Tricked by Zoomin.com - Part II

Earlier I had written about how a badly laid form tricked me into loosing precious points on zoomin.com.
I mentioned in the post, zoomin.com customer support expressed inability of reversing the transaction. It irked me pretty much, more since I felt helpless.

Realizing that nothing much I could do, I vented out on my blog. After the post was made, I dug out their site and blog again for other contacts. The blog was closed for comments. But found their PR email contact on the website. As a last resort, I sent another mail to their PR contact and marked a copy to their support mailbox. This time I provided nothing but the blog post link.

It was then almost a closed chapter, till I got this response.

Hello Kiran,

Thank you for writing back to us.

We have read your blog and took the necessary steps to ensure that this is not repeated. We have sent you an email regarding the same on 4th January, 2010. Kindly write us back with your I-mint card number so that we can forward it to our I-mint team and inform them to credit the points back to your I-mint account.

We will send your details to the I-mint team and inform you once the points are added back to your account. Feel free to write in if you have any questions or comments.

Thank you for being a ZoomIn customer. We appreciate it.
Regards,
Anil
ZoomIn Customer Service

I was surprised! This was unexpected. I sent my details and received another mail.

 

Hello Kiran,

Thank you for writing back to us.

I have sent your details to the I-mint team and informed them to deposit 98 points back to your I-mint account. Please allow some time to check this with our I-mint team and I shall inform you as soon as I get any information from them.

Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience.

Regards,
Anil
ZoomIn Customer Service

The points were indeed reversed to my card after few days!! I felt proud of the blog posting. Not sure why they couldn't do it earlier, but the blog really did something!!!

PS: After this incident, I did another transaction on zoomin.com. The purchase flow has not changed, the i-mint number is still taken after the payment is made. Hopefully they will iron it out in time.

Tricked by zoomin.com

This is story about how I was tricked by zoomin.com's online print service.

I have an i-mint membership card that provides me reward points for my credit card purchases. These points can be redeemed for stuff. The points do not come cheap and have to spend atleast INR 100 to get one.
I recently ordered online prints using zoomin.com which is a partner for this i-mint reward program.

Zoomin.com's ordering system is misleading and perhaps designed by amateurs. During purchase, there is no way you can enter your i-mint membership card number to have the purchase points credited to your card. On almost all other partner sites, you are given a chance to enter the number before you hit final "pay" button. I tried to look for similar input box on zoomin.com's purchase form in vain.

There was an option to "pay by i-mint" though. Since i-mint is not a credit card, I entered my i-mint number there. And voilla! zoomin.com secretly deducted 98 points from my i-mint points instead by INR24 I was about to pay by the credit card!!!

Quick email to customer support of both i-mint and zoomin.com showed inability to reverse this despite it was their fault to lay out things in such stupid manner. Instead I was advised to be careful in future. WOW!!!

ZoomIn Customer Service to my email date Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 10:12 AM subject RE: General Comment or Question {74535} mailed-by zoomin.com

hide details 10:12 AM (6 hours ago)

Hi Kiran,

Thank you for writing back to us.

I am sorry to inform you that we will not be able to revert the I-mint points back to your account as your order has already been processed. For future reference, To earn points on your order, enter your i-mint membership or Airtel mobile number on order confirmation page, after making the payment and confirming your order.
Feel free to write in if you have any questions or comments. Thank you for being a ZoomIn customer. We appreciate it.

Regards,
Anil
ZoomIn Customer Service