Duplicate American Tourister Bags: Worst experience with Flipkart online purchase

I wanted to share one of my worst experience with Flipkart online purchase which made me to spend more hours to write this blog/research article. The reason why I am writing this blog is that I have purchased the American Tourister bag from flipkart which was actually from local bag manufactures and not from brand American Tourister.
 
 My Order details (Which I expected before ordering):
 Product Name: American Tourister Cyber C1 Backpack (Black)
 Product link in Flipkart: link
 Bag type: Cyber back pack
 Order received date: 13-10-2014
 Retail price:  Rs.1480/-
 Offer: 55%
 Offer price: Rs.814/-
 EAN Id/Bar code#: 8901836088984
 

 I have realized the details of the product after the purchase was,

 Actual product name: AT Cyber Black which renamed in flipkart site to American Tourister Cyber C1 Backpack (Black)
 Mfg by: Equiplus india Export Pvt. Ltd, C-21, Panki, Ind. Area Site-1, Kanpur 208022 UP (No website for this company)
 Customer care: Email-service@samsonite.co.in Service Engg: Tel No. -02553-229700 which are actually not working
 Actual money worth: Rs.250/- (You can get the same bag for Rs.200 from any local sellers nearby railway station in Mumbai and Bangalore) but I have ordered in flipkart for Rs.814/-
 
  Once I have received the bag, I saw the logo, it was AT not American Tourister. The detail mentioned in the warranty card was looking like its actually from american tourister and the warranty card had the logo of AT, and the other details printed in the warranty card was looking like, its from American Tourister only and Marketed by Samsonite South Asia Pvt Ltd, like how the American Tourister original warranty card looks like.
 
  I had doublt while looking into the logo, and did a search on google about the product information. After spending 90 mins I concluded that the bag is from some local manufacturing company not from Samsonite/American Tourister, and collected all the information before calling Flipkart customer care.
  There is no information about AT company in google. Usually when you type any branded product bar code in google, the actual product information will come in the first link itself. But here there is no information about the product itself.
                                       No information about the EAN Id/barcode in google

                              Logo of  difference of AT and American Tourister

               No Cyber type bags in American Tourister official product website

                         Flipkart website link for this product (see the product title)

          

         Difference between Actual Samsonite contact details and this AT company

                        My flipkart order invoice

                                                   
 
  I have called flipkart customer care and the person who attended the call challenged me that the bag is from american tourister only. I explained him all the information one by one which I have gathered and finally he told me that, you have bought what you have seen in our website and they never refund my money though its proven this is not a original product. I told him many times that I have purchased this because of the product title was mentioned American Tourister but his final answer was "this is the responsibility of the customer to verify the product before purchase (even though the product is having good brand name) and I can only send email to cs@flipkart.com if I need any queries". Before hung up my call, I told him that I will complain in consumer court regarding this, and he is not even bothered about that.
 
  After the call I composed long email with all the screen shots which I found, and sent to cs@flipkart.com. After that I have collected all the India and US samsonite and American Tourister contact mail ids and sent email to them with product name and barcode# details, and have asked them about product originality and about the samsonite marketing and service. In the same email, I have kept flipkart customer car email id in CC.
 
  Actually the bag is very small and not worth to buy for Rs.250 also. It made up with very low quality material and you can buy the same or better than this at any local shops nearby any rail way station for Rs.200/- if you are the good bar-gainer. The ultimate thing is that they have mentioned in the warranty card, 1 YEAR WORLD WIDE WARRANTY, but the mfg company/service center in India itself is non traceable.

                                             Below is the Warranty Card

  After that email to samsonite and the submission of my Big Research Article, I got a reply from flipkart for the money refund and its still not yet initiated from their end.

 
  So, friends my advice is, when you purchase something through online, first check whether the product is original or not by searching the bar code in google as soon as you receive the product. This is not happened only for me, and many of them are already complained about flipkart and still they are continuing this. Flipkart service delivery is fast, that's the only reason I used order things in flipkart, but if they repeat the same in future, they will loose all the customers soon. This is how they are offering >50% for many branded products and be careful before ordering anything in flipkart. Its very difficult to differentiate whether the product which you have bought is original or duplicate and all looks same when you see the product. Like this we can expect duplicate product in many categories like shirts, mobile pouches, chargers, etc in online purchase. I identified only this as I have purchased the bag and don’t know how many other category products are like this?
  Actually the original bag (same model) from american tourister bag has more pockets than this duplicate one also with less price. So, don’t go and order simply when you see the offer of >50% or more.

     See below the product comparison of Original and this local product

  Flipkart is showing many bags like this, and all the below listed products are in flipkart is from AT, and not from branded American Tourister. So, be careful while ordering anything.

All of these products are not from American Tourister though its mentioned like that:
American Tourister Cyber C1 Backpack (Brown)  
American Tourister Cyber C1 Backpack (Red) 
American Tourister Cyber C1 Backpack (Black)
American Tourister Cyber C1 Backpack (Purple)  
American Tourister Cyber C2L Laptop Backpack (Green)  
American Tourister Cyber C2L Laptop Backpack (Black) 
American Tourister Cyber C2L Laptop Backpack (Red) 
American Tourister Cyber C2L Laptop Backpack (Orange)  
American Tourister Cyber C3L Laptop Backpack (Red) 
American Tourister Cyber C3L Laptop Backpack (GRP) 
American Tourister Cyber C3L Laptop Backpack (Green) 
American Tourister Cyber C3L Laptop Backpack (Black)

Actually I would not have written this blog if they have been agreed on my queries when I called to their customer care first time, but they made me to believe that this is from actual brand and not duplicate product. For some of the products flipkart used to show the message like its 100% original (see below image), and for many of them they don't show this. If they are selling actually all original products in their site, they don’t need to show this message against only for some products. When you see the below image from flipkart, you will realize the original word is mentioned only for some products.

The one good thing for me is flipkart made me to open my blog account after 2 years to write this. Thanks to flipkart. This is the end of my blog and I am waiting for their response about my refund. Wishing you all have a safe and careful online shopping.  :-)

BUG HUNTING

Software would fail in unexpected ways at anytime. Nobody can develop an application without bugs. Too err is human. But don’t always assume that the bug is in the application itself. Here I would like to share one of my experiences; I have come across the issue in my application which went live on previous day of Christmas 2010.

One of my users called me on 2nd week of January. He told me that he was not able to submit the data in the application. While submitting data, it shows the error message “Transaction aborted with internal errors”. When he mentioned the error message, I assumed that the Java DES (Data Encryption Standard) algorithm, which is used in the application to encrypt the data before storing into the database and decrypt the data while retrieving from the database, would be a culprit. I have already checked my code many times especially that algorithm too before moving into the production. Once again I opened the development code and checked two times. Everything was correct. All the exception mechanisms were used properly. Once again I tested the application with one dummy user with all possible inputs and all the special characters. It was working well for me and also for all the users except that particular one.

And then in order to check any references are misplaced or not, I have checked the entire applications code which took one day to me. But all were correct. Next day, in order to know the user’s inputs, I sent him a mail to send the screen shot of the error message and inputs screen. Usually I never asked this to any user. But some of my colleagues are there, they often asks their users to send a screen shot even for a simple problem. I think, if somebody calls them, like my pc is not starting or not able to login into my pc user account then also they will ask them for a screen shot. If the user is clever, they can ask a camera to take a photo of their pc for each and every problem.

Within one hour, I got the screen shot of the inputs and entered all the data which was entered by the user and tested in the development. Huh… everything is working well. I don’t know what was the problem? I called the user and asked him, how he is entering data into the application? He told me that, he is not directly keying all the inputs, he is copy the data from excel which he prepared some time back and pasting into the browser application. mmmm…I was too worried… How I missed this? It never strikes my mind while developing application. How the users will give inputs to all the seven big text boxes each can contain 10 rows of data. It will take much time to fill all the inputs, since the server session is also for only 5 mins! Yeah, that’s the correct idea for the users, always prepare some excel sheets or word document before entering data in the application. Now only I thought that, nobody will sit and fill the online application for an hour.

Later I found what was the error and the solutions too. The Java DES algorithm will accept only multiples of 8 character length inputs. I have already done some jimmicks in the code, if the user input is not multiple of 8, then adding some extra spaces in the last before encrypting and removing them after decrypted. Here the problem was when the user gives triple dot (...) continuously (to mention that the sentence is continuous), in the Microsoft products(word/excel/powerpoint), they are automatically converting those dots as a single character which was not able to encrypt by the DES algorithm. All the special characters ©,®, ™ are also coming under the same category which we cannot directly enter into the web application input box. Those characters have no meaning (means no ascii) when coping to other than office suits. Thanks to my valuable user who extend my vision in the application development. I learned one good thing here not only in technology point of view, from application development point of view too. Application users are always clever, so we have to ask them about required user input methods too before developing it and considering their suggestions completely. Because developing application is not like a film. If it’s not good, some audience can avoid watching it. But, even the applications are bad; the users must use it.

With love,

Arul.

Five year Dream has come true

I had a wish to write a blog before joining MCA(2007) at St.Joseph's college. But I didn't have a time to make it and share something. I thought dont have a time, but I had a time. Anyway today I am very happy because of my five year of dream about to come true. I really want to share my first blogging experience here.

Now the time is 1:22 AM. I already started sleeping, switched off lights by 12:12 itself after posted birthday wishes of friend Himanshu on facebook. But I didnot sleep. I tried, tried, tried more. But sleep god has not come. Nobody can sleep early if he slept more than four hours in a day time like what I did today. So much of thinking also disturbed me. Then I realised that why dont I write my first blog today instead of laying on the bed for long time without sleeping. Took my mobile and specs, opened the browser in my mobile. I would wonder if the browser page loads in the first time itself. Thanks to aircel gprs. Its showed "page could not load". Nobody can achieve their long time dream without any difficulties. Then I created new network access points in my mobile and tried again. In the mean time I opened new memo which is like notepad, to write my blog. Finally gprs got connected also the blogger page has too loaded quickly.. But not able to login my account which I have created for six months back. I thought there might be some maintenance going on google side, since it was the night time. Then I continued writing on memo the page. When it showed the popup 1500 characters only allowed, Suddenly I clicked back button. I almost started crying, because all I have wrote are gone. Page looks empty..... I am idiot, I never clicked the save button while writing... Dam it... Then what I do, now I am writing all again... I almost finished, but still its on my mobile's memo page only.. Also I pressed save button for each and every line. God!!!! I have to sleeeep atlest now... I Have goto office today.

Already time is 2:17 AM. I learned onething today, that is never sleep at day times...What happened in the browser, it connected now. ha ha ha.. Then I tried to copy everything from the memo page and paste into the blogger's post page. Oh god, why are you giving too much trouble to me to just write this blog. Bad android mobile, it does not give me a keypad for the blog contents page, since it is neither text box nor text area(multiple line input box). I don't know, who is responsible for this problem google or android? Also, I am not able to copy the contents from the memo page!.... Then how can I send all these contents to my blog page???? Now I have two files. I really worried. When I pressed the menu button of my mobile, there was an option "send via". I thought I can send it to my gmail and copy it from there and paste it to the blogger page at office today night. mmmmmmmm there was no option to connect to my gmail account... It simply displayed sms,blutooth and my office mail app. Hey, you dont need to help me, but atleast you can avoid to giving these trouble, I started thinking myself. Intha mobile a vaangittu na padura padu iruke, appappapapaaa. Then What I do, I sent two mails to my office mail and went to bed with sad feelings. Good night. No no no, good morning...

At office, I started to continue my blogging by 8:19 PM. I know, can access blogger site through office network, because often I read some websphere blogs which gives lot of technical tips, at office only. I copied all of my contents and pasted in to the blogger post, content's page. When I clicked the PUBLISH POST button, then it went to the page "Social Network/Blogging Notification Blocked". So many problems to write my first blog. I remembered the sentence which I had read in one book long time back "Problems are not a worry, its a way to learn new things". I pasted the contents and clicked the SAVE NOW button. Hey, it saved.. saved... because after that I can publish this in my mobile browser from blogs Draft folder.Only typing is a problem in my mobile browser. All you know that what I will do next... Exactly I pressed the PUBLISH POST button on my mobile browser to publish my first blog. Really, I achieved my blogging dream at the end of the day. Hope, today I will sleep early with some happy feelings. Finally my five year dream has come true today... Hope I have to install google app for blogging in my Froyo(Android OS).

Its not an end,........ Just begining.

With love,

Arul.