Tradus - Better avoided. Review on Tradus

I have been doing mail order / online shopping for many years. I have bought variety of merchandise (including high value electronic gadgetry) from different online sellers. This time I decided to try Tradus. I picked up three items from their catalogue; a book, a pen drive and a 2GB SD card which had a free card reader bundled in.

Before placing the order I had gone through all the 'mouthshut' reviews of this site. I knew that Tradus ranking was not very high as far as customer satisfaction was concerned, yet I decided to give it a try.

I placed the order on 17 Nov 2010 and was told that the same would be shipped in 3 -4 days. When nothing happened in next 3 - 4 days I got in touch with them via email. After many mails I finally got my order delivered sometime around 26 / 27 Nov 2010.

I found all the items brand new in their original packing and in good shape except for the All-in-One Card reader that was thrown in free with the 2 GB Sandisk SD card. It was an old, scratched and damaged piece that came without its original packing. This product was clearly defective and didn’t work despite my best efforts. I plugged it into my PC, then another PC and finally my laptop. None of the machines recognised this drive, nor did it show any signs of life in it. Probably someone had found it unusable and discarded it.

I sent Tradus a mail about this requesting replacement of the card reader. Prompt came their blunt reply that under their terms and conditions they would not be able to replace the product and advised me to visit the nearest service centre to get the product checked.

It made me laugh at myself. I wondered where their policy of a ‘reverse pick up’ and ‘full refund if not satisfied’ was. I have no regrets because I had done my home work before placing the order and the product wasn't costly. However, what might be the plight of a customer who ordered a high value product from Tradus and got a worthless piece in return?

I think Tradus need to take some confidence building steps with the customers. I'll not go to the extent of outrightly dubbing them cheats but their attitude towards their customers is certainly casual and pathetic.

Better avoided.

NB

The same day I placed an order with Flipkart. They delivered the product (a cell phone) within the stipulated time and I have no complaints / issues with the product. Flipkart, I’d like to recommend here.