Amazon fined Rs 18K for not refunding Rs 40K to woman whose phone was ‘hacked’

NEW DELHI: A consumer court ruled in favour of a Chandigarh resident who faced financial losses due to fraudulent transactions on Amazon website. The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has ordered Amazon Retail India Pvt. Ltd. to refund Rs 40,325 to Samita Das, a resident of Sector 12, Chandigarh. The commission has also directed it to pay Rs 10,000 to the complainant as compensation for causing mental agony and harassment and Rs 8,000 as cost of litigation.
The incident occurred in September 2023 when fraudsters gained access to Das’s personal information and placed unauthorised orders on her Amazon account.
The complainant said that her smartphone was hacked. Consequently, her e-mail ID and ICICI Bank credit card were also hacked, and misused by the fraudsters on September 9, 2023. Das claimed that despite repeated attempts to cancel the transactions and alert Amazon to the suspicious activity, the company failed to take timely action.
She said that initially suspecting fraudulent activity, the orders were cancelled and she was informed via email. However, certain other orders placed by the fraudsters thereafter were entertained by the company without verifying the credentials and a demand was raised against her Amazon Pay Later Account. Subsequently, the orders were cancelled and refund was assured by Amazon, but till date the amount has not been refunded, she said.
What Amazon said on the court order
Amazon India and Amazon Pay Later, in their reply, reportedly said, “The complainant contacted our customer support team wherein all orders which were placed had been cancelled and proper and efficient assistance was provided to the complainant against the cancelled orders. Considering the complainant’s grievance that her account was hacked, they immediately checked internally and assisted the complainant with sanitising/suppressing her account and ensuring all orders were cancelled to avoid any further issues.”
What Consumer Commission said
“It is a general practice of online platforms that particularly a product before collection at the time of return is verified thoroughly by the collecting agent and the same is collected only after the same is found to be the same as the item delivered. In case of any difference, the product is never collected by the collecting agent. More so, this plea was never communicated at any stage to the complainant and seems an afterthought of Amazon Retail India,” the commission said.
It further noted that online platforms typically verify products thoroughly before collecting returns, but in this instance, Amazon failed to act promptly despite knowing about the suspicious activity.
Agencies