Inspired by people who are fighting cases by themselves before courts, a young diploma engineer in Kochi fought a consumer case against the fashion e-commerce major Myntra all by himself and won compensation of Rs 20,000.
Anil Kumar T S, 30, of Ponekkara in Kochi decided to take on Myntra after the company refused to refund the amount of Rs 5,000 which he had added to Myntra’s wallet to make a purchase. Though Anil Kumar registered a complaint with Myntra’s customer care and waited for days, his issue wasn’t properly resolved, forcing him to approach the Ernakulam District Consumer Redressal Commission with a petition against Myntra.
“I never knew filing a consumer petition and arguing a case before the consumer court was so simple until I walked into the commission office with my grievance. The court guided me in filing the petition along with all relevant evidence. When my case was taken up for hearing, I presented myself and submitted the points for consideration,” Anil Kumar told “Open Digest“. “I am happy that the court got convinced and delivered a verdict favouring me,” he said.
As per the case details, it was in November 2022 that Anil Kumar had purchased gift cards from GYFTR and credited them to Myntra’s wallet. But attempts to use the funds to purchase products failed due to certain technical issues on the Myntra platform. “When I raised a complaint, they promised to look into it. But after a few days, my Myntra account was blocked, and I got a notification saying, ‘Your account is deactivated for security reasons, please contact customer care for more information’. Though I lodged a complaint, they remained unresponsive,” Anil Kumar said.
Contesting Anil Kumar’s petition, Myntra submitted that the complainant’s account was blacklisted according to Myntra’s terms and conditions, and they were just an intermediary online marketplace which cannot be held liable for the actions of third-party sellers under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
However, the Commission led by its president D B Binu, Members V Ramachandran and Sreevidhia T N found Myntra guilty of deficiency in service by resorting to unfair trade practices. “Based on the evidence and the applicable legal provisions, it is clear that the opposite party failed to resolve the issue within the promised timeframe, leading to a deficiency in service. Consequently, the complainant has endured considerable inconvenience, mental stress, hardships, and financial losses as a result of the negligence of the opposite party,” the Commission observed, directing Myntra to refund Rs 5,000 to the complainant and also pay Rs 15,000 as compensation for the mental agony and costs of litigation.
