I ordered a karaoke CD from indiaplaza.com on 12 February. I noted that they seemed to be affiliated with Sulekha, which gave them more credibility to me than other places selling this CD. I chose 2 day shipping, and promptly got an email stating that it would take 3-5 days to process the order. I did the math and figured 7 business days would be as long as it should take to reach me, but it could be here in 5. My audition for the talent show was in 5 business days, so I hoped for the best.
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Well, the CD wasn’t here in 5 days, nor in 7. I auditioned with a track with vocals and still got in the show, on the condition that my real music be in before the dress rehearsal on 7 March. After 10 days, I sent them an email asking what the problem was, and got a reply that the CD was backordered, but would be shipped within four more days. All this time, their ’’order tracker’’ on the website said that my order had ’’no status - please check again later.’’ Need I mention that they charged my credit card for the full amount two days after I placed the order? Most reputable places do not charge until they ship the product.
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Four days later I was getting quite nervous, and decided to call indiaplaza.com to check on the status. First I got an answering machine that didn’t even say the name of the company. I tried later in the day and got a customer service rep who sounded like he was reading a script. I asked him about my order, and he said ’’It is not in stock and will be here in 10 to 12 days.’’ I told him that the show was in less than 10 to 12 days, so that was not acceptable. He then asked to confirm all my information - shipping and billing addresses, as well as credit card information (which he read to me; I was not encouraged to give it) even though it was obvious the problem did not lie with shipping OR billing, since nothing had been shipped and the account had been billed and reflected in my latest statement.
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I then asked why the website didn’t say that the item was out of stock, and he responded immediately with ’’You ordered the product while it was in stock, but we ran out fulfilling other orders, and by the time we got to your order, we had no stock left, so we are ordering more and it will take 10 to 12 days.’’ I took advantage of his long-winded speech and my broadband connection to look the same product up, to see if it was marked as sold out. Of course, it wasn’t, so I asked him why it still didn’t show its status. He got flustered, told me he was new, and he didn’t know everything yet. However, by that time, *I* did know all I needed to, so I thanked him and hung up.
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The story ends well, but no thanks to Indiaplaza. I contacted Aniruddh Karaoke personally to let them know what had happened, and they promised to send me a CD - I received it today, so I will be rehearsing on Monday and singing Friday as planned. But why is it that *I* could get a copy from them in less than a week, but Indiaplaza would take 10 to 12 days to get the same CD? Something doesn’t seem right about that. I have worked in internet security, and due to some of the patterns I have seen (charging card without shipping, customer service that keeps postponing shipping date) I have seriously considered the possibility that indiaplaza is a fraudulent entity, which is strange, if they are connected with Sulekha, as their WHOIS information seems to show. But in any case, they certainly have bad business practices and/or lazy employees who are not seeing to it that orders get filled.
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It is now 18 days after I placed the original order, and no one has even tried to follow up with me in any way. I wish I had come here FIRST and read the other review of Indiaplaza; that way none of this nightmare would have happened. Please consider using other outlets if you wish to receive your material in a timely manner...or at all...