Big Bazaar: Only big in fraud. Review on Big Bazaar, Bangalore

I happened to visit one store of Big Bazaar in Bangalore (Malleswaram) just a couple of days back. It was a monthly grocery purchase visit. I and my wife decided to try this store of Big Bazaar this time after trying out all the small, mid, and large-sized supermarkets around our locality. To start with, we were pleased that a lot of variety and range were available in all products and categories. As we went on stuffing in the trailer according to the list she had prepared, we found that some unusual, fancy buy-off offers were displayed in every corner of the store. As most of you would know, these are indeed tempting offers. Though we have not had a very good experience with such combo or discount offers in the past, we decided to risk ourselves with some small offers like biscuits, cookies, etc. One we found was an offer with three packets of biscuits/cookies, nicely packed with a ribbon bearing one price tag. Finally, we picked up some of those, finished billing, and walked out.

After two days, at home, we decided to have some biscuits and opened the set of 3 packets, which we had picked under the combo offer. When we opened this, we found that the cookies inside had a fungus coating on them. This was Parle Hide & Seek series of Milano and Bourbourn biscuits. The chocolate on these cookies was liquified and melting. The fungus had spread on almost all the biscuits inside. Then, I decided to check the packed date and use-by date to see if we picked up some old stuff. However, the packed date showed as 01/11 (January 2011) and the use-by date as "best before six months from the date packed." Now, I was wondering if this was packed in January 2011 (just one month ago), it is supposed to stay fit for consumption at least until June 2011. I really had no clue how this could happen to the biscuits prepared just a month ago. We thought it was our bad luck and decided to dispose the biscuits, but suddenly the thought of writing about this to the customer care of Parle struck me so that they can be made aware of the condition of some biscuits coming out of such a reputed brand. I picked up the wrapper again to make note of their e-mail ID, and that is when I noticed a shocking thing on the wrapper. Though the packed date was mentioned as 01/11 (January 2011) as I mentioned earlier, I could see an erased print behind this date, which read as 10/10 (October 2010). Even though whoever tried to erase the original packed date and reprint a fake date on it tried to do this in the best professional way, the imprint of the original packed date could not be completely removed and it left a print in the background. This was more evident when I held up the wrapper facing a bright light.

Now, what do I say? I feel cheated, not because I paid Rs. 60 for these useless biscuits but because I was fooled by these intelligent cheaters. For them, selling outdated stuff to customers through such unfair and greedy means may be a normal usual task. They believe they are too big and have all the required backing to stay in business even if one or two customers catch their malpractices. I am not sure if this is Parle's idea to sell their old stuff through such means or is it Big Bazaar who developed this great plan. Also, by now I understood why these three packets were packed together in such a way that one cannot see the side of the wrapper that displays packed date/use-by date and MRP until the combo tag is broken.

Dear friends, please be careful of these methods. These supermarkets feel that customers are meant to be exploited and they will do it without any care or gratitude for us. They should be ashamed of these tactics against people who place trust on them and help them grow their business. At least, they should remember biscuits are consumed more by growing kids and can cause a lot of damage with their immunity still underdeveloped to fight fungus, poisoning, etc.

Best Regards,

Shiju