items. As stated before, it may take around 15-20 days for that. You might have bought the items 2 and 3 as fillers knowing that they are over priced and useless. But you get cheated with the 50% coupon most of the time. They will very quickly ship the items for which they get the maximum margin. Most of the time they will cancel the item for which they don't get much profit. In this case if they had to cancel the item 1 worth Rs 500, and you go for a cash refund, you will get to know about a very fresh and surprising story - you will not be getting back 50% of Rs 500, you may be getting only 175 for instance. Here's the magic behind this: While you think that the discount is applied evenly across all the items in an order this is not the case. What they say is that, they have a different (magic) pricing that is not being revealed to the customer (which they can change and redefine according to the situation so that the customers are at trouble all the time). So while you think that you actually paid Rs 250, Rs 150 and Rs 100 for item1, 2 and 3 respectively, they will have a totally different story for you. Their software will say that you paid Rs 175, Rs 200 and Rs 125 for items 1, 2 and 3 respectively. They will change this story if they are not able to deliver a different item say item 3. Now their prices will be Rs 250, Rs 175 and Rs 75 for items 1, 2 and 3 respectively which means you will get back only Rs 75. In a nut shell, for the past few weeks these are some of the things they have changed to make more profit and loot the customers: 1. They changed their toll free number to a normal one so that people will less likely call them and ask for instant solutions. 2. They increased the turnaround time for resolving an issue (over telephone) so that people will never call them again losing money from their pocket. Sometimes they keep the customer on hold for more than 5 minutes. 3. They stopped their chat application so that the only solution for a quick resolution is calling Cust Care which most of the time turns out to be too costly. 4. They introduced shipping charges of Rs. 59 per order that is below Rs 1500 5. They stopped giving bonus points in the event that they are not able to ship a product even after 12-20 calendar days. 6. They have started sending different items that the items ordered in the expectation that people will disregard returning back items thinking of the hurdles to be crossed for getting back the money. I was a regular customer of Pepperfry until early this month. Even though I had so many issues with many orders, the extra points kept me happy. I had a separate excel sheet to track all orders with Pepperfry because otherwise I will definitely lose track of them due to the unreasonable delay in shipping/refund/return procedures. I thought I should share my experience with my fellow dimers so that they also get benefited. Please share any similar experiences in this thread so that others can also learn from our mistakes. Happy shopping...

127 Comments |

63 Dimers

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https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820469

Alpha.Barood

2012-12-07

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aVeNiR wrote:

Lag rha hai is samay DD me pfry ke against jabardast hawa chali hui hai ..especially in Dost and Dimes. Ab Sonia Ji hi unhe bacha sakti hain..

vapis le lo Rs 59/- ka thook lagana !

1958 me Rs 5.75 ki itni value thi,
now in 2012 it must be crossed Rs 59/-

is PEOPLECRY CEO listening !

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820474

Alpha.Barood

2012-12-07

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Achilles wrote:

Venkat wrote:
is it possible to combine pepperfry points i have 150+ in my account
like combine points of two accounts to buy a product , this feature available for payback points

Yes, we can transfer pepper points (Read before, but never tried)
& if you don’t mind can you please let me know via PM or here how to combine the payback points as I am having 2-3 cards from payback and I want all the points to be merged under a single card

peoplecry = Girgit

option not traceable now,
otherwise i would have asked their staff to sell me points in 50 % discount

(i believe they must be getting salary in the form of points,
and they must be getting their subji bhaji against exchange of points )

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820475

lekhwani

2012-12-07

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1Initially they gave huge discounts with coupons with gifts,
2.then they removed combining both.
3.Now policy of refunds also bad.

Two months back I bought something 1200 for 600 after coupon. They cancelled due to oos and credited 900 pepperpoints of which maximum 750 could be used in one time. So I bought a product worth 850, paid 100 balance.

Total money paid = 700
Product worth = 850
discount % = 150*100/850 = 17%

above mentioned calculations are based on even after getting 300 bonus points.

Now you can just calculate the horror if bonus points are not given to you.

If you bought product worth 1000 for 500 and it gets cancelled and you get only 500 pepperpoints as refund, you will have to buy a product worth 500 ( obviously inflated list price.). for 500.

No discount in this case.

They gave huge benefits initially. Now they want to get back all we got in its initial phase. But dimer philosophy is different. We take advantage of the best with discussions like these.

So, buy from them if only very lucrative offer is there.

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820476

Achilles

2012-12-07

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@B@R_0_0_D wrote:@

ME: There was the rumour that chat facility is being closed ?
ME: hi jacob,
ME: i hope pfry dont have any plan to discontinue chat facility ?
Jacob: no sir
Jacob: No sir our jobs are at stake
ME: fine,
ME: it will be good news for us ,if co. keeps chat continue and not think about cost cutting in this way.

Jobs at stake ?? Controversial, did you post the chat that you made with CC of pepperfry or created this again out of your imagination

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820480

Alpha.Barood

2012-12-07

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Achilles wrote:

@B@R_0_0_D wrote:@

ME: There was the rumour that chat facility is being closed ?
ME: hi jacob,
ME: i hope pfry dont have any plan to discontinue chat facility ?
Jacob: no sir
Jacob: No sir our jobs are at stake
ME: fine,
ME: it will be good news for us ,if co. keeps chat continue and not think about cost cutting in this way.

Jobs at stake ?? Controversial, did you post the chat that you made with CC of pepperfry or created this again out of your imagination

No its true chat, only my name is removed.
i think jacob (so called) might wanted to say that
in case chat discontinued what will be they doing ?
he missed WOULD BE.

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820485

bdyXsGhZ

2012-12-07

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Achilles wrote:

Venkat wrote:
is it possible to combine pepperfry points i have 150+ in my account
like combine points of two accounts to buy a product , this feature available for payback points

Yes, we can transfer pepper points (Read before, but never tried)
& if you don’t mind can you please let me know via PM or here how to combine the payback points as I am having 2-3 cards from payback and I want all the points to be merged under a single card

https://www.payback.in/pb/faq;jsessionid=3BA3F7...

41. If I have multiple PAYBACK accounts do I have an option to merge it? If yes, what is the process?

Yes, your multiple PAYBACK accounts can be merged based on certain defined guidelines. To know more about this, please call our Contact Center

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820496

cherisam505

2012-12-07

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Yes, your multiple PAYBACK accounts can be merged based on certain defined guidelines. To know more about this, please call our Contact Center

If I remember right, merge will work only if all the payback cards are in the same name.

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820533

saaairaaam

2012-12-07

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Achilles wrote:

Venkat wrote:
is it possible to combine pepperfry points i have 150+ in my account
like combine points of two accounts to buy a product , this feature available for payback points

Yes, we can transfer pepper points (Read before, but never tried)
& if you don’t mind can you please let me know via PM or here how to combine the payback points as I am having 2-3 cards from payback and I want all the points to be merged under a single card

Nope you cannot transfer pppoints from one acc. to another. They have removed that option now

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820557

johnsonmathew

2012-12-07

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Thanks for your suggestions duke. I will try to make my next post better

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820639

wikipedia

2012-12-07

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Tanuj Batra wrote:

Hats off for the information bro! Karma given!

Ditto Ditto

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820652

abhi1989

2012-12-07

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+12

u will soon be deal cadet

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820682

Achilles

2012-12-07

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abhi1989 wrote:
u will soon be deal cadet

He is Deal Cadet now

Congrats johnsonmathew

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820688

Altius

2012-12-07

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Good one… Did you try posting it on Social Media?

Like FB , Mouthshut , Consumercomplaint? It might help when some one google’s Pepperfry.

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820757

Altius

2012-12-07

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This is what customer care shared with me whn i shared DD link .. http://www.pepperfry.com/happy-customer…ml

hahaaa

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820764

Tech_geek

2012-12-07

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Very good info bro…..karma added

next time will be careful with ppfry

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820861

VenkateshRaghavan

Moderator

2012-12-07

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*@lekhwani So, buy from them if only very lucrative offer is there.

I think the days of lucrative offers are completely over unless they get funded now. From my sources I know that they are in the market for Series B funding for expansion. However such funding for e-commerce companies post Feb 2012 has turned extremely challenging with very few deals closing by PE players. So Pepperfry has a tough road ahead IMHO.

Waise I have stopped shopping with them since the last month Last purchase (loot) was a 1gm gold coin which was after some order cancellation and 300 bonus points. So totally I paid Rs. 2,400 for the coin and order was delivered after 2/3 weeks. Cheers

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820872

cm4444

Moderator

2012-12-07

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i had never purchased anything worth more than 2k from them but earlier this week placed an order worth 8k. Lekin iss thread ko padh kar darr lag rha hai ab

Agar 8k ke products ke badle 8k pepperpoints de diye to mai to barbaad ho jaunga

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820891

ashik94

2012-12-07

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cm4444 wrote:

i had never purchased anything worth more than 2k from them but earlier this week placed an order worth 8k. Lekin iss thread ko padh kar darr lag rha hai

bhai maine tho aaj tak sirf 2 hi orders place kiye
1. One for Philips trimmer &
2. for Hair drier

buss inki policy se darr ke kabhi order hi nahi kiya maine:-D

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820980

buddyisin

2012-12-07

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Thank you for writing such a long post and pointing out all these things. I can only imagine the amount of frustration you must’ve gone through with them.

But, they are not at complete fault. Customers who even pay a visit to such sites (let alone buying something) are even more at fault. You’ll not die, not will it have any effect on you if you don’t buy something from such websites. But we’ve a tendency to overlook something that happens to others and forget about it unless it happens to us. It’s only then that it hurts, never otherwise. I’ve seen so many posts on this website of users who’ve posted their bad experiences and other people continue buying from those websites, posting deals of such websites… what for?..FPD, Karma points… OMG!

There was a deal once posted on ShopClues and I really wanted that product for use but since I had not shopped from them, I chose to go for COD (it was available but then coupon wasn’t valid). So, I would pay a little more but atleast I would be safe. And there dawns the truth… I emailed them several times, called up customer care multiple times but they wouldn’t even respond. Eventually after a week when they had not even shipped the item, I placed a cancellation stating I wouldn’t pay even if I got it now. After the cancellation they sent the order and had to cancel midway during shipping. Much of my headache saved, truth of ShopClues exposed. Since that day, I’ve seen hundreds of deals from them, I’ve not shopped a single item. And, I didn’t die, my life goes on as smooth as ever, even better with less tensions of dealing with customer care.

Another time, before placing an order at Infibeam, I read their policy. It clearly mentioned that they will refund if order got cancelled but in the form of points in my account. How funny. What will I do with those silly points? Why should I be forced to buy something from those points? Why can’t they refund the money in cash? Since that day I didn’t buy anything from Infibeam either.

I bought both these products from ebay, a wireless mouse (even cheaper than at ShopClues) and a Huawei e303C (about Rs 80 more than it was on Infibeam). I had problems with ebay because my payment got stuck for Huawei but then they refunded all cash in specified time limit. I ordered again and I got it fine. I’m using both these products at home and both work just fine. And I’ve never bought anything up until now from those two websites.

Why should I? When they don’t care about me (someone who pays them and has plenty of other options), why should I even think about them? I only buy from ebay, I know my money is safe and I will get refund even if I don’t email them even once. This has happened when one of my sankalpdeal was cancelled. Since the money was small, I didn’t even email them once but they refunded the little amount in due time.

This is not frustration but what I have experienced and what I follow.
My life is fine without Infibeam or Shopclues. I don’t have to skip my meals even once, they dont’ create any problems in my mind and I don’t even die. lol

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_820984

hitesh_a2003

2012-12-07

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Dimers,

I had a very bad experience with gold coins purchase on pepperfry.
Ordered 7 gold coins of 10grms each (5 coins on 28th Oct and 2 coins on 4th Nov.)
I didn’t hear back from them till Nov 15,2012. Got worried called up customer care and inquire with some other dimers in my earlier thread, what should i do next. After continuously following up with them for 7 days ( around 15 to 20 minutes each day) and posting twice on their facebook page. I got a call on Nov 22, 2012 that the order cannot be shipped to the location which i have placed as shipping address and they will be shipping it to billing address instead. I agreed to that as it was already 25 days and no progress. Woes continue , finally received the 5 gold coins in bangalore after a week. And 2 gold coins in rajasthan ( which they mentioned that they dont ship it there). Waited another week and the 7 free coins ( 2 grms each ) were shipped to rajasthan. So the moral of the story , 50 grms in bangalore , 34 grams in rajasthan. These guys are really crap, they ship the order and never update the shipping details in the website , so u dont even know when the delivery boy will be standing on your door.
Please dont trust them with high value items any more.

Thanks
Hitesh

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_821382

sreejishpv

2012-12-07

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Great post Johnson Bhai…It’s truly an eye Opener

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_821409

shyjurahim

2012-12-07

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Congrats johnsonmathew…………

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_821436

surajkochi

2012-12-07

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I have been ordering with them regularly for the past year or so and started noticing for the past month, a very bad decline in their discount coupons strategy, customer service, shipping rule and overall selling strategy.

They send wrong items, delay shipping, reduce discount percentage from 50% to something that varies between 25-35% everyday, introduced ship cost for items below 1500rs, try hard to get us buy filler products to reach the golden figure of say 1000 to get a 400 rs discount (for ex), over-price the items in the range of 70-500 by jacking up the price by atleast 10% minimum etc. And sometimes, the same item shows a different price after you add it to the cart, or it just goes out of stock when you checkout!

Stay away from pepperfry for future purchases, and pray that the ones you orders come as expected within time (Only god knows)!

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_821445

abhisun150408

2012-12-07

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Completely agree with you. I had ordered Diapers worth 550 from them, it took them 15 days to deliver and when they did,,guess what it had a Tamil VCD worth 79 instead of Diapers worth 550. Now these buggers are saying that its not possible that they could ship cd instead of diapers even after sending them min of 10 pics of unopened package till the final product. Bloody cheaters!!! Another Timtara in the making I presume….

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_821477

aryan

2012-12-07

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Thanks for taking time out and having patience to post such a detailed review. Few days back I even echoed the same thing about this Pottyfry. It is one of the most dangerous websites you dealing with, many respectable boarders have ambitious views about the company in next two years. I have a feeling they are digging their own pit . No pun intended.

karmas for your review and I am 1000% with you.

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_821687

pepperfry

2012-12-07

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Hi,
Thanks for getting in touch. To share your feedback on please email us on: tellus@pepperf…om

Warm Regards,
Team Pepperfry

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_821689

Akkiii

2012-12-07

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pepperfry wrote:

Hi,
Thanks for getting in touch. To share your feedback on please email us on: [email protected]

Warm Regards,
Team Pepperfry

pottyfry joined us hurrah…

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_821690

bdyXsGhZ

2012-12-07

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pepperfry wrote:

Hi,
Thanks for getting in touch. To share your feedback on please email us on: tellus@pepperf…om

Warm Regards,
Team Pepperfry

must be fake account

https://www.desidime.com/discussions/be-warned-when-you-buy-from-pepperfry-a-sad-story?page=3#post_821693

Utsav

2012-12-07

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Venkat wrote:

pepperfry wrote:

Hi,
Thanks for getting in touch. To share your feedback on please email us on: tellus@pepperf…om

Warm Regards,
Team Pepperfry

must be fake account