Happy new year!!!

TV serials

How many of you people out there watch serials? And how many of you people run away from serials?

I have watched just one serial seriously in my life and that too i abandoned in the middle after the story became very incomprehensible. The serial was "Shanti". It used to come on DD.

To broadly classify people, there are 3 types of people in the world.

a) those who watch serials.
b) those who despise serials and run away from them.
c) those who make money out of making serials

I am not sure why i am writing this stuff. Maybe out of frustration caused due to the increasing noise pollution caused by the serials.

The basic concept in making these serials is:

• The story should have so many twists and turns that the viewer gets totally confused.


• The story should follow the waterfall model of evolution. So whenever TRP drops, someone is killed and a new character is introduced changing the story to make it even more complex.


• The actors and acresses are allowed to take long vacations - the start of which is marked by the death of the character the actor/actress is playing and the return is marked by the introduction of a double role or a reincarnation of the old character.


• The story is told in the slowest pace possible to make the serial as long as possible. some serials never end.


• Each dialogue should be followed by at least 3 moving closeups of the actor/actress who has said the dialogue.


• There should be constant background music - loud and unpleasant.


• All the serials should look the same. There should not be major variations in the story and characters of the serials. This makes switching between different serials on different channels effortless mentally.


• The story should always circle around marriage and family issues and completely ignore all other aspects of life like finance, education and totally ignore political, rural and legislative issues.

I really dont know why people watch these serials and what do they get out of it. I prefer to watch movies - max 3 hours to get a story straight and no pondering/waiting for the next part. Or play games for entertainment which also sharpen my reflexes.

And now recently there has been awards for these serials as well. Along with ads in movie halls - for some serials running on some channel.

My view of the serials is based on very less experience in watching these serials - since i cant tolerate them. Please feel free to add more regarding these serials.

reliance usb mg880 modem on linux

running reliance usb mg880 modem on linux

1. plugin the usb modem and do "dmesg" to see if it is being detected
output should be somewhat like

<snip>
[ 4089.904000] ISOFS: changing to secondary root
[ 4434.112000] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
[ 4434.232000] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 4434.460000] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 4434.676000] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 8
[ 4434.796000] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 4435.020000] usb 3-1: device descriptor read/64, error -71
[ 4436.132000] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 10
[ 4436.352000] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
<snip>

2. Check out the vendorid and productid of the device

command: lsusb -v

<snip>
Bus 003 Device 010: ID 19d2:fffd
Device Descriptor:
bLength 18
bDescriptorType 1
bcdUSB 1.01
bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
bDeviceSubClass 0
bDeviceProtocol 0
bMaxPacketSize0 16
idVendor 0x19d2
idProduct 0xfffd
bcdDevice 0.00
iManufacturer 1 ZTE, Incorporated
iProduct 2 ZTE CDMA Tech
iSerial 3 Serial Number
bNumConfigurations 1
<snip>

3. run modprobe to create ttyUSB* devices

command: modprobe usbserial vendor=0x19d2 product=0xfffd

4. do a "dmesg" check if usb devices were created.

<snip>
[ 5791.852000] /build/buildd/linux-source-2.6.22-2.6.22/drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 5791.852000] usbserial_generic 3-1:1.0: generic converter detected
[ 5791.856000] usb 3-1: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 5791.856000] usbserial_generic 3-1:1.1: generic converter detected
[ 5791.856000] usb 3-1: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB1
[ 5791.856000] usbserial_generic 3-1:1.2: generic converter detected
[ 5791.856000] usb 3-1: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB2
[ 5791.856000] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 5791.856000] /build/buildd/linux-source-2.6.22-2.6.22/drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial Driver core
<snip>

5. create the wvdial.conf script

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 115200
SetVolume = 0
Dial-AT-OK ATDT Command =
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = AT+CRM=1
FlowControl = Hardware (CRTSCTS)
Phone = #777
Username = <phone no>
Password = <phone no>
New PPPD = yes
Carrier Check = no
Stupid Mode = 1

6. Run wvdial as root...

DOHC 4 cylinder car engine simulation

xbox 360 vs sony ps3 vs nintendo wii

Yes, another comparison. But from an end user perspective. I have recently got an Xbox 360.



Each gaming console has its own advantages and disadvantages. Lets go through the tech specs first to see which one is the best technically...

Microsoft Xbox 360 :

Cost - 20,000/- INR for the pro console which contains a 20 GB hdd and various wires for connecting with various devices. 18,000 for the core console (basic without hdd and wires).

Processor - 3.2 GHz PowerPC with 3 dual threaded processor cores

Graphics - ATI based custom processor @ 500 MHz Clock speed.

Video RAM - Up to 512 MB GDDR3 system RAM (700 MHz) plus 10 MB embedded DRAM (eDRAM) frame buffer

Video memory bandwidth - 21.6 GBps to system RAM; 256 GBps to eDRAM

Video resolution - 16:9 widescreen 720p, 1080i, 1080p (will downsample to standard definition). HDTV output supported.

Sound - Dolby Pro-Logic II(analog), 5.1 channel Dolby Digital. Number of voices is software based and limited only by the CPU and memory available.

System memory - 512 MB GDDR3 RAM (700 MHz), shared with GPU. Memory bandwidth of 22.4 GBps.

Drives - Optical 12X dual layered DVD drive and 20 GB removable hard drive.

Memory card ports - 2 Xbox 360 memory units (64 MB or 512 MB).

USB 2.0 ports - 3

Networking - 1 ethernet port 100 MBps. No Wi-Fi. Online gaming via Xbox LIVE. Also download full length movies through xbox live gold.


Sony Playstation 3 (ps3) :

Cost - 30,000/- INR for the console which includes a 60 GB Hard drive and almost everything. A higher model is also available with 80 GB Hard drive.

Processor - 3.2 GHz Cell processor with 7 single-threaded synergistic processing units cores.

Graphics - NVIDIA-based RSX "Reality Synthesizer" @ 550 MHz

Video RAM - 256MB GDDR3 (700MHz)

Video memory bandwidth - 22.4 GBps

Video resolution - 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p (will downsample to standard definition). HDTV output supported.

Sound - Stereo (Analog sound). 5.1 Channel Dolby digital and 7.1 Channel LPCM. Number of voices is limited to 320 compressed channels if hardware based. For software based voices the number is limited only by the available CPU and memory.

System memory - 256 MB XDR RAM (3.2GHz). Memory bandwidth of 25.6 GBps.

Drives - Optical Blu-Ray and 60 GB or 80 GB replaceable hard drive.

Memory card ports - Flash memory card reader (supports Memory Stick, Compact Flash and SD/MMC).

USB 2.0 ports - 4

Networking - 1 ethernet port 1 GBps. Bluetooth 2.0. Bluetooth controller interface. Wi-Fi. Free PlayStation Network with micropayment system; includes a Web browser. Individual game makers can choose to charge for online services.



Nintendo wii :

Cost - Sorry, did not check the price in india. In USD it is $249. There is only 1 model. It is the cheapest of all consoles.

Processor - 729 MHz IBM Broadway processor with 5 execution units

Graphics - ATI Hollywood processor @ 243 MHz

Video RAM - 24 MB of system RAM (486 MHz) plus 3 MB of embedded DRAM (eDRAM)

Video memory bandwidth - 3.9 GBps

Video resolution - 853 x 480 (480p) in widescreen or 4:3 aspect ratio. HDTV output NOT supported.

Sound - Dolby Pro-Logic II (Analog sound). No digital sound output. Number of voices is limited to Hardware DSP with 64+ channels

System memory - 64 MB GDDR3 RAM. Memory bandwidth of 1.9 GBps.

Drives - Proprietary optical drive. No hard drive. Has 512 MB internal flash memory for storing saved games, downloaded games and other data.

Memory card ports - 1 SD card slot, 2 GameCube memory card ports.

USB 2.0 ports - 2

Networking - No ethernet ports. Integrated Wi-Fi for networking and internet access. Bluetooth 2.0 for controllers. Wii Network online service includes online shopping, Web browsing, messaging, and other features.

So from all these following things are clear

-> Wii is underpowered as compared to the three.
-> Xbox 360 is ok, but ps3 has the best configuration.
-> In terms of networking and interconnectivity between devices, xbox is the best. Which when connected with a windows media centric pc can be used to record and play live media. In addition, media can be downloaded and played.
-> PS3 seems more like a pc than a gaming machine.
-> In terms of games the Xbox 360 has numerous options to choose from. Though Xbox 360 does not support most of the legacy Xbox games, but still it has a wide range of titles to choose from. Where as PS3 does not have that many titles to choose from. But since PS2 and PS1 games can also be played on PS3, the number of titles for PS3 also goes high. And Wii supports almost all original gamecube titles. Which means that if you have a PS2 or a game-cube, it would make more sense to upgrade to PS3 or Wii respectively. Since then you would be able to play your older games on the new machine.
-> The best things about PS3 are its video graphics which is said to be awesome. In addition to the next gen Blu-Ray drive and Wi-Fi. A Wi-Fi on Xbox 360 would have made it look irresistible.
-> And the thing about Wii is its wireless remote which uses accelerometers to sense how players swing, point, and tilt the controller, encouraging game titles to incorporate activity. So to swing a golf club in Wii Sports, which is bundled with the console, you literally swing the remote controller as if it were a golf club. That is something which is unavailable with xbox 360 or PS3.
-> If you are looking at power consumption factor then both Xbox 360 and PS3 are power hogs. Wii is very efficient (uses only 18 Watts of power). Xbox 360 is still a bit better than PS3 in terms of power consumption.

If you are looking at a complete entertainer with lots of games to choose from and easy connectivity between various "windows" based devices that you have, then Xbox 360 is recommended.

But before going out and purchasing just an Xbox 360, please be aware that it is a microsoft product and is made to crash. The "Ring of 3 red lights of death". That's what is supposed to happen with the Xbox. The problem, as i have found out after some googleing is that the Xbox 360 unit is not properly cooled. So if you decide to buy an Xbox-360 be prepared to have a fan (preferably an A/c) on top of it cooling it down. Though microsoft has been prompt in replacing defective Xbox-360s with new ones. So in case your Xbox-360 dies, you can call up microsoft and ask for replacement. PS3 and Wii have never had any issue of this type till now. They seem to be more properly tested.

There is also this funda or modding an Xbox-360. You can go to specific places where they place chips in your Xbox-360 for around 2000/- after which you can play most of the pirated games which come for 200-300 rs. The original Xbox-360 games cost around 2000-2500/- too much to spend for a normal person.

The thing i liked about xbox was its support - not from microsoft, but from the local community. It is difficult to hear about PS3 or Wii, but you can hear about Xbox-360 a lot cause there are lots of people using it. And once you go live on Xbox-360(it requires a minimum of 512 KBps internet connection), you have the whole world to play against.

Wii also has tonnes of games, but it is more appealing to small kids. Xbox has games both for serious players and kids. Whereas PS3 has some games which are mostly for serious players.

Source:

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/xbox360_ps3_wii.asp
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-356-1.htm
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/xbox360_how_to_choose.asp
And some other sites...

Piracy

In ancient ages, piracy referred to robbery at sea. Pirates used to mark down ships and boats and capture people and rob them.

In recent times, piracy refers to unauthorized reproduction and distribution of materials covered by copyright law.

So if you buy an mp3 cd with the latest songs for 50 rupees, you are supporting piracy.

But there is no stopping piracy. Looking it from the consumer point of view, an original DVD would cost around 800-1000 rs while a priated DVD would cost around 100 rs. The difference is huge. Why should a consumer - an end user pay 800/- for something that he can get for 100/- only. Because the end user is interested in the media or software and is not concerned with the source.

And then you keep on seeing those ads which try to make you go against pirated stuff.

But would you?

Recently i got an Xbox 360, and when i went out looking for games for xbox 360, i was shocked to see games priced around 2000. I was shocked. Paying 2000 for a game is too much. Earlier i used to get game cds for 100 rs (ofcourse pirated). But after some research, i came to know that games are locked using region codes. So games made for US cannot be played in a Xbox sold in india. That is something that only microsoft could think of. I have always worked with open-source stuff. Have always got the source and compiled it as i liked it and used it. And microsoft ofcourse would not support open-source.

Every businessman works to make money. And so does microsoft.

some more research led me believe that if i get my console modified, i could play region free games and also play pirated games which i can obtain for 100-200 rs. I would have gone ahead and modified the console, but then i thought, why spend so much time and money after modifying the console. I am not going to be a hard-core gamer. I would be using xbox for occassional gaming only. So i would be getting new games once in 3 months.

Maybe i would be able to find friends and share/exchange games.

Modifying software is ok - it should not cause any issue - since it is a low cost stuff and can be easily replaced. But modifying hardware is a costly issue. If anything goes wrong you could lose your hardware. And there is no easy replacement.

Maybe after an year of use, i find that i have become a very avid gamer, then i would get my xbox modded and play tons of games.

compiz fusion - linux rocks

Disk space on windows Vista

Recently i got a new lappy with windows vista. And within 2 weeks my disk usage went up from 25 GB to 34 GB. Though all i had installed was a few small softwares.

Ever imagine where the disk space goes when you are using windows vista?

What i did was i logged into linux and did a du -Sh and found that there was a hidden folder "System Volume Information" which was around 10 GBs and the folder was invisible in windows explorer. And then there was this hyberfile.sys and pagefile.sys taking up 2 GB each.

So windows is chewing up 14 GB of disk space for its processing in addition to the installation size of 6 GB.

System Volume Information is used by windows to store restore points for the system. The larger the volume, the more restore points it can store and the more restore points it can offer in case of a crash.

In my earlier lappy, i had windows xp and i had reduced the size of restore volume to 500 MB using some slider available somewhere. Though i never had to use the restore option in my 2 years of usage. I had a crash and had to reinstall windows again.

But in windows vista, i was unable to find such slider. And so i googled for "System Volume Information Disk usage windows vista" and found some cool links explaining the complete funda.

One of the most interesting links was this which explains in detail the use of restore points.

Well to make a long story short open up the command prompt (right click and do "run as administrator").

Then run vssadmin list shadowstorage, it will give a list of available shadow storage points ("System Volume Information"s' in the system - there is one on each drive). How much space is allocated and how much is used.

C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadowstorage

vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool

(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{3ce0cbe2-57c2-11db-a712-806e6f6e6963}\ Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{3ce0cbe2-57c2-11db-a712-806e6f6e6963}\

Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 9.335 GB

Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 9.539 GB

Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 10.395 GB


Now list down all the shadow storage points using vssadmin list shadows. And check out the number of restore points. Remember, your storage space should be large enough to have atleast 1 storage point. But i generally dont care for windows, cause, even if it crashes, all you could do is reinstall. I doubt "restore" would work...

And finally reduce the shadow storage size

C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=C: /For=C: /MaxSize=3GB

Rerun the vssadmin list shadowstorage command and check the amount of disk space used now

C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadowstorage

vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool

(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{3ce0cbe2-57c2-11db-a712-806e6f6e6963}\ Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{3ce0cbe2-57c2-11db-a712-806e6f6e6963}\

Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 1.347 GB

Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 1.389 GB

Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 3 GB


Bingo and now you have around 7 GB freed up.

Fasting, the gen-next way

In India, there are numerous occasions when people who worship gods, tend to observe fast. Fast, it seems to them would make the Gods happy and give them their blessings.

Though i truly fail to understand as to why would God be happy, if human beings stay on empty stomach - or eat this or that.

There are customs according to which people who prefer to eat non-vegetarian food, observe a "fast" and eat only vegetarian food on tuesdays and thursdays. I have never been able to figure out why? And why only tuesdays and thrusdays and why not mondays and wednesdays?

And then there is this huge festival called karwa-chauth where married women "fast" for their hubbies. They are not supposed to drink water or eat anything. But some women in my office say that though water is not allowed, you can have cold-drinks and tea/coffee. Strange... Well, if you look at it in this manner, even beer should be allowed... Just kidding...

And the latest trend in fasting is to "fast" for 9 days straight. The navratras. Shop keepers have special "navratra thalis". In fact, this fast seems to me more like a gen-next trend than to do anything with the Gods. All girls and most of the boys "Fast". There are rules about what you can eat and what you cannot eat. So though salt is not supposed to be allowed, but there is special "salt" available which can be had. And then since you are not allowed to eat normal rotis and rice, but there is a distinct variety of flour (not wheat flour) which could be used to make puris and whatever. And ofcourse there is another variety of rice - which you can have. And you can have potatos and lots of "special" papads, and "special" laddoos(sweets). And today itself i came to know that you can also have some green veggies like bottle-gourd and "arbi" (dont know the proper name).

Hence, i fail to understand the purpose of the fast, when eventually you tend to eat everything.

And i fail to understand why under-nourish yourself on the pretension of "fasting".

The fast that i remember is that of a college friend who decided that on every saturday - he would have food only once in the whole day - the main purpose being to lose weight. And he did good. Within 6 months, he had shaped his body pretty well.

Finally, to those people who are actually fasting, i would ask them to have mercy on their close ones who take tension since you would be going without food. The same tension that you would have, if they go without food for a day.

Sql Injections...

Why not rails?

SUMMARY: I spent two years trying to make Rails do something it wasn’t meant to do, then realized my old abandoned language (PHP, in my case) would do just fine if approached with my new Rails-gained wisdom.

INTRO / BACKGROUND:

Back in January 2005, I announced on the O’Reilly blog that I was going to completely scrap over 100,000 lines of messy PHP code in my existing CD Baby (cdbaby.com) website, and rewrite the entire thing in Rails, from scratch.

I hired one of the best Rails programmers in the world (Jeremy Kemper aka bitsweat), and we set off on this huge task with intensity. The first few months showed good progress, and Jeremy could not have been more amazing, twisting the deep inner guts of Rails to make it do things it was never intended to do.

But at every step, it seemed our needs clashed with Rails’ preferences. (Like trying to turn a train into a boat. It’s do-able with a lot of glue. But it’s damn hard. And certainly makes you ask why you’re really doing this.)

Two years (!) later, after various setbacks, we were less than halfway done.* (To be fair to Jeremy’s mad skillz: many setbacks were because of tech emergencies that pulled our attention to other internal projects that were not the rewrite itself.) The entire music distribution world had changed, and we were still working on the same goddamn rewrite. I said fuckit, and we abandoned the Rails rewrite. Jeremy took a job with 37 Signals, and that was that.

I didn’t abandon the rewrite IDEA, though. I just asked myself one important question:

“Is there anything Rails can do, that PHP CAN’T do?”

The answer is no.

I threw away 2 years of Rails code, and opened a new empty Subversion respository.

Then in a mere TWO MONTHS, by myself, not even telling anyone I was doing this, using nothing but vi, and no frameworks, I rewrote CD Baby from scratch in PHP. Done! Launched! And it works amazingly well.

It’s the most beautiful PHP I’ve ever written, all wonderfully MVC and DRY, and and I owe it all to Rails.

Inspired by Rails:

*- all logic is coming from the models, one per database table, like Martin Fowler’s Active Record pattern.

*- no requires or includes needed, thanks to __autoload.

*- real MVC separation: controllers have no HTML or business-logic, and only use REST-approved HTTP. (GET is only get. Any destructive actions require POST.)

*- all HTML coming from a cute and powerful templating system I whipped up in 80 lines, all multi-lingual and caching and everything

*- … and much more. In only 12,000 lines of code, including HTML templates. (Down from 90,000, before.)

Though I’m not saying other people should do what I’ve done, I thought I should share my reasons and lessons-learned, here:

SEVEN REASONS I SWITCHED BACK TO PHP AFTER 2 YEARS ON RAILS:

#1 - “IS THERE ANYTHING RAILS/RUBY CAN DO THAT PHP CAN’T DO? … (thinking)… NO.”
For 2 years, I thought Rails is genius, PHP is shit. Rails is powerful, PHP is crap.
I was nearly killing my company in the name of blindly insisting Rails was the answer to all questions, timeframes be damned.
But when I took a real emotionless non-prejudiced look at it, I realized the language didn’t matter that much.
Ruby is prettier. Rails has nice shortcuts. But no big shortcuts I can’t code-up myself in a day if needed.
Looked at from a real practical point of view, I could do anything in PHP, and there were many business reasons to do so.

#2 - OUR ENTIRE COMPANY’S STUFF WAS IN PHP: DON’T UNDERESTIMATE INTEGRATION
By the old plan (ditching all PHP and doing it all in Rails), there was going to be this One Big Day, where our entire Intranet, Storefront, Members’ Login Area, and dozens of cron shell scripts were ALL going to have to change. 85 employees re-trained. All customers and clients calling up furious that One Big Day, with questions about the new system.
Instead, I was able to slowly gut the ugly PHP and replace it with beautiful PHP. Launch in stages. No big re-training.

#3 - DON’T WANT WHAT I DON’T NEED
I admire the hell out of the Rails core gang that actually understand every line inside Rails itself. But I don’t. And I’m sure I will never use 90% of it.
With my little self-made system, every line is only what’s absolutely necessary. That makes me extremely happy and comfortable.

#4 - IT’S SMALL AND FAST
One little 2U LAMP server is serving up a ton of cdbaby.com traffic damn fast with hardly any load.

#5 - IT’S BUILT TO MY TASTES
I don’t need to adapt my ways to Rails. I tell PHP exactly what I want to do, the way I want to do it, and it doesn’t complain.
I was having to hack-up Rails with all kinds of plugins and mods to get it to be the multi-lingual integration to our existing 95-table database.
My new code was made just for me. The most efficient possible code to work with our exact needs.

#6 - I LOVE SQL
Speaking of tastes: tiny but important thing : I love SQL. I dream in queries. I think in tables.
I was always fighting against Rails and its migrations hiding my beloved SQL from me.

#7 - PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES ARE LIKE GIRLFRIENDS: THE NEW ONE IS BETTER BECAUSE *YOU* ARE BETTER
Rails was an amazing teacher. I loved it’s “do exactly as I say” paint-by-numbers framework that taught me some great guidelines.
I love Ruby for making me really understand OOP. God, Ruby is so beautiful. I love you, Ruby.
But the main reason that any programmer learning any new language thinks the new language is SO much better than the old one is because he’s a better programmer now! You look back at your old ugly PHP code, compared to your new beautiful Ruby code, and think, “God that PHP is ugly!” But don’t forget you wrote that PHP years ago and are unfairly discriminating against it now.
It’s not the language (entirely). It’s you, dude. You’re better now. Give yourself some credit.

Ok. All that being said, I’m looking forward to using Rails some day when I start a brand new project from scratch, with Rails in mind from the beginning.

But I hope that this reaches someone somewhere thinking, “God our old code is ugly. If we only threw it all away and did it all over in Rails, it’d be so much easier!”

Copied from the original post http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/09/7_reasons_i_switched_back_to_p_1.html

driving in noida - Part 2

In case you have missed my previous post, you can take a look at it here.

Recently, it seems that the number of vehicles in noida has doubled. Specially the number of rickshaws and cycles. And if I am driving my car, i am doomed.

The choice is always between either kill someone or get killed. So if i drive a car, i am safe but other people may get hurt by it and i might land in trouble. On the other hand, if i ride my bike, i am not safe at all. And Other cars and specially busses might run over me and that might be the end of me.

The problem is that there is complete chaos on the roads. The traffic police try their best to control the traffic at red lights, but they don't seem to do a good job. And the road between two traffic lights is a mess. In noida, the red lights seem to come every 1 km. So after every 1 km, you have to relax for 2 minutes. And that adds to the frustration of people.

The cycles and rickshaws are the best. They move in clusters and in the center of the road, preventing the fast moving traffic to go ahead. Also all cycles and rickshaws do not have to look behind while turning. Neither do they understand signals (left/right turn indicators, or red lights). And they could squeeze in between the narrowest gaps between cars and rickshaws. Not caring if they scrape a car or a bike in the process. Ofcourse, they dont have anything to lose.

And then there are busses and tampos, which would stop in the middle of the road to load and unload passengers, not caring about the queue of vehicles piling and honking after them.

And the most unique feature of the roads in noida is the abundance of stray cattle and bullock carts. A friend of mine was once held behind 2 bullock carts racing with each other. He and ofcourse people behind him had to move at the pace of the bullock carts for about 30 minutes until the bullock carts reached their destination and one of them was declared winner. And there are cases where cows and buffaloes cross roads in a queue and hold up traffic.

The point i think is that no one cares. All want to move ahead, not caring if they are the cause of a traffic jam. There was a case once when i was at a red light held in a traffic jam - where buses and cars and rickshaws have just moved in the center of the road and other people were unable to move. I was just sitting and waiting for the jam to clear up, letting people ahead of me move more into the jam, when suddenly this maruti comes from the left and plunges in between the jam and my car. And when i honk at him, he shows his big eyes to me - as if i have committed the most terrible crime till date. Ofcourse, i had to wait till the car ahead of his car moved and he moved.

What do people get out of such abrupt action? More mess and more jams.

And then i remember this case in delhi, where a lady was hit by some other vehicle and she parked her vehicle in the center of the road blocking up the traffic and the cops surveying at leisure and getting all the details of the mishap from her while people waited in queue behind her.

And a similar incident in noida, just near my house where a maruti banged into a truck. No one was hurt. And from where i passed by, i could see that neither the car nor the truck was much damaged. But still the two vehicles were in the middle of the road and there was a big traffic jam behind it while the cops tried to find the cause and process of the accident at their leisure.

I think, i have been ranting too much. But the situation has gone from bad to worse. Maybe the situation was as bad earlier, but i did not face the peak traffic those days, cause i used to go early and come back late. But now, going on time and coming back on time matters. So...

I still love my bike and the way she could move in and out of such traffic.

How stock markets work!!!

It was autumn, and the Red Indians on the remote reservation asked their New
Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Red Indian
chief in a modern society, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to
be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his Tribe that the
winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village
should collect wood to be prepared. But also being a practical leader, after
several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National
Weather Service and asked 'Is the coming winter going to be cold?' 'It looks
like this winter is Going to be quite cold indeed,' the meteorologist at the
weather service Responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more
Wood. A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. 'Is it
going to be a very cold winter?' 'Yes,' the man at National Weather Service
again replied, 'it's definitely going to be a very cold winter.'

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every
scrap of wood they could find. Two weeks later, he called the National
Weather Service again. 'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to
be very cold?' 'Absolutely,' The Man replied. 'It's going to be one of the
coldest winters ever.'

'How can you be so sure?' the Chief asked. The weatherman replied, 'The Red
Indians are collecting wood like Crazy.'

This is how stock markets work!!!

myisamchk - checking and repairing myisam tables in mysql

First of all, how and why does a mysql table go corrupt?

Tables generally go corrupt when mysql server crashes and the tables are not closed properly. They remain in an inconsistent state when mysql is again restarted. What generally happens when a table gets corrupted is that the index file (.MYI) and the data file(.MYD) do not synchronize properly. So there might be some records in the data file for which index entries are not proper.

I have also seen cases where the table goes corrupt just like that. Which might be due to
a) the disk being bad
b) some bug in mysql leading to inconsistent reads and writes.

And one of the ways to repair corrupted mysql (MYISAM) tables is to use the myisamchk utility.

Generally i would do the following (sweet and simple)

mysql> CHECK TABLE ABC;
mysql> REPAIR TABLE ABC;

But there are cases when these queries fail to recover the table. I had a case where "REPAIR TABLE" used to give me "OK" but "Check table" used to give me "table marked as crashed". To recover from such cases the only method to use is the myisamchk utility.

./bin/myisamchk [options] ./data/<database_name>/<table_name>.MYI

A myisamchk --help would list down all the options.

Note: No other program should be accessing the table when myisamchk is repairing a table. I prefer to turn off the mysql on the machine where table is corrupted unless it is repaired.

The best option for full recovery is --safe-recover. Which can be used to repair tables which cannot be repaired by any other option. If the table cannot be repaired using this option then you might have to give up on the table.

But --safe-recover takes up a lot of time.

The way to speed up myisamchk is to increase the buffers that it uses to read, write and process.

--read_buffer_size and --write_buffer_size is used to read and write data from the table and to the temporary file.

--sort_buffer_size is used when the keys are repaired by sorting keys, which is the normal case when you use --recover

--key_buffer_size is used when you are checking the table with --extend-check or when the keys are repaired by inserting keys row by row into the table, that is using --safe-recover option. Repairing using the key buffer is slower and also takes much less disk space as compared to sorting.

To speed up table repairing use large values for key buffer and sort buffer. Both values can be made very large cause only one of them is used at a time.

Eg: myisamchk --key_buffer_size=512M --sort_buffer_size=512M --read_buffer_size=8M --write_buffer_size=8M ./path/to/database/table.MYI

legends cannot be remade

Yup thats true. You cannot remake legends. The originals are still the best. Why am i saying this? Well, recently i had a chance to watch the recently remade bollywood legend "sholay" - "Ram Gopal Verma ki AAG".

There has been remixes of all types of classic old songs. And remix videos with all "beautiful" gals dancing here and there. And yes upto some extent i tend to like them. But i cant hear them for ever. I can hear those remixes for some time. But the original songs are still the best and can be heard again and again.

There was the remake of the bollywood and amitabh bacchan classic - "DON" starring shah rukh khan. And it was not that good. The remake had one good quality that in the new version of "DON" - bad wins over good as opposed to the original version where good wins over bad. So though the movie was not that good the climax saved the movie and it did make some news. People liked it.

But then, what is wrong with "AAG"? Let me put it this way - it is a terrible mix of old and new. The movie is simply a very bad version for sholay. You cannot replace "Gabbar Singh" with "Babban" or "Thakur" with "mohanlal" or "Veeru" with "Heero" or "Jai" with "Raj" or "Basanti" with "Ghungroo" or "Dhanno" with "Laila". The original characters and their names were the best suited. Babban and mohanlal does not ring at all. Nor could you modernize the dialogues

Orignial - "Kitne Admi the?"
Remake - "Kitne ... Kitne"

It just does not ring. The final fight sequence is also very sick. And the mix of original sound track with modern sound track during the final fight sequence makes things terrible. You cannot remove thakur's fingers instead of his hand. And of course the thakur has to kill gabbar with his special shoes (with nails) rather than kill him with an axe or whatever...

Earlier bollywood movies used to be remakes of origial hollywood movies. Like the recently hit "Partner" was a remake of "Hitch". Though i enjoyed the orignial hollywood movie a lot more than the remake. But it still did make sense for those audience who do not watch or do not understand the hollywood movie/culture/language. But remake of a hindi original does not make sense at all.

It seems that the bollywood directors and producers and script writters have run out of new and fresh ideas and have also run out of more hollywood movies to remake. Though there a lot of hollywood moives which could be remade still... Or maybe, they are just tired of remaking hollywood movies.

Hope that "Victoria No 203" remake is better... Will watch it soon.

The killer blue line buses in delhi

The blue line buses are everywhere. And from the everyday news, it seems that they are killing people on the fly. Crushing a pedestrian, or a cyclist or a motorcycle rider.

Some days back, i had the option of riding one of the buses. And i realized some things which though i had noticed earlier - but it did not strike me.

The problem - to me seems like more of an infrastructure & mindset problem than that of blue line buses. People in delhi think that they are invincible. They have the mindset that i am the king of the road and no one else could do anything to me. Instead of thinking about the situation as a whole, they would prefer to be at the top of it.

So what happens is firstly, there are no footpaths and pedestrians are forced to walk on the road. Earlier people used to walk at the end of the road, but now-a-days, people tend to walk more to the center of the road and since the number of vehicles are ever increasing in delhi and the roads always remain of the same width, people tend to drive more towards the end of the road. And lo, you have people being overtaken by honking cars and buses. And the people who dont look behind when they walk become the victims. If we would have had proper footpaths and pedestrian crossings then i think, the situation would have been much better.

To add to the ever increasing traffic and the narrow roads, now comes the Delhi-Metro, the construction of which makes the road even narrower - so narrow that sometimes it is even difficult for a single bus to pass through it. Of course - this would cause jams and increase the frustration level in the daily commuters.

The attitude of bikers and cyclists are even peculiar. Bikers tend to overtake you from the left - always. And they would zoom between buses and cars. All ads about zippy 150 cc bikes also show the same. I also confess that sometimes i would also zoom between cars, but ofcourse taking every precaution. But there are people who would like to squeeze in between cars and buses and zoom ahead. These are the people who neither care for their life nor for the life of others.

Recently i had an incident where an uncle on a scooter zoomed past the back of my car - collided with the back of my car and fell - in-spite of my constant honking. If he would have waited for 2 minutes or would have kept a bigger distance between my car and his scooter while zooming, he might have saved himself a fall and saved me another scratch on my car.

The problem to me seems that everyone is in a hurry to reach his destination. And the narrow roads and traffic jams, dont help a bit causing people to move ahead where ever they see a possibility. No one drives in a proper lane. Lane changing is very common. The only aim is to move ahead.

The bus i sat in a few days ago, was trying its best to avoid pedestrians and cyclists honking now and then to make space for it to move ahead. And still he had to brake hard for a hero on the motorcycle cause the hero overtook from the left and zoomed ahead from a very narrow space between the bus and some cyclists.

It is not the blue line buses which should be called "killer". It is the government and the infrastructure which should be called "killer". The government has given us smooth roads but the roads are too narrow for the kind of traffic delhi has. The government has not planned proper footpaths & pedestrian crossings. No one believes in staying in the same lane while driving.

No matter what you do, the autos always overcharge. They ask for thrice the fare and settle for double fare. And they deny driving to the destination, if they dont get at-least twice the fare. And this again adds to the delay in reaching one's destination. And frustration level keeps on increasing among commuters.

It looks more like a chaos...

independence day

Today is 15th august, india's independence day. But are we really independent. Lets check our independence level.

1. Can you move about anywhere you want from 14th night till 15th night, and celebrate our independence day. That, i think, might not be possible. From 14th itself, the capital of the nation - Delhi is on high alert. People moving in and out from the city are closely monitored. That's the story given by any personnel. But i have been out once on the morning of independence day, and i have experienced the "independence". Well, it happened that i was on my bike and it was around 11 am. I thought i would catch the early morning show of some movie (i dont remember the name) and thought of watching it at some place inside delhi. So i took my bike and when i was crossing the border, the thulla was there and he flagged me down and asked for my papers. Ofcourse i did not have all the papers. But i told him that i am a working software professional and other stuff and showed him my DL (identity proof). But he was adamant and determined to proove that i was a terrorist and had stolen "the bike" to do some notorious activities. What the hell... Anyways, it was easy to figure out that he was terribly in need of money and a 100 rs note proved to him that i was a good citizen.

In the mean time, 3 to 4 cars crossed the border - i remember one with black glasses as well. And none were stopped. There might have been some "terrorists" in there too. Don't i make some sense. So actually, if anyone wants to do anything it is easy to do so. I mean if someone plans a bomb to be exploded on 15th - i dont think the corrupt police officials of the capital of india would be able to stop him. They are just here to curb the independence of the general public on the independence day.

2. And secondly, you receive numerous smses from your family and friends wishing you "Happy independence day" and another sms from the cell operators (IDEA, HUTCH, AIRTEL), that special rates of smses are NOT applicable today. Why? Cause it is independence day and they have got to make some money today. The message i got today was a palindrome in itself. "This is to notify that special call rates and sms rates for different schemes would not be applicable for today. Happy independence day". Isnt it a nice way to say "Happy independence day". You cant help it. After all there is no control over it.

3. India is a country where everybody looks after himself only. There is no control by the government. Recently there had been some reports of high levels of pesticides and harmful chemicals in agro products imported from india by singapore(i think). The government over there at least takes care of its citizens. This is not the case in india. All the government is interested in is taking its taxes and the politicians are interested in filling their pockets. What happened to the chole king - Ashok malhotra. Suddenly he has almost disappeared from all news channels and news papers. He has moved from the first page to some unknown page in a small invisible column which has to be searched to be read. Ofcourse he will get away. He has all the money that he has accumulated over such a small period of time. He could have been the richest man on this planet - if he was not caught. But now - who ever opens his mouth to speak against him would get a mouthful of money - so that he may never need to speak again.

4. And then there is reliance digital at the Shipra MALL - who were offering pamplets with a tricolored pen. Celebrating independence day and inviting more customers.

That's india...

networking on the net

myspace & facebook were, i think the pioneers in social networking websites. Sites which link people to people. And then tons of other websites followed. Some for social networking and some for professional networking. I myself use orkut for social networking and linkedin for professional networking.

First of all, we would go a bit in depth about the technicality of these web sites. Well basically in terms of software engineering - all networking websites are graphs. Each node having number of child nodes and so on. The best way to built such sites is to have a linked list type of structure where each user or node and its corresponding links are stored in memory.

The architecture for such a site could be easily designed for a small number of users. All you got to do is store the information that user "A" is linked directly to users "B", "X" and "Y". And that information could be stored in the database. But, as the site grows, this information multiplies exponentially. It is like 2 users invite 4 others and those 4 would then invite 16 others and so on.

It is when the data reaches a critical mass, that extracting information from the site becomes slow and heavy. This is where the system starts to smoke and the site goes slow. The way to solve this is to have the information - which is in the form of a graph in the memory. Where also it is easier to traverse and get information whenever needed.

Now lets look at it from a business perspective. What do entrepreneurs get out of building and maintaining such heavy sites? Lets look at social networking websites first.

You have the benefit of searching and getting in touch with long lost friends. And you build up your network. The way to get revenue out of this is firstly ads. Now social networking sites are places where you stick and explore. Of course, i would spend more time on orkut than i would spend on yahoo or gmail or any other website. So, if a user spends more time of a website, it is more likely that he would click on one or more ads. And this is where the revenue is. But is this revenue good enough? I cant comment on that. But look at it from this point of view, that the information available from these sites could be used to generate very relevant ads. And the ads could be linked from user to user. So if i click on a particular ad, then people of similar age and sex who are in my network would be interested in that ad. At least it increases the relevance of ads shown.

And what about professional networking sites. In addition to ads, professional networking site is a bit more serious area than a social networking site. So, if you are on a professional networking site and you have got your cv over there, then someone who is looking for a similar kind of profile - might find you in his network and ask for reference. So in addition to getting a person of matching profile, you also feel more secure about the guy - cause he is known by someone whom you know. And that someone can vouch for his work profile. So, the revenue model in professional networking sites is to charge for contacting people. So there is someone who is not in my direct network and i being an HR person find his profile interesting, then i will have to pay to contact him. It could be looked as a next level of job-site, which could be used to fill up "top level" positions. People on the top who generally are not on the normal job-sites.

But what i fail to understand is that is this revenue good enough. Well, only time would tell. Ofcourse, once the site grows huge with trillions of users, the revenue can be substantial.

I like the model of techtribe, which allows a user to post a job and another user to refer someone for the job. It is more focused on the idea of head-hunting using professional networking.

And the latest addition to this list is brijj from info edge (naukri.com's parent organization).

Maybe a day would come when you would look into your network to find a good plumber you could trust.

P.S. List_of_networking_websites

Driving in Noida (Delhi/NCR)

Driving in delhi/NCR is a unique experience. Specially driving cars. I never realized it until i got a car of my own. Riding a bike is better.

I had driven a car for 5 years before i got a car of my own in delhi. But looking at the condition of driving in delhi, i asked a motor driving school to give me 4-5 classes of driving in heavy traffic and thru narrow lanes. And it was there that i came to know that he had tons of students like me. People who were back from the US and were unable to drive in the crazy traffic of delhi/NCR.

Well, let me tell you about a day driving to office.

8:35 AM - I am already late. Generally i wish to be ready to go by 8:25. 10 minutes before time and i avoid the 8:30 traffic. Well - anyways, i start my car and look behind (i have to do a back to get out of my colony), and there are cars everywhere. Slowly take a reverse and move a little to the left and a little to the right and finally get to put my car between a pole and another car. Now all i have to do is take a 45 degree turn and then another reverse and another 45 degree turn before i am through with driving in reverse.

8:40 AM - Wow, it took only 5 minutes to get going. Good timing. Now avoiding the bush to the left and the small open drain at the right, i drive and again avoid the car on the left and another on the right and am finally on the main road.

8:43 AM - Oops, am stuck on the first red light which appears 100 meters from my home. Actually, i am not supposed to stand at the red light, since i have to take a left which is free. But there are so many people, so many cars and bikes and cycles and rickshaws that they have blocked the complete road and unless they move i wont be able to access my "free" left turn. And i look around. A cycle goes by wriggling between cars and bikes. Another rickshaw tries to wriggle but the hole is not big enough for him. I just hope he does not scratch my car.

8:45 AM - finally out of the red light and am driving at speed of 50 - heading straight for another red light. And i see a bike coming from the opposite direction on the wrong side. I move a bit to the right to avoid him and a car whizzes by missing me by inches and blowing its horn.

8:47 AM - Another red light. And buses lined up against each other covering the whole road. Arent they supposed to be on the left most lane. cycles and rickshaws are coming from all the roads in the crossing. The red lights are not supposed to mean anything for them. They are free to cross and create a mess at the intersection. And i patiently wait for the light to turn green. And lo, the light is green. I move ahead and i am behind a bus and a rickshaw. The bus jumps ahead, but the rickshaw moves slowly and no matter how much i honk, it wont let me move ahead. The light turns yellow and the thulla's eyes at the other end turns to dollars ($)($). But i manage to make it before the light turns red again. And the thulla turns sad. He catches hold of the car behind me.

8:50 AM - Another red light. After wriggling between cows standing between the road and 4 cycles (fast friends i believe) riding next to each other covering almost the entire road, and avoiding potholes and speed-breakers similar to small mountains, i am relaxing at another red light. The speed-breakers were terrible. They were not only meant to slow you down, but stop you completely - make you think twice whether they would scrap the car's underside and then drive over them. And now i am looking at another red light. Tons of cycles and rickshaws ahead of me. Some cycles are balancing 3 people on them. That's why circuses dont work in india any more. You get to see circus everyday on the road.

8:52 AM - The light turns green, but vehicles have not started moving. Oh, there is no thulla at the other end and the vehicles from the left side of the crossing are still moving across - even when their signal has turned red. Finally someone realizes and stops and my line moves ahead. The uncle in the santro ahead of me is on his cell phone and is blocking the whole road. He will either smash into me if i try to overtake him or smash into someone else. Better avoid him.

9:00 AM - Dropped my wife. Took a U-turn and am now rushing towards my office.

9:05 AM - Another red light. I respect it. There is a bus behind me. It starts honking. And now the bus conductor comes over and asks me to move a bit to the left so that he can move his bus ahead. What the heck, cant he wait for 1 minute till the light turns green and we all go. No, but he has to move 1 meter ahead of where he is now. No point in argueing, i move ahead.

9:10 AM - I am rushing. I will be late for office. Oops, there are bikes rushing too. Some from the left and some from the right. Bikes in india are meant to zoom, and thats what bikers do, overtake you from the left and the right. Another red light - and i am lucky this time - it is still green - i can rusht through. I give a right turn signal and move ahead - and ZOOOOM... a biker goes from my right side. I hit my brakes - trying to avoid crashing into him. Save a life.

9:12 AM - Now finally i am on the worst road on my route. Where there are more cycles and rickshaws that they cover the whole road. And there are cows in the middle of the road and cars coming from anywhere. I drive slowly. The driver behind me honks and then finally overtakes me from the left - pushing me to the right. I apply my brakes trying to avoid the car overtaking from the left and the car coming from the right.

9:17 AM - Now i am behind 2 rickshaws both trying to race. I honk, but both of them are SRKs. And are racing to win. There are cars and bikes coming from the other side and covering the road. I cant over take them. All i have to do is put the car in 2nd gear and just let the car move behind them. Another bike shoots by.

9:20 AM - The left turn to my office is near. Wow!! Honk for the people standing there to move by, so that i can drive on. They give me "The Eye" and then slowly move on. Hell, i am going to be late today.

9:24 AM - I am in front of the office and am parking. The guard tells me to move a bit ahead and then a bit left and then a bit right and then a bit back. And finally i am parked.

9:29 AM - I run and punch into the office...

Great na... If i had been on a bike i would have made it 15 minutes earlier.

Anyways, just hoping that when i return back home, there are no cars on the path to my parking place. And my parking place is still empty.

indiatimes shopping experiences

I have had a bad experience with indiatimes shopping. And when i was searching for similar people, i came across http://www.whoisdeep.com/2005/10/27/indiatimes-shoppingnahnot-again, where tons of people have written down their experiences.

All i am going to do is put all the stuff here also... I am just copying this material so that the frauds by indiatimes shopping becomes more noticeable. The posts are ordered chronologically that is oldest first and newest in the end.

=============================================================

The orignial entry on 27 Oct 2005

I wanted to buy Lion King 1 VCD for my friend, though Planet M is just 5 mins by car from my place, I decided to order the CD from Indiatimes Store online to avoid packing the cd and sending it to courier. (Wanted to send it to Surat, Gujarat)

All went cool till checkout, at the time of checkout it asked me to enter Indiatimes ID or register, I clicked on register option, registered the ID and then tried to login. The system didn’t allow me to login and asked me to register again….I clicked on Forgot Password link, entered the ID…waited…and suddenly some script error popped up saying page not found or something….

I went to their home page again and clicked on forgot password link from there, it took me to some other forgot password page….I entered my ID, it asked me the secret question and I was expecting it to send me the new password or show option to reset the password but instead of that it showed me my password on the screen…I was like WTF…

Okay…that part is over…I copied the password and logged in using same again but it showed me same error…now I got fed up and just clicked on the register link again….and WTF, it took me to indiatimes dating site registration page…

I entered the details and clicked on submit…hmm 10 seconds…20…30….40 seconds…sucks I closed the window, took car keys, went to Plant M and bough the CD…

It sucked totally…I wonder how they allow new customers to register shop on their site….



Ashish Mehta says
02-Dec-2005 at 3:18 pm


I entirely agree. It truly SUCKS!! I ordered a set of Charlie Chaplin VCDs for gifting to a newphew on his b’day. I ordered 2 months in advance and after many calls, it arrived on the day of b’day at 7pm!!

On another occassion I registered .in domains with them. I will never renew it with them! Their interface sucks big time. I had to make 5 calls and send 10 emails before I had my username and password. All that I wanted to do was change DNS and I had to wait for 9 days to get my username and password. Pretty pathetic! I expected far better services.


Preetha says
03-Jan-2006 at 8:40 pm


I am Completley wit you………….
Its the worst Shopping Portal ever…………….I have had bad experience twice…………it is really pathetic……………
I ordered a Gifts to My mom & Sister in India and everything was fine till they charged my bank and once the payment was done……….the order history just dissapeared…………..I had no means of tracking my package………..
Till date it has not reached my Mother & Sister………………

I woudl never recommend any one this site………..its Patetic……horrible…………………….freaks me out…………

M B Nataraj, Los Angeles says
19-Jan-2006 at 4:55 am


I have been quite an avid internet shopper. I have tried them all Fabmall,indiatimes,bazee and US ones too. Most of them are pretty good. My recent experience with indiatimes shopping has been bad. I ordered an aiptek cam from them, beforehand they called up saying it would be delivered in a few days and nothing happened for several days and suddenly without so much as an explanation or an apology refunded the amount to the card and deleted the order from my order history to erase tracks. Customer service is pathetically powerless and meaningless and there is no contact with those who matter or care. What is disgustingly galling is the item continues to be advertised at the rate I had paid three weeks later. May be the place is inhabited by fly by night operators.


anil says
03-Feb-2006 at 6:38 am


Indiatimes shopping I think is not only the worst site ever I have done shopping from, but also I will say they are cheats.Not only did they never fulfilled my order ,but also are not even paying back my money .And there is no customer service response!!

Definitely will advice to never do any shopping from this site.

A Sircar says
08-Feb-2006 at 10:34 am


This is what usually happens in India. Take the money from the customer upfront and then let him do the running around.

I ordered for some books two weeks back. It has not been sent. The order status shows “under process”. I have written several emails. One would think they would respond explaining the delay. Expect no such thing from Indiatimes.

It appears that they stock nothing and get the stuff you want after you have given them the money. Therefore, it must often happen that they have your money but are unable to find the stuff you ordered in the market.

We need a website exclusively to report such malpractices. I hope someone with commitment and time will set it up soon.


SUNIL NAIR says
14-Feb-2006 at 5:26 pm


i was searching indiatimes shopping contact number or any of their location in google search engine, so that i can just go there and blast them. i found the comments of some freinds who had did the same mistake i had done… iam in muscat ( oman), wanted to send a gift to my wife on valentines day. i ordered for D’Damas pendent, the payment of which is immediately taken out from my account. but the gift is not yet received or no attempt to contact is also done.. the basic purpose of sending the gift with lot of affection and anticipation is lost, if the objective is not met. This kind of cheating should not be encouraged, playing with peoples emotions and money. Let indiatimes shopping go and beg on road, if they want money, but should not extort money from people through this criminal ways.

I have a request PLEASE NEVER EVER ORDER ANY GIFT THROUGH INDIATIMES. ALSO, IF ANY OUR FREIDNS HAPPENS TO GET THEIR LOCATION AND CONTACT NUMBER, PLEASE POST IT IN WEBSITE, SO THAT, THE SUFFERER TEACH THEM A GOOD LESSON ON THEIR PLACE.


gaurav chandra says
22-Feb-2006 at 11:53 am


i ordered a dvd player through indiatimes and sent them a cheque. its a month since then and never got anything. i have been sending mails and receiving any answers. Also there is no contact no. on the website. if anybody here knows any contact no. please forward it.

PLEASE STOP USING INDIATIMES.COM

Rakesh Arya says
09-Mar-2006 at 1:34 am


Needless to add, i am another pained agreeved customer of this hopeless site. I ordered a DVD player ( order no #210007708) to gift it to my relatives from the site which booast of so many benefits/ claims / customer support / service centres. As usual, the full amount along with shipping charges was deducted to my account immediately but there was no update / information / confirmation to me after that. 10 days i was struggling to get information on the web / website / link for a customer support / customer contact no. but i had no clue of the shipping details. Luckily on 11th day the gift was received by the relatives but to our shock it was a broken piece.

From last one month i have been trying to complain to the website / company / Times of India on the defective product and requesting them to change.. but till date i am not successful. If someone comes across the contact no. / contcat mail / of indiatimes.com shopping customer care please pass this on to me or post on the web.

The website doesn’t support feedback / contact mail / or details of the orders after December 2005. I think Indiatimes.com is not only shame on Times of India group but also for india related sites. Such companies / groups / website leaves a bad impression of India all over the world. these companies should be penalised in such a way that promotors are never ever able to fool with customers.

My advice, never ever shop with indiatimes.com or with Times of India group. They are pathetic.


Sunil M Nair says
18-Mar-2006 at 12:00 pm


I had the same experience as read in this site. I ordered and send back the item due to bad quality. The amount is not yet credited back to my account and not only that everytime there is a complaint raised the site gives out a faithful mail and promises to respond back in 48 hours but till now there is no response on the same.

NEVER to shop again on indiatimes.


Hariprashad Baheti says
21-Mar-2006 at 12:56 pm


e-bay is the worst kind of internet site for purchases or for that matter sale.

I had purchased one MP 3 kit via their oction site for Rs. 179.00
[ Item code 5817296056 dated 17-10-2005 ] After receiving copnfirmation e-mail from the seller i e Rist computers Delhi , I had deposited on 20-10-2005 , Rs 239.00 [ this included the packing and forwarding charges ] to the a/c of one Mrs Alika Dogra bearing a/ c no. 629601085041.

First the site threaned me with a strike against my a/ c for non payment but after faxing all the relevant papers they said that the strike is removed . But what about the item ? They arenot responding to my e - mails as well as faxes .

This is the worst kind of experiance I have gone thro ‘. Actually these internet sites are not for Indians . As the seller is always in profit by advertising on the site and after receiving money just keep mum. As the seller knows the rules of land . This clearly shows the mentality of indians just to make money by duping people who fall pray to such malpractises. I am lucky that I have lost only Rs. 239.00 but I am not able to think what would have happened if the cost of merchantise was in thousands .

MY APPEAL TO ALL THE CONCERNS IS THAT PLEASE PURCHASE ITEMS IN OPEN MARKET WHERE YOU CAN CATCH THE SHOPKEEPER ANY TIME YOU WANT . PLEASE DO NOT DO TRANSACTIONS ON THE SITES LIKE E BAY .


thinlay says
13-Apr-2006 at 9:51 am


hi,i am thinlay from himachal.i ordered a mp4(110144535) and made the said payment through the bank draft(651161) but as soon as they got the cash,my account in indiatimes states that himachal is out of service location.they could have mentioned the same in the website.moreover,now i am not even gettin any responses or atleast my money back.i have already made my mind to settle this in the consumer court.how pathetic of times group.if anyone could forward me thee number,its welcome


anil says
16-Apr-2006 at 1:22 pm


It’s the most SHITTIEST portal being operated. Times group is surely losing lot its good name through it. Some things to be kept in media.

1. There is no information about the estimated time of delivery of order

2. There is no provision for cancellation of orders in any scenario.

3. The order related enquiry mails are not replied to at all.

4. Only thing you can do is to either never buy anything from this site or get the transaction cancelled through your credit card incase you have already placed an order.

cheers
anil


kiran says
22-Apr-2006 at 1:53 pm


Hi,
I am another victim of indiatimes shopping. Ordered for nokia 2600 mobile on 15th of April. Still, i didn’t get any reply from indiatimes. They have taken from my account on the next day only. Now, i got a mail from customer care , the product you ordered is a high value product(3600/-), it takes some time to deliver the product after getting the confirmation details from you. They are saying you would get a mail form cnfirmations@indiatimes.com which is asked to fill your details.Still, i didn’t get any mail from this id.They always say like your request will be processed within 48 hours. I am suggesting everybody do not purchase anything on online shopping sites.All are cheaters after taking our money. Better to purchase at nearest shops in your town/city. If anybody knows this customer care number, please inform me.

sumeet ahuja says
04-May-2006 at 5:44 pm


Indiatimes customer care no are 0124-4187000

rajesh anand says
16-May-2006 at 8:02 am


Indiatimes shopping, though they themself say they re great but what i had experienced is the worst ever. I ordered a musice system (philips) worth Rs. 6500\- and though my money went from my account i got no system since almost 3 months..till finally i decided that enough is enough and i call the manager and told him to cancel my order and give my money back, he said he will give after some deductions, i said its okay since i was no where near to get my system, then i got my refund of Rs. 5000/- i dont know why the f*** they deducted the 1500 bucks of my hard earned money…

Dont ever visit that f****** site ever


aditya says
23-May-2006 at 11:01 am


i have odered my bitsat test papers worth rs500 . but didnt receive it till date. my exam is on 26th may and today is 22nd.I have odeded it on 18th .looking at all these it looks like iam not going to get it before my exam wchich is on 26th.

I obviously have to say it sucks.there is no time of delivery gven too.


Ram says
25-May-2006 at 6:49 pm


I’m surprised by the way Indiatimes shopping site is performing. I had a very good experience in it till recently, till I placed my order for books worth INR 2000/-. I’ve been enquiring about the shipment for long and there is no answer to the same. I’m not sure whether Indiatimes understands this as a consumer issue, which could tarnish its image.


raj kumar says
22-Jun-2006 at 5:33 pm


I have ordered one Magazine thru Indiatimes 2 weeks back. But i did not get any book. After reading these messages i have stopped buying thru Indiatimes portal.


Raghu V Nagaraj says
30-Jun-2006 at 2:07 pm


HI All,

I had ordered a Digi Camera on indiatimes shopping. But after seeing all your comments I thought of cancelling my order and cancelled it.

After all this i got a call from indiatimes shopping asking for my payment and i told them that i cancelled it.

Anywayz Point is i have their number now. The call has come from bangalore. For ppl outside bangalore call this number and get the number for other centers.

Number is 08041161395.

Hope it helps.


Ankita Chandra says
06-Jul-2006 at 11:58 am


I was in the process of opening the site of Indiatimes shopping to buy A pen drive, however saw this site and got diverted. After reading all of you ppls suffering ,am in a fix whether to order or not. Best buys/deal are certaily Intitimes shopping url’s usp, but that doesnt compensate in case the service is not good!


Diwakar says
07-Jul-2006 at 4:05 pm


I have been ordering through them for quiet some time now. Everytime they delay and everytime there is no way you can catch hold of them. They never mention their phone number anywhere in the site and have off late stopped acknowledging the feedback mails as well.

This time I had ordered some books through them about ten days back. There was no order confirmation mail and no followup mail either. It’s ten days now and I have written to them twice, they say they will respond in 48 hours at their site, but never come back. I am full of a lot of things and wish I had the phone number of their customer services in mumbai so that I could empty it all on the first person picking up the phone.

This time I am taking a snapshots of all my communication with them and plan to take them to consumer court. I wonder why has nobody done that before when so many people have been cheated by them


Jignesh says
11-Jul-2006 at 10:22 pm


Dear All,

I don’t know if I should worry a lot or not! It sounds that I have to suffer a lot now. I have just ordered a laptop for my girl friend. After two days my order was still showing ‘to be verified”. I tried to send feed back nothing worked. I attempted 15 times

I paid through creditcard. I don’t know if I can still cancel it or not. I hope that I can be little bit lucky!

I hope I hae read this before placing an order.

Indiatimes Site really sucks.

jayakumar says
17-Jul-2006 at 11:43 am


hello bangaloreans,

thnaks a lot for ur comments….i thought of buying DVD player through times of india shopping for myself. After seeing all ur comments i changed my mind. This type of poor shopping should be stopped. Its true that there is no contact information or mail id given in the website.

Jayakumar


Customer Service - Indiatimes says
17-Jul-2006 at 1:57 pm


We deeply regret the inconvenience that may have been caused to our customers. It is our constant endeavour to offer best of customer services. For any query/complaint/ suggestions, please contact us between 9:30 am -5:30 pm, Monday to Saturday on these toll free nos:

1800 180 8800 from MTNL/BSNL lines
1800 102 8888 from Airtel lines

You can also reach us through the feedback link mentioned on the website www.shopping.indiatimes.com


amit says
24-Jul-2006 at 11:55 am


I have ordered for a Happy Birthday Chocolate on 19.07.06 vide order no.110252331, the delivery time of which is 5-6 days. However from the current order status, it is found that it has not yet been shipped.
What sall I do with the chocolate if the b`day of the person for whom the choclate was ordered is elapsed before delivery.
pl advise.


Vikas says
24-Jul-2006 at 12:06 pm


have ordered for a Happy Birthday cake and flowers on 18.07.06 vide order no.110251552, however from the order has not yet been shipped. Birthday was on 20Jul.. please let me know whats the status.. no response from customer service.. I am already holding the line for 20 mins…


Krishna Reddy says
26-Jul-2006 at 12:19 am


I have purchased digicam on india times website on 18th July and my order number is 110251675 . On 19th July they have called to my home and confirmed about the address. But till now I didn’t get any response or the digicam.

I am currently staying in UK. I placed an order on vadofone and they delivered next day itself, they even didn’t charge even a penny.

This is very bad of this organization, they are not even rectifying their faults even after seeing all these bad comments from the customers. Really shameless.

Please give some numbers which we can call from outside of India as well.


Akshaya Bhatia says
28-Jul-2006 at 11:56 pm


I had purchased Aiptek Pocket Cam 4000 from Indiatimes NavBharat Times via the news paper column Reader’s Reward.
And the reward is that LCD display of Pocket Cam is not working. There is no response from Indiatimes.shopping after numerous complaints. Thet had given me a Ticket number. I have been trying for last three weeks. These people have no decency to reply even.
Call Center support is even more useless, they are unable to track my record.It is very tough to get the number to talk and there is hardly any convincing reply.
Pathethic Is’nt it ?!

Regards.
akshaya bhatia


Ashish Bhatia says
01-Aug-2006 at 1:15 am


Hi All,

I had ordered a Motorola Mini Communicator from Indiatimes. It was only after I paid up, I read the reviews of the portal here. I was expecting the same kind of delays but to my surprise the product was in my hand today after just 1 week of ordering.

My diwali soon got over when I switched the cellphone on and found out that
a. Bluetooth doesnt work.
b. MP3 is not supported on the phone (as was written in the description)
c. There was no warranty/guarate card.
d. The phone had actually been bought from USA and is being sold here. I got to this since the adapter has a US style plug. Is this legal in the first place?
e. Since the adapter is a US style switch, I cant even charge the cellphone.

I would call up the customer care tomorrow morning first thing and would hope that they refund my money.

Thanks,

Ashish.

Ashish Bhatia says
01-Aug-2006 at 1:21 am


For everyone’s knowledge,

Indiatimes Shopping numbers are as follows:

Toll free (BSNL and MTNL): 1800 180 8800
Toll free (Airtel): 1800 102 8888
Bangalore Local Number: 080 41104040


Anshuman Gaurav says
02-Aug-2006 at 11:51 pm


frnds i had made my mind 2 buy a mobile set 4m indiatimes. i was much happy 2 see their prices but after reading this page i m much depressed but it is gud for me that i came 2 know the truth before hand.


Rajesh says
10-Aug-2006 at 11:42 am


Hi All,

Don’t buy anthing on Indiatimes Direct to Reader Offer, It comes in Times of India. Its one of worst service I have seen in my life. That is why people don’t buy anything online in India.
I ordered a mobile on 12 July, person came to collect check on 21 July, It is reflected in my bank a/c on 24 th July, they took another 4 extra days, today it is 10th Aug, I havn’t received any product. I don’t know the status, their toll free nos service is very poor. Representatives giving very poor service. I can write a big fat book on this. Best seller of the year. Be aware of India Times on line shopping.


Mandar says
25-Aug-2006 at 10:39 am


This ‘Direct to Reader Offer’ coming in Times of India is a bull**** thing. On July 6th I ordered a 1GB Transcend 120 pen drive and I recieved a low performance version viz. a Transcend v30. Then after I complained they asked me to return it back and assured me that I would get what was shown in the original advertisement. This time again I received a low performance version viz. a Transcend v20. I have been complaining to them thru their Toll Free no. and that service just sucks. They just assure they would get back to you and no one bothers to call you up. As of Aug 24 I have three registered complaints and nothing is done yet. The worst thing is they create a conference call with the original vendor and ask you to clarify the matter with them. Mostly these vendors a none other but some electronic shop owners in Mumbai and they rudely reply to you. When asked the customer representative says that they are just middle entity. I am thinking of sueing them in the consumer court. If you ppl want to participate in my battle plz mail me your confirmations on my email at ‘mandianme at rediffmail dot com’.


Tashi says
28-Aug-2006 at 11:07 am


I have been an IDIOT. I ordered an Item from shoppping.indiatimes and it has been 14days, it has not been delivered. I should have read the comments here but I guess it’s already too late. I feel misrable already. Is there any way to cancell the order becasue I am disgusted with the after sale attitude of the call center execs and the deliver commitment which is not lived upto.

Can some one help?

Like Mandar Says: I would also like to goto the consumer court.

Instead of paying online the indiatimes shopping should be COD (Cash on Delivery), then we can make choice but paying them in advance and item not being delivered on time as commited hurts.

Please Please do not purchase anything from Indiatimes.Shopping

Neo says
31-Aug-2006 at 2:59 pm


Times of India ‘Direct to Reader’ offer is total bullshit. I ordered microwave cookware on 6th august 2006 using credit card. On 11th I got an email and sms saying,it has been shipped (dispatched). Ever since, I have called 4 times at their toll free customer center and every time they say “I have logged a complaint, it will be delivered in 4 working days or someone from tracing team will contact you”. For first two times, they didnt give me any reference no for the call. On my third call, the lady at the customer center told me that if a reference no is not given that means COMPLAINT IS NOT LOGGED. why?????
anyway, this time i got a complaint no. But even this was no good. 5 days later, I called them again. this time also, the guy at the customer centre told me “it will be delivered in 5 days”. no reference no… no tracing…

Ilpakurty Ravi says
04-Sep-2006 at 3:20 pm


IndiaTimes Toll free (BSNL and MTNL): 1800 180 8800, is not reachable. I get a message, your call can not be processed

Sudhakar G says
05-Sep-2006 at 3:08 pm


Hi Ravi,
I totally agree with you..
Here is my story…… All these are the mails i wrote to Times in wain….

Hi,
Please go throught entire email below. If you still need more details I can talk personally & explaint the pain I am under going because of the decision I took to buy a product as per direct to readers advertizement.

Being a prominent reader of TOI for past 10 years, I was impressed with the launch new service “Direct to readers” on your news paper. Also with the products being advertized in that column.
But….. the service I am getting after buying the product is pathetic.
Nobody in India times shopping even bothers to listen to the problem & today I do not have the product with me but still the EMI is being debited on my credit card month on month.
No mails or calls to the india times call center has resolved this issue from 1st of Aug’06 & I do not think people setting in call center have any botheration about my complaint.
Atleast 10 people till now have promised to call me back on this issue but have not bothered to do so.

Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 03:50:28 -0700 (PDT)
To: finms@indiatimes.com
Dear Mr.Mandeep,
Ref: Order No: 110245215
Sub Order No: 368724
This is with reference to the above mentioned order, dated 12th July.06. I had placed the order through India Times as per the direct to readers offer on times of india news paper. As per the advertisement given in the news paper & per the info on www. Shopping.Indiatimes.com, (http://www.shopping.indiatimes.com/ism/faces/tiles/product.jsp?productID=983105&catalogueID=195102&categoryID=&parentCategoryID=)
It is mentioned that this model handset supports GSM900/GSM 1800 MHz frequency. As per that, this phone is supposed to work with Hutch Network in Bangalore.
But after getting the handset I tried using my Hutch SIM in this handset & it was not detecting the Hutch Network.
I went through the document in the CD provided along with this handset & I understood that it supports only 900MHz. I called to Mr. Kalpesh of KMI Technologies (+91 9320099778) who has suplied this product, to confirm the same. He intern confirmed the same saying that this handset will not support 1800 MHz network.
With this I raised a escalation case with India times (Toll Free: 18001808800) to return this product, since it does not serve my purpose of using my Hutch SIM on this handset.
India Times Complaint No:197697, 229046, 233297, 238311, 246237, 252495
AFL logistics people picked (AWB No: 114337790221) up this package from my residence on 16th of Aug’06 along with all the accessories & the Free DVD player which had come along with that.
Today I got to know from AFL people that KMI business tech has refused to recieve the product for the reason not to pay octrai.
I request you to please look in to this issue immediately & ask KMI people to take back this product & refund the 2 months EMI amount Rs. 4,498/- you have debited to my ICICI credit card.

Thanks,
Sudhakar


Tashi says
05-Sep-2006 at 3:48 pm


This is atrocious!!! Isn’t there anyway of exposing the malpractice by the sellers of timesofindia.shopping.com or are those guys go hand in hand with times?????? I have been duped too, for last 22days I have been waiting for the product that I purchased on 14th Aug from Deals4All seller, and I am still waiting. This is a FRAUD in the open and no one seem to bother. These guys have to be brough to justice.

“From the perspective of e-commerce in India, the IT Act 2000 and its provisions contain many positive aspects. Firstly, the implications of these provisions for the e-businesses would be that email would now be a valid and legal form of communication in our country that can be duly produced and approved in a court of law.”

This means we should keep all the emails sent to us by the seller or times, which we can produce in court to fight. I have been giving a very strong thought of filing complain in consumer court. If there is nayone who would also like to do the same , lets join hand and fight the evil. “united we stand, divided we fall”


Chaitanya says
07-Sep-2006 at 12:17 am


I even had a bitter experience with Indiatimes. Not from Reader’s Direct but from Indatimes Shopping.

Few months back I purchased two air tickets. I received the tickets well in time. But while bidding there was a note in bold and red color that I will receive two shopping coupans of worth 150Rs each.
Till now nothing came, I mailed them many times, but all went in vain.

In the first place I am happy that atleast received the tickets on time. See how scared we are.

Now I started buying from e-bay. Its cool. But this is India people do cheat and people do get cheated.


Tashi says
11-Sep-2006 at 11:21 am


~ timesofindia.shopping.com ~

Hi, 14 days of wait and the product has not reached me. I purchaed a phone on 14th Aug, 2006 and the same was shipped on the 23rd Aug, 2006 (as order details in times site) but till date the product have not reached, even after several complaints to the call centre.

On the 8th Sept, 2006. I filed a petition in the consumer forum (New Delhi) but have no hope in any Justice becasue the experience in the Forum was not what I expected. WHY?

1. Locating the office was a nightmare.
2. The receiption of the person who takes the compaint was very absolutely cold.
3. The draft of Rs. 100/- made in favour of “President, Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum” was refused.
4. Had to purchase a “Postal Order on Rs.100/-” again and had to submit it blank.
5. Finally my complaint was accepted but I was not given any acknowledgement that I had filed a petition, then when I wanted to withdraw my complaint, I was verbally given a case number, nothing in written. God Save my Soul.
6. I have been asked to report back on the 21st.

Well, that is my story. I just hope that I get justice and atlest get my payment back.

wish me luck folks.

Thanks


Satya says
12-Sep-2006 at 4:22 pm


To add to the above; these motorola phones are not supposed to be sold in India; I had purchased an MPX 220 and the phone is a cracked Cingular phone. The support for Motorola would not support this instrument as they do not have codes for this.
They refered me to Cingular support; I decided to return my product. At this point after 3 weeks of hot pursuit they have picked up the instrument.


meghna says
13-Sep-2006 at 5:00 pm


hi all..i had similar experience for my motorola mpx220…for all internet shoppers i have one advice..before u place any order, please see if the model is resaleable or not..else u wil end up buying a dumped model just like me…mpx220 are no more sold in u.s markets so i guess they end up in our pockets after burning a hole in them…so beware…


Mandar says
14-Sep-2006 at 1:08 pm


Well after a long communication gap, I got a call from the Indiatimes representative….He created a conference call me, the original vendor and himself. The vendor though initially refusing to accept the fact that I had been cheated, later asked me to return back the faulty Pen drive for a replacement. I have mailed it back to him and hope he returns back me the actual one shown in the advertisement! I am still waiting….


Amit Jain says
14-Sep-2006 at 2:07 pm


I also placed order for motorola phone and it is already one month and i havent received it till date.

What the hell their customer care do only god knows

And abouve all they deducted money from my credit card well in advance & i am calling here and there to customer care indiatimes.

What should I do now ,any idea ,any hints

Vincent Morris says
14-Sep-2006 at 5:33 pm


I purchased National geographic from them for Rs. 2500/-
They promptly took payment from my credit card. The transaction automatically got deleted from my history. It has been 3 months and it has not been delivered nor my money refunded. They did not reply to 5 emails I sent them. I sent them a legal notice by registered post to they Delhi address. No reply to that. I finally filed a case with the Consumer Redressal forum. The case will open for hearing on September 21st. Hopefully I will get back my money through the court.


Tashi says
14-Sep-2006 at 5:42 pm


Hi Vincent Morris, It is a coincidence that my hearing is also on the 21st at TIS Hazri. Hope to see you, cos’ more the better.

I ordered an iPAQ for 17K and never received it.

:(

Amit Gupta says
15-Sep-2006 at 2:10 am


Vincent, don’t want to say it but you played dumb. When you didn’t receive your stuff within the time period they said they’ll deliver(wouldn’t be more than 1 month I guess) then you should simply have done a chargeback since you paid via Credit Card. Thats the whole point in paying via Credit Card, that you are safe from fraud upto 90 days from the date of payment. Your money would’ve been refunded to you within a day or so by the bank(& no questions asked) & it would’ve had done damage to Indiatimes’ Merchant Account with whichever bank they have it. If enough people do the chargebacks on not receiving goods, then Indiatimes’ merchant account will be cancelled by their bank as they would come across a dishonest business entity to bank, & they would have trouble opening another merchant account which they would definitely need to accept payments online so then they would really wake up to their senses.


Tashi says
15-Sep-2006 at 10:17 am


Amit, that’s an intresting fact but it doesnt work. Even before my payment via the credit card was claimed by the seller, I had spoken to the banking officer regarding cancelling the payment or like you say chargeback becasue it had been 15 days from the purchase date that I had not received my product but I was refused and I was told that only after 21 days of the purchase date the bank will have legal rights to cancell the transaction. Then on the 21st day, I was too late, the transaction payment had already been claimed by the seller and it was the 19th day after I had made the order.

So for me, even the banks dont come to our rescue, because I think its also the banks turn to make money out of us. Btw, I used citibank credit card.

Today 15th Sept marks the first day of one full cycle (14th Aug-14th Sept).

NOTE : I see there are so many of us, who has something or the other against shopping.timeofindia.com. Isnt there a possibility of group complaint? (Just an idea!!!!@#$)


Vincent Morris says
15-Sep-2006 at 2:03 pm


Hey Amit, I dint do any such dumb thing. Within 2 weeks of purchase I raised a dispute with the Credit Card Issuer. They investigated the dispute and contacted Times Internet division of Times group. Times gave them a Sales Voucher and claimed that it was a legitimate transaction. JUST IMAGINE THAT!! No delivery of item. No reply to my emails. No transaction acknowledgement to me. BUT THOSE BASTARDS SENT THE SALES VOUCHER TO MY CREDIT CARD ISSUER. What the fuck do you do to such arseholes???

Anyway the credit card issuer closed the dispute as a legitimate transaction and took the money from me. Subsequent to which I filed a dispute with the Consumer Redressal Forum. I have also claimed for a compensation for mental torture.


Justine says
15-Sep-2006 at 4:30 pm


THANK GOD… I saw this site before doing any business with Indiatimes.


rahul shah says
16-Sep-2006 at 2:41 pm


My name is Rahul Shah and I am staying at Ahmedabad. Few days back, I have purchased pearl necklace through your website from Surat Diamond Jewellery Pvt Ltd. Since, quality of pearls were not good,so I returned it back. Few days after,call from Times of India came saying that u will received your amount in a week. But 30 days has passed there are no signs. Many times I gave a call but everytime no response. I am fed up with all and worst experince I have ever had.


Rajesh says
16-Sep-2006 at 3:02 pm


I ordered a handycam (SONY) thro’ Indiatimes on 26/7/2006 and on 6/8/2006 I receieved info. from customer care that my order had been desp. thro’ ARAMEX courier on 5/8/2006 and would be reached to me within two or three days. And after a long period I could not received my order but received a call from them that the order had been cancelled due to the reason that the Handycam was not in a working condition and We have not another piece to deliver, but the same u can see on their shopping site for sale till date. And now they asked me to order again. what should i say NEVERRRRRRRRRRRRR….


Raghu says
16-Sep-2006 at 3:04 pm


Hi,
I was wondering, how such a branded organization is maintaining still this web site. I have seen lots of comments atleast 1 person has NOT made good comments. I must say lucky. I ordered one Apicon cam for Rs. 3000, (They says market value 7000+), they took my order and after 20 days a courier has received, but I am affraid to take that, because I have read all comments in this site. Thank you all. Still how they are giving for cheaper prises that too all branded items?


Alok says
23-Sep-2006 at 8:55 am


I totally understand what Sudhakar is going through. Seeing his post Dtd. 5/09/2006 I totally identify with him. He does not mention the phone but by the sound of it, it has to be the Hp Ipaq smart phone 6315 for 17K. I am facing a similar problem with the same phone and awaiting replacement. I too have been in touch with Mr. Mandeep Singh at via e-mail as well. Also the phone in question is branded T-Mobile phone so it is unlikely that they can unblock the phone and make it work with any other network in India LEGALLY!!!! They really suck and someone has to take them to task.


Tashi says
23-Sep-2006 at 3:59 pm


Well, my first time consumer forum experience was good and I have madeup my mind to teach the seller a lesson, possibly.

As the story goes, 14th Aug, made the purchase and I was intimated by mail that the product was shipped on the 23rd Aug by BLUE DART. I was anticipating a prompt, ontime delivery but I was mistaken. I filed my complaint to consumer forum on 08 Sept, then daybefore (21st), I presented myself befor the forum and explaind the entire story, the cost, how the seller claimed the money, the kind of response I received from the call centre, non delivery of the product etc, etc and I am glad that the forum will be sending notice to the seller and timeshopping.com.

The strange thing is that, today 23rd Sept, exactly 30days from the date the product was supposedly shipped. A courier guy arrived at my residence with the product hahahahahahaha!! And you know WHAT? that guy was the rudest of all courier guy i have met and he refused to tell me which courier he was from and when he received the courier blah!! blah!!. As I was told that the courier was shipped by BLUE DART on 23rd. Well, this courier looked BLUE DIRT!! GOOD news, I refused the courier.

I want this fraud guy brought to justice and pay a huge compensation no matter how long this court thing will be dragged, cos’I DONT anyone to be cheated like me.

Hey!! anyone of you planning to the same? I can be of help.

:)


Alok says
25-Sep-2006 at 5:01 pm


Yes I would be interested in taking them to court.


CHETAN MEHTA says
26-Sep-2006 at 1:15 pm


Well, I completely agree that INDIATIMES is the worst shopping site followed by rediff. Both are not publishing contact nos. of Customer Support Dept. They wish to have all details of ours but hesitate to give theirs. If Customer want to get any update about the order status, S/He has to mail and wait. Customers are left with no alternative. Tauba Tauba, Online shopping se. I had worst experience on both sites. Never go for online shopping . And I would like to ask Mr. Rahul Shah of Ahmedabad that on which number he used to call?? I also want to take up my maater on phone too.


binu says
27-Sep-2006 at 6:49 pm


Thanks for all advice was about to buy a sony digicam online…………..India times Sucks!!


Ashish Mehta says
28-Sep-2006 at 10:50 am


All the interface in Indiatimes where they try to sell something is buggy, whether it be a CD or a domain name! I have had a really pathetic experience with their domain registration “service”. I had to make at least 10 phone calls and send 20 emails to get my username and password to manage the domain names. And they keep goofing up.
http://www.ashishmehta.com/blog/2006/03/21/indiatimes-domains-goofing-up-once-again/

If I would have been a novice, I would have felt I am making mistakes. But I have some experience of registering domain names online and know how user friendly the interfaces are!! No wonder, I moved away my domains at the first available opportunity i.e. renewal ;)


Vincent Morris says
28-Sep-2006 at 2:14 pm


I went for my first hearing at the Consumer Court on 27th September. It’s regarding Indiatimes cheating me of Rs 2500 due to non-delivery of items paid for.

The representative from Indiatimes did not even turn up in court!! Just imagine the arrogance of those BASTARDS! Anyway I presented my case and they have re-issued the summons for Indiatimes on 6th October.

I will go to any extent to teach those THIEVES a lesson. I will not rest until then.

Tashi says
28-Sep-2006 at 2:50 pm


WOW!! this makes TWO of us.

I have been asked to reappear on 9/11.

I sure there will be more coming forward to FIX these corporate thugs.


CHETAN MEHTA says
29-Sep-2006 at 11:51 am


Hey All.. why not we all, who feel cheated by these arrogant corporate thugs, constitue a association and take up the matter after establishing a joint identity. We must strive to teach them a lesson. Mr. Vincent, we all appreciate your efforts and if needed and convenient to me, I can come personally as one more victim with you in consumer court.


thinlay says
29-Sep-2006 at 5:56 pm


hello friends,
i got my money back after a constant bug.it took me a month. sincere advice to the novice online shopper: don’t do this,it sucks. we indian are not yet ready. they are just the bunch of crooks.


Naveen says
01-Oct-2006 at 11:22 pm


Came across this page now that I am a victim.

Heres my story:

- Ordered Palm treo 650 on August 20th (~2 days) after seeing Direct-To-Readers ad. Went for 6 months EMI - ICICI bank Credit Card. Ordering was a breeze [Reference number: BAN2108501]
- 22nd August: 1st EMI deducted
- 31st August: SMS from 8888 that product has been shipped - expected to arrive within 7 working days
- 13th Sept: Called Support - assured that product will ship within 5 days. [Complaint number: 285418]
- 15th Sept: Called Support - reassurance [Complaint No.: 290876]
- 20th Sept: Called Support - assured that they will revert within 2 days [Complaint No: 301176]
- 22nd Sept: 2nd EMI deducted
- 25th Sept: Called Support - 24-48 hours for sure [Didn’t bother about a complaint number]
- 1st Oct: Called Support - Will definetely revert within 4th Oct.

One thing to note is that customer support is as incapable as they are good - they respond extremely well, log a complaint immediately, but nothing happens. Worse, they *never* easily agree to connect to their manager or someone who can personally handle this case.

Today, I called them and refused to hang-up unless I speak to someone who can *actually* look into this personally. Finally, a certain Vivek Kumar Singh answered and has assured me to revert before 4th, which I doubt.

2 EMIs have been deducted, no product shipment in sight and it looks like even if the product is shipped, it won’t likely be what I originally ordered.

So, I think we have another case on. I am determined to take this to consumer court and ensure that such evil entities are rooted out from India.

Vincent, kudos to you for taking the first step. I live in Bangalore too. If you could kindly share details on how you went about filing the case with the redressal forum, that would help the cause. Or, maybe I could join-in with your case, if thats possible? Perhaps, if there are others in Bangalore who have had similar experiences, we could fight this case together. Let me know.


Subramanya says
06-Oct-2006 at 6:47 am


I participated in two auctions and made the initial payment totalling 2000 Rs using Citibank. Thank God I am not the winner. I am waiting for the refund for last two days. Looks they do not read the feedback mails.


Tashi says
06-Oct-2006 at 11:18 am


Sad, story!!

But there arnt many of us who really want to pull times.shopping.com to court.

People should know.


rs singh says
10-Oct-2006 at 9:03 am


yes definitely it is a very bad experience with indiatimes shopping. I ordered for a desktop phone in starting of august 2006. they collected the cheque of rs 1400/= within a few days. but now they say that they have shipped the order and it is delivered on 31 august 2006. Till the date ie October 10,2006 i did not recieved my order and they say that one can not meet phycally to any person of indiatimes shopping.


Rakesh Buch says
11-Oct-2006 at 4:03 pm


Hi All,

I have the similar experienced like you people. Still not received my Digi Cam purchased on 30-sep. though it was told to be received within 5 days. Even till date I do not know the status of my order no.110345278.

Will never deal with India Times Shopping in future.


Anantha Narayanan says
12-Oct-2006 at 5:34 am


I am totally in fix what to do.Having read all above remarks,whether i shud ordr or opt out.

Most of the notes are discouraging .

Thanks for the warning


Ramesh says
12-Oct-2006 at 9:01 am


Hi,
(Please read this………)
IndiaTimesShopping is the worst of its kind.
In July I have ordered for a HP iPAQ, not knowing that it is T-Mobile. They took almost 4 weeks to ship the item after repeared calls and complaints.
After receiving the product, I used it for a month. The product had a lot of problems, and finally, the internal speaker of the phone stopped working! Which means, I cannot hearing anything when on the call, alternatively I could switch to speaker phone mode to hear (which is absurd).
I called up Indiatimes, and they have arranged for replacement.
I got back my item (replaced) after 6 weeks!!! That too after going through the agony of making ‘N’ number of calls and lodging several complaints.
As soon as I received the phone, I sold it for much lesser price ( I would have thrown it away in case if they were no buyers for it).
The product was not worth it.
The Indiatimes Shopping sell only those mobiles
1. Which are outdated
2. Which belong to mobile service providers (T-Mobile, Cingular).
Usually, theses companies (US/UK) lease the phone to it’s customers for cheaper prices, for the period of their subscription.
Our Indiatimes approach them, buy these products for a cheaper price, bring them to India and successfully Unlock them.
Such mobiles are usually Outdated (like HP iPAQ 6315, Treo 650, Motorola MPX220, Motorola communicator). Please do not buy these as their respective manufactures are no longer supporting these products.
I am writing this lengthy note so as to make all the readers aware of the risk involved with Indiatimes.
No other shopping circuit (like Circuit City, Best Buy) would cheat the users like Indiatimes.


Tashi says
12-Oct-2006 at 10:20 am


Hi Ramesh,

I did purchase the same (iPAQ 6315) in Aug 14 and after 1 month wait the product was not delivered and then I was forced to goto consumer forum.

Later, after I went to the forum, the product was delivered to me but I refused (twice).

I want the seller to bring the product to the consumer forum and I would like to deal with whoever he/she is. My next date is on 09/11.

If you have some good tip with which I can put the seller in fix then please let me know.

Thankx

PS : Anantha Narayanan, please,please not indiatimes shopping. DONT MAKE A MISTAKE.


Raghavendra says
13-Oct-2006 at 10:58 pm


Hi,

Thanks for your comment. I have booked sony ericson mobile set after reading the the times of india news paper edition oct 9th 2006, times readers offer. After reading all negative comments. i believe i red it in right time.

Raghavendra


Anoop says
17-Oct-2006 at 12:13 am


My God… I can’t believe the level of arrogance and incompetence on the part of the Times Group. I guess they are not the people’s company that most of us thought they were.

I actually called them today just before ordering the O2 Mini S phone and boy was I surprised. Their pre sales team consisted of completely inexperienced and informed executives who just wouldn’t budge and were very uncooperative when it came to providing basic information about the product.

I can only imagine what their post sales support might be like. I sympathize with the rest of you who have had bad experiences. We must all take a stand against this kind of corruption and insolence. Please count me in if there is any kind of group effort against this company.


Ramesh says
17-Oct-2006 at 8:33 am


Hi Tashi:

The item, HP-6315, belongs to T-Mobile. (The logo is imprinted on the mobile). Which means, the mobile belongs to T-Mobile.
T-Mobile is like Reliance (in India) which provides mobile commnunication services.
Imagine someone selling you a Reliance phone?
This itself is illegal.
Usually, service providers like T-Mobile, Cingular buy these items from the manufacturers in bulk for a discount. And they provide these items to the customer who subscribe their services.
To attract the customer, they go for newer models, and dump the outdated ones (to resellers).
Our (cheapest) Indiatimes (or their vendors) buy such (outdated) items in bulk from these companies, unlock them, and sell them in India.
They are providing their own warranty for the item. In case of any software/hardware problem, all they do is replace the item.
Please note: HP is not aware that you have purchased this item!!!! We are not provided HP warranty.
I hope these pointes would suffice your case.
Let me know if you need more info.

Regards
Ramesh


TSHERING DUKPA says
23-Oct-2006 at 6:56 pm


BE CAREFUL IF YOU WANT TO SHOP ONLINE AT INDIATIMES SHOPPING (www.shopping.indiatimes.com) AND www.eBay.com (Formerly known as www.baazee.com)
WARNING TO ALL BUYERS

PLEASE GO THROUGH MY FOLLOWING LETTER, WHICH WAS WRITEN TO THE MANAGER OF CONCERNED CREDIT CARD, TO KNOW WHAT INDIATIMES AND EBAY ARE DOING TO THEIR CUSTOMERS.

Dear Sir/Madam,
This is to inform you that I am a Visa Card holder of your esteemed Bank and have been doing online transactions with the Card regularly for quite long. So far my record for the payments made to the card is concerned, I have paid all dues on time without any pending case and my claim will be vindicated if you kindly go through the past record of my card No.4Xxx-xxxx-xxxx-7xxx. Today I have been compelled to beg for your very much needed help for the reasons given below.

1. That I have been, presumably, cheated by www.shopping.indiatimes [With its Address and Office as:- Indiatimes Shopping, C/o Times Internet Ltd. (Times of India Group), Top Floor, 10, Darya Ganj, New Delhi-110002, India] for the payments made by me for Allen Solly Trouser on 05/10/2006, amounting Rs.1099/- (It was ordered as a Pooja gift to my Brother-in-law); For Stripes Reversible Shirt amounting Rs.561/- on 09/10/2006 (against the consolidated amount of Rs.1150 a portion of which i.e. Rs. 589 was adjusted for Wrangler Shirt which I’ve already received ) and finally Rs.470/- for Natural Drymill Reversible Belt - Black Oxidised Spring Buckle (This too was ordered as gift to be given to my teacher), on 12/10/2006. After seeing their contradictory Remarks against the products I tried to contact them at 011-23278112 and 012-44187000 for more than 100 times but all my attempts proved to be futile and unlike before they did not even bother to answer my calls. I mailed them more than 50 emails, none of them was replied.
2. That in the beginning they behaved very well. They used to call me to confirm even my orders and responded me whenever I called them up at their phones. I started smelling rat when they started giving contradictory confirmation such as “Order Shipped�? without any shipping details, which they used to give me before. Surprisingly the order which was reportedly “shipped�? in the Status column was either shown as “Not despatched�? or “Order Cancelled�? in the Remarks Column and no money was refunded, no order was despatched, vide their Order Nos. 110350702; 110354999 and 110361305. Before that in case the orders were not available, they used to update the status regularly and politely refund the money after retaining the same for about ten days and I too behaved with them politely. But this time they neither refunded my money nor my orders were despatched. Everything will be transperant once you see the Order Details which I am sending you as an attached document alongwith this (e)mail for your ready reference please (In the email). As per my calculation the total money due with them is Rs. 2130/-, vide their Order Nos. abcdefghi; pqrstuvwx and pkhjuiyygf.
3. That Sir/Madam, if you kindly see the need for retaining a Credit Card from my perspective, it is only for online transactions and occasionally for taking Credit on EMI basis. I have never withdrawn money from ATM, except once that I had withdrawn Rs.100/- that too was only for a trial, and I don’t think that I may need to withdraw cash from ATM’s in future as well. In situation like this if you can kindly come out to put pressure on the concerned merchant to get my money refunded or Orders despatched, which I think you can do by blocking their money during any transaction done by using the Credit Cards issued from your esteemed Bank or by using Your Bank’s Direct Payment method or by any method which you feel will be convenient to your good self, I shall have no fear to carry on doing online shoppings as before. If I happen to forgo my money i.e. Rs.2130/-, I may have to rethink to retain my Card as it will be of no use to keep the same if I get the impressión that doing online shoppings are insecured. I always do online shoppings to avail incentives such as My Reward Points and my target is to reach the level of Premium Member and I place Orders for the prices shown are reasonable to meet my requirements. I have already lost Rs.289/- at eBay after repeated try and gave it up since it was a meagre amount. I know Sir/ Madam, although your job is not that of a Policeman or an Advocate, yet you have better understanding and good hold to deal with the Merchant (if I am not wrong) and as a result my case can be settled amicably with your timely inteterference. For me it is almost impossible to convince them because they are neither replying my mails nor responding my telephone calls. I feel that I have been left stranded in the transactions I had made with them having full faith in their honesty transperancy.
4. That under the circumstances, may I request your good self to kindly extend your very much needed help in whatever manner you can please. I am begging for your help purely on humanitarian ground and being one of your loyal and sincere Customers. I certainly believe that you will be kind enough to help me out to ensure that I’ll be able to retain my Card and do online transactions, as usual, without any apprehension of being swindled by these people. So far my approach to them is concerned, I can only take legal action against them but as per their terms and condition the jurisdiction for such action will be only the Courts in Delhi/ New Delhi which I cannot afford for Rs.2130/-. I shall be highly obliged if you kindly do the needful to rescue me from these cheaters.
5. I tender my sincere apology if I happened to have caused any inconvenience to you. I am also sorry if the methods suggested to your good self prove to be to you dislike and hope that you will use your own way to help me out to rescue from these people.

Thanking you in anticipation and reposing full faith in your much needed cooperation,

Yours truely,

Sd/-
(TSHERING DUKPA)
Telephone Exchange,
Deorali Bazaar,
Post: Tadong, Gangtok,
Sikkim-737102


TSHERING DUKPA says
23-Oct-2006 at 7:39 pm


HI REEMA,

comfort of doing shopping sitting at your home at any hour of the day is, no doubt, very much true but if you happen to run from pillar to post for the comfortable shoppings you have done sitting at home any time is very painful. To add insult to injury, if you lose your money for nothing is even worse. If, at all, what you say is true then it is applicable at the sites like Fabmall.com or Rediff.com, but by no means at Indiatimes.shopping.com or eBay.com, etc. Now, I think the time has come for all victims of Indiatime.shopping.com to come together (thru internet) and report their experiences to TV Channels and Newspapers. Let us stop the trend of these cheaters and save others from being their victims.

Regards,

Tshering Dukpa,
Deorali Bazaar,
Gangtok, Sikkim-737102
Email: tshering_dukpa@hotmail.com


Tshering Dukpa says
25-Oct-2006 at 1:18 pm


One of the examples of letters written to Indiatimes.com to show what I was made to do for my own money.

From: Tshering Dukpa
Date: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 5:40 AM
To: indiatimesshopping@timesgroup.com
Cc: icare@timesgroup.com
Subject: Order Nos. 110351722; 110350702; 110345467 and 110354999

Dear Sir/Madam,

In continuation of my earlier letter, dated the 7th October 2006, I would like to request you to kindly do the kind favour of taking the initiative to refund my money, vide Order Nos 110351722; 110350702; 110345467 and 110354999, as there seems no chance of my order being moved ahead of the status “Verfied” followed by “Cancelled for refund” and ultimately “Refunded”. As predicted the same thing happened with my Order Number 110344922 also. By no means I am leveling any allegations to the way your system works (relating to the Orders). I am not able to contact any one at 01244187000 even after my repeated efforts nor can I contact any one at 01123278112 except in the beginning. As a result it makes, naturally, one to get impatient and apprehensive; after all, orders are placed to meet the desired requirements. As a Customer I don’t want my orders to be cancelled, and perhaps you don’t want the Orders to get cancelled either, but when there is no option I want them to get cancelled as early as possible so that I can look out for other options which, otherwise, I can’t do due to credit limit against my Card. I hope you will be kind enough to realize my predicament and do the requested needful at the earliest please. Inconvenience caused, if any, is deeply regretted.

Thanking you in anticipation and looking forward to hearing soon from you,

Yours Sincerely

Tshering Dukpa,
Deorali Bazaar
Post: Tadong
Gangtok
Sikkim-737102

The above letter was followed by many and ultimately I wrote the following letter. This too did not yield any result. Finally my Banker has assured me that they would look into the matter subject to availability of supporting Documents. So, all the victims of these monsters are suggested to retain the Correspondnces, etc. made with these cheaters.

From: Tshering Dukpa
Date: Friday, October 20, 2006 11:25 PM
To: indiatimesshopping@timesgroup.com
Cc: icare@timesgroup.com
Subject: Order Nos. 110350702; 110354999 and 110361305

Dear Sir/Madam,

Despite my repeated requests it seems that you did not bother to take up my case seriously. As a result my patience is running out with every single passing day. I am a peace loving man and don’t want to indulge into any controversy. As such you are requested to kindly review my cases of Order Nos. 110350702; 110354999 and 110361305 and deliver justice to me at the earliest please as justice delayed is justice denied. To be honest, in the long run I shall have nothing to lose in any case. This is my last and sincere request to you to settle the issues amicably. Since my transactions amount goes to the tune of thousands of Rupees I feel really hurt by your attitude. You are neither responding my telephone calls nor replying my mails so what should I presume from such behaviour of yours? Please try to see things from my perspective. Can you guess what you should have done if you were in my place? I have given you many opportunities to settle the issues amicably. Today also I am giving you the last chance for the reconciliation and it is up to you to decide. For me “Delhi door nahi hai” and for that matter even the world is so small. The ball is in your court. I hope you will come out with a positive solution before it gets too late. I also hope that you wont take me for granted and, at the same time, I do not want to prove a point because the misunderstanding, due to lack of communications from your end, has just begun.

Looking forward to hearing soon from you,

Yours Sincerely,
Tshering Dukpa,
Gangtok,
Sikkim-737102

Rabin Shrestha says
26-Oct-2006 at 12:22 pm


Shame on Indiatimes.com. In fact, I was planning to do some shopping at the website. Now, after seeing so many people being ceated by them, I’ve decided to totally stop shopping Online. I know Mr. Tshering Dukpa very well. He is one of the closest men in my life and feel very sorry for him because he is really honest man. Mr. Dukpa doesn’t cheat any one and he doesn’t like to be cheated by any one. My sympathies are with him and hope he will get back his money as early as possible. I can only suggest to all victims to removed the masks from the faces of these cheaters by making their experience public by means of electronic and print media as suggested by Mr. Tshering Dukpa, in his reply to Reema. I’ll take the trouble of walking, rather, 10 KM for shopping but don’t want to be one of their victims.


Suchi Garg says
27-Oct-2006 at 10:08 am


I am another victim of insiatimes.com, but thankfully i hv not lost any money. they ahve a system where we can pay suign netcarrots - and i did just that.
On Oct 3 I orderd a book - and paid entirely using netcarrots (good for me)
I havent recvd the book yet - and the order status says that he order has been cancelled. In the meantime I had sent 5 mails to those guys using thir feedback form (they certainly dont trply to those mails)
After reading this thread today - i called up their customer care number and talked to a highly inefficient person - and of course he doesnt know why the order was cancelled. I tries to talk to the manager or somebody senior - but nobody was around. Finally I got a complaint number - and a promise that somebody will be contacting me pretty soon. (the only thing that guy was good at was saying Sorry)
Thankfully I hc not lost any money on this - but the issue is not the money. The issue is the trust a consumer puts when he buys something from awebsite. One thing is for sure - i will never ever shop again on this site.


TSHERING DUKPA says
01-Nov-2006 at 12:55 pm


IMPORTANT NOTICE:

TO ALL CONCERNED I AM GIVING THE CONTACT NO. AND EMAIL ADDRESS OF INTIMES SHOPPING’S BUT I DON’T THINK THAT THEY WILL HELP YOUR CAUSE BECAUSE THE PEOPLE OUT THERE AND THE ENTIRE SYSTEM IS ONE WAY.

Telephone Nos. 01244187000 and 01123278112

Email:1. indiatimesshopping@timesgroup.com
2. icare@timesgroup.com
True it does suck big time says
11-Nov-2006 at 4:14 pm

I do not have faith in any of the indiatimes group products. The newspapers have less news and more masala, “direct to readers” offer only has gray market stuff and havent seen a rightly priced hotel on its travel site… See one more case of fraud in the link below…

http://mytreo.net/forum/index.php/topic,666.msg321899.html#msg321899

Naveen says
12-Nov-2006 at 1:09 pm


Well, I got my money back! After repeated calls and not budging from my position, I have been successful in forcing them to refund my money. It took 3 months, but I am glad. Indiatimes, we are done.


Suchi Garg says
13-Nov-2006 at 8:39 am


good news from my side as well. I sent an email to 1. indiatimesshopping@timesgroup.com
2. icare@timesgroup.com and several other email ids i found on their site and in the email i threatened them of taking legal course as well.
Finally one fine day i recvd my book - anf after that, i recvd 2-3 mails from them saying ur book has been dispatched, ur book has been delivered etc.
Wonder which email id did the trick :)


TSHERING DUKPA says
13-Nov-2006 at 2:00 pm


I think you guys are very lucky in comparison to me. It is almost one and a half months that I have been waiting for the refund or the order but I could get none. Ultimately I am keeping my fingers crossed to see the light at the end of the tunnel as my case has been taken up by the concerned bank. Hopefully, it will deliver goods sooner than later to me. Justice delayed is justice denied and for that matter I have been, already, denied the justice I deserved. Now, in the name of any consolation I am expecting at least my bank will help in getting back my money. Friends plz do pray for me and will do the same for all my fellow sufferers cheated by these frauds (?).

Tshering Dukpa,
Gangtok,
Sikkim-737101


Tshering Dukpa says
18-Nov-2006 at 3:07 pm


DEAR FRIENDS, AT LAST MY MONEY GOT RFUNDED BY THE INDIATIMES GROUP. I HAD VERY BAD EXPERIENCE WITH INDIATIMES SHOPPING, MAY BE IT WAS POSSIBLE BY YOUR MORAL SUPPORT, PRAYERS :) AND THE SUSTAINED EFFORTS MADE BY MY BANK THAT THE MONEY I, ALMOST, HAD GIVEN UP GOT BACK TO ME. MY SINCERE THANKS TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE WHO HELPED ME IN GETTING BACK MY HARD EARNED MONEY. THE LESSON, WHICH I GOT FROM TIMES GROUP, HAS TOUGHT ME IS “THINK BEFORE YOU JUMP” AND THE WOUND I GOT FROM THEM WILL NEVER BE HEALED. THE GREATEST CONSOLATION I GOT IN THIS TRANSACTION WAS THE HELP OF THE CONCERNED BANK.

WITH WARM REGARDS

TSHERING DUKPA,
DEORALAI BAZAAR,
GANGTOK,
SIKKIM-737101



TASHI says
25-Nov-2006 at 3:37 pm


Well the comments above by “Indiatimes customer care” is just to reassure that if you buy any product from them then those numbers have to be byhearted, cos’ there’s gonna be lot of calling.

I had pursued times-shopping for quiet sometime but never manged to get their cooperation.

I had no choice but to resort to Consumer Court and since September I have been attending hearing and my next hearing is on the 5th Dec (last one I guess) and I hope this will be the final show down.

If there is anyone who would like to approach consumer court, I would gladly help. Bringing these cheaters to justice is a must. I think, by bring these cheaters to book by all who are cheated can really make a difference to those innocent new victims.

Let join hands and fight this fraud.

I am not giving up and I will not stop.


Tshering Dukpa says
03-Dec-2006 at 7:51 pm


Dear Friends,

This letter of mine is in reply to that of India Times Shopping, Customer Service. If I am not wrong, similar assurance was given by the Customer Service even before but there was no improvement in their dealings. As someone has rightly said, “Sorry doesn’t make a dead man alive”, faith once lost is lost for ever (Once bitten twice shy). I’ll be the last man on earth to shop again with them and I’ll discourage my entire near and dear ones to shop with them. I wont recommend anyone to become a victim of his or her own “HARD EARNED MONEY”. I know, myself, how I had been harrssed by them for my orders. No…..No..Not again my friends!!!!! Sukriya Mehrbani to all those who fought for their own cause or others’. Hopefully, I will not have to write on this site again but my heartiest thanks to the gentleman who opened this website whis has been working as a “Consumer Forum”.

Tshering Dukpa
Deorali Bazaar
Gangtok
Sikkim-737102


Vincent Morris says
08-Dec-2006 at 4:02 pm


I FINALLY GOT THE ITEM FIVE MONTHS AFTER PURCHASE.

I went for 3 hearings at the consumer court. They ruled in my favour and send a notice to Indiatimes. They processed the order within 3 weeks.

FOR THE PAST 5 MONTHS THEY PUT ME THROUGH SO MUCH OF HASSLE. During this battle Indiatimes did not even bother to reply to any of my emails. They are just plain ARROGANT ARROGANT ARROGANT.

I PROMISE NEVER TO TYPE THEIR URL IN MY BROWSER AGAIN. I HATE THEM!


Upendra says
13-Dec-2006 at 7:06 pm


Even I had a very bad experience on Indiatimes.

I booked an airline ticket online.It showed many options of the Total cost for 1 Adult + 1 Infant. I choosed the lowest price,which took me to Spicejet site.I filled in all the details and then when the e ticket came it had only one Adult name. I called up spicejet and said that I booked for Two. But they said, no its for one person. I had to pay extra for my daughter. I called up Indiatimes 5 times, wrote to them, but never got a feedback or my extra money back.

This guys are there just to fleece you.

Beware..


Gitesh says
25-Jan-2007 at 3:00 pm


Hi!
I just purchased Sony Ericsson T68i after seeing the add in news paper from Indiatimes. First of all they did not collect the cheque before 5-6 days from the order date. After 10 to 15 days they deliver the product. When I check - the display of images were not correct. After few days its key-pad and joystick was failed. And its batrray was good. It did not attach correctly. I complaint many times by mail. But no body replying. Even local service centre of Sony Ericsson raised their hands helplessly.
Can any body help me out.
It is a great loss of rs. 3000/- to purchase a moblie from Indiatimes shopping.
Do not trust them.


ashu says
30-Jan-2007 at 11:56 am


I trusted them as they belongs to very famous newspaper and did not read all these reviews here and on mouthshut.

I ordered a item worth Rs. 8500/- and after many calls its showing status “Shipped with courier company [SAFEX].
and now I don’t know which courier company this is.

The nearest match is SAFEXPRESS which deals in Cargo & containers.

and Indiatimes guys says their system is down ,so they can not see the details.


Vijay Anand says
10-Feb-2007 at 9:35 pm


Indiatimes shopping sucks!

Reasons:
1. They don’t have all the products that they so proudly advertise.
2. Their customer service is poor.
3. The call center guys are rude.
4. You cannot reach a higher official or escalate the problem.

The only thing they do best is to debit money from your credit card and they are so prompt at that.

I ordered a Windows XP GGK on 1st February.
My payment was verified on 2nd February.
And nothing after that.

Wonder when the status will change from “VERIFIED” to “SHIPPED”…

I tried calling customer care and the guy abruptly cut me off.. twice!!

Now that’s unacceptable! I guess many of you would have got similar experiences.

We gotta expose these guys! I guess the news channels could do something with this.. what say?


Manish Kumar Maheshwari says
12-Feb-2007 at 8:41 pm


I didn’t read this page before I booked a Sanyo frost free refrigerator 700 Litre on January 29th 2007.
They were quick in taking money from my credit card. Further to it, the experience has been hell. The CSR would commit the delivery in the next 4-5 days, which would never occur. I lodged a complaint with CSR (who says expect a call in 7 DAYS from the tracing team [they are good at negotiating days.]), and I am planning to move ahead to the consumer court. Also, I plan to instruct my banker to take back the money transacted through credit card.


chahal says
15-Feb-2007 at 4:41 pm


For a change looks like I had a relatively better experience. I ordered flowers for valentine’s day. it didnt reached on 14th. when I called on next day of delivery, I got good response from CSR at 01123278112 (someone name Om Prakash) . He agree to give me direct contact of vendor ‘Sparsh Floral Express - 9891026575 mr Gautam’. I called him and he was embarrassed for his mistake and replied they will deliver it right now. I just got a confirmation mail that its been delivered.


kumkum says
26-Feb-2007 at 3:37 pm


I am interested to purchase something from indiatimes I was trying on toll free number But it never called on that number pls give me any direct contact numberRegards
kumkum


Jayant says
01-Mar-2007 at 9:57 am


Well, even i had the worst shopping experience ever with indiatimes. Had ordered flowers on valentine’s day and they never got delivered. Well, to top it up, i made a complaint and asked for a refund. Nothing happened. So i called them up. They had marked the previous complaint as “query - resolved”. So i made another complaint and asked for a refund. I was assured that the refund will be done in 4 working days.

But it seems that they never work, since i have not yet got my refund.

Indiatimes suck big time. If there is a way we could ask the credit card and online banks to blacklist them, it would be a great favour to the online users.

Suggesions anyone??


Milind says
05-Mar-2007 at 7:32 pm


I tried too teleshop from this site. Toll free number is very difficult to connect. The advertisement does not have enough information to order on cell. It just says SMS SHOP3 to 8888. When I tried I got return message to send complete address. Finally I managed to get them on telephone. But the payment terms and customer unfriendly. Thanks god I went through customer reactions on this site. I decided not to order on this site.


A says
12-Mar-2007 at 5:50 pm


I had a terrible shopping experience on Indiatimes, where my order was not processed, and money was not refunded either for over 10 months. I finally searched through the names of the Timesgroup CEO, Board of Directors, etc and sent them emails for over thre weeks. Looks like this has done the trick, and my money has been finally refunded! You can also try sending mails to these people in case your complaints are not addressed: ‘vineet.jain@timesgroup.com’; ’sunil.lulla@timesgroup.com’; ’sumir.chadha@timesgroup.com’; ’surendra.jain@timesgroup.com’; ‘indu.jain@timesgroup.com’; ‘mahendra.swarup@timesgroup.com’; ‘dinesh.wadhawan@timesgroup.com’; ‘upen.rai@timesgroup.com’; ’sk.jain@sequoiacap.com’; ’sumir.chadha@sequoiacap.com’; ‘indiatimesshopping@timesgroup.com’; ‘icare@timesgroup.com’


Patrick Sequeira says
13-Mar-2007 at 8:16 pm


I had a similar experience shopping with Indiatimes Shopping.

I had ordered a all-in-one printer model 4355 with 1 GB pen drive offered by them. I received a wrong merchandise which I communicated to them immediately on next day of the receipt. I had been pursuing with their helpline center regularly to take it back and replace. It took nearly 3 months for them to agree to take back the merchandise. Since then I have been pursuing with them for the refund.

They are now insisting that the order cannot tbe cancelled and trying to dump it on me.

I would like all the persons who have faced similar situations with Indiatimes Shopping should come to gether and teach them a lesson. Persons interested should contact me on my email. patrick@rediffmail.com.


hetul says
19-Jun-2007 at 5:41 pm


I have ordered a Sony Ericson’s p990i from them , around 10 days back.
after going thru these stories.. am worried . Just found out the phone is at the octroi.. and has not been cleared due to no documents provided.
The cell phone has been send without any supporting documents.
It was shipped by some seller called 1st wholesaler,
does anybody have his contact??

Thanks,
Hetul


Nirbhay Prakash says
24-Jun-2007 at 10:37 am


I was about to invest money on one of the product of Indiatimes.com advertised via luring ‘Readers offer’.Thanks to all of you for sharing your experiences with innocent shoppers. I have dropped the idea of shopping from the indiatimes.com. it’s better, you pay some 2-3 grands more and get a good product from the market than inviting mental hassles from Indiatimes.com


Pushpendra says
25-Jun-2007 at 11:17 am


Hi Hetul,
Even i ordered the same P990i phone on 9th June…I am too worried..till now no information regarding the product.The customer care people are telling it is not shipped till now.Since i paid through credit card it will take more time…Hope you would received the product.How is the quality of product shipped?? Please help me..\
thanks in advance


Fasi Rahman says
17-Jul-2007 at 4:28 pm


Hi,

I ordered some toys & gifts for my relatives in India & 5 days passed, no response from Indiatimes portal… I find it very unprofessional.

Surprisingly the basket (”My Cart”) still remains outstanding & Two orders added in my outstanding order which I never ordered.

Am chasing Inditimes to findout whats wrong & no one seems to respond, eventhough they claim that all sales related questions are answered in 48 hours, its 5th day & still waiting.

Am thinking of taking this further with Verisign of some intermediate authority & more over I dont hink the payment page is sufficuently encripted.

Any contact number or suggestions or comments you people can give.

Thanks
Fasi Rahman

Subhro mukherjee says
21-Jul-2007 at 7:02 pm


i have ordered a harry potter 7th book online through inditimes and they were supposed to deliver it today .
but still waiting anxiously for it , i have failed to receive it, it should have been better for me to get it by the book seller alone . i therefore strongly recommend indiatimes to view the matter seriously. the order no. is attached below….10698566.
thanks .
subhro mukherjee


Pratiti says
22-Jul-2007 at 5:33 pm


i had pre-ordered the 7th book of Harry Potter and not yet got it. What’s the point in pre-booking something if i am not going to be able to read it on time. It’s totally unethical for them to behave like this. adding to which i can’t even find any contact to get in touch with them. order no is 110696142. i really feel indiatimes should look into this matter seriously. can anyone give me their contact number plzzz…


Israr Ahmad says
26-Jul-2007 at 12:53 pm


Hi,

Really it is bullshit portal. I ordered a Sony Erricson P990i to to gift some one and fill the shipping address of that person. Indiatimes send me a mail that your credit card billing address is different with your shipping address. It is really mental haressment. No customer care no is given. I have paid the amount using credit card what to do ????

Please away from this shopping portal.


Tashi says
26-Jul-2007 at 1:13 pm


I honestly feel pity for all you guys !!

I have been a victim too and for last 11 months I have been waiting for some justice but don’t seem it will ever come.

In India the rich and powerful ruleZ. My case has been lying in the consumer court for last 11 months and it is still dragging.

I have given up any hope of a refund and hope of justice from the consumer forum.

I hope that anyone who wishes to purchase anything from timesshoppin.com be AWARE.

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