Got a call offering Samsung J7 for Rs 3,500? You may get a Feng Shui tortoise instead

AHMEDABAD: Bhavin Chavda a third Year B.Sc student from Kadi in Gujarat, received a call from an unknown number. He was told that he has won a lucky draw and thus the company is offering him Samsung J7 model handset for Rs 3,500. The market price of the phone is around Rs. 17,000. A lady named Nehal Sharma asked for Bhavin's address and Pin Code and said that he will receive a confirmation call within 2 days.
Bhavin says, "The way she talked to me over the call, I did not find anything fishy. I also received a confirmation call from the company and a parcel reached the post office too." However, Bhavin was shocked when he opened the box as what he received in place of the handset were plastic idols of Lakshmi and Ganesha.
But this was not an one off incident. In some cases, similar parcels have contained idols of Lakshmi and Feng Shui tortoises.
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Darshan Desai, a businessman from Dhandhuka received a similar call from a man identifying himself as Vijay Sharma. He was told that the offer is genuine and he will receive the phone along with a guarantee card. Darshan was assured and he booked the phone. But to his luck, he was timely warned by his friend who was cheated by a similar call and thus he did not make payment at the post office and returned the parcel.
Sources from Kadi Post Office said that, "Everyday two to three customers are duped." The source said that similar cases have emerged from other post offices as well. "The companies ask the customers not to trust the post office staff. They tell them that if they do not collect their parcel on time, the post office staff will take it. So when we request the customers not to accept these parcels, they refuse to trust us and later on they regret." The customers receive frequent phone calls from the company until they collect their parcel from the post office.
According to sources, thousands of customers in and out of Gujarat are being duped by such companies.
Also, the companies communicate with the customers only through phone calls and not via text messages or e-mails which leave the customers without any documented proof. Besides, customers often avoid filing a police complaint for a small sum.
When iamgujarat.com called on the service center number, the recipient of the call, a lady, refused to accept that the parcel contained anything but Samsung J7. But on insisting that the parcel had idols of Lakshmi and Ganesha, she said that an executive from Junagadh will pay a visit to the address mentioned on the parcel. She did not divulge the address of Junagadh office or contact number of the said executive.
Reacting to this, Samsung India told IamGujarat that the company has nothing to do with these sellers and that the company is not offering any such discount.
Content courtesy: I Am Gujarat