Posted by Spanish Native in India | Posted in Life in India | Posted on 01-02-2011
When you go shopping for daily use products, you really do not expect to be mugged right there.
I normally buy what I need from the small stores nearby and never really had any problem. But one day I decided to buy from a shop called Easyday (Bharti – Walmart) which many of you might know as they are in many cities of India. Still when I searched, I couldn’t find their official website and I only found a Facebook page.
But after few times buying there, I realized something strange. All my bills always use to show that my change was something like this:
Rs. 11.50, Rs. 6.50, Rs. 20.50, etc.
Always finishing in .50 paisa. But of course the cashier never gave me those 50 paisa, even if I asked, saying that they don’t have the 50 paisa. So according to the example I was receiving Rs. 11, Rs. 6 and Rs. 20. Now I ask, why suspiciously all the bills end in .50? I have collected all my bills and I see the same in all of them. And I also ask, what the cashier does with all those 50 paisa that he never gives to any costumer? (They must go to his pocket). And by adding 50 paisa + 50 paisa + 50 paisa + infinite, how much money are they making from all the hundreds of costumers that shop there?
I checked the RBI website and it clearly says that the 50 paisa coins are still working. I don’t know why people refuse to use them and instead allow these stores to take the money from them. How many rupees does a costumer loose in a year when buying from these places? And nobody says anything?
I don’t know the consumer laws of India, but in other countries they are forced to give to the costumer the complete change. Even if it’s 1 or 2 cents, they will give you because people started noticing this bad practice from the stores and put a complaint to the consumer court and the court ordered them to pay a huge amount of money for damages plus the obligation to give the complete change to all the costumers.
Maybe people don’t want to accept this 50 paisa because they think they will not be able to use it anywhere else, but I don’t think that’s a problem. Next time, when you go to these stores, just give them back the 50 paisa when you pay your bill. They will go to the bank and the bank will surely give them rupees if they want. Don’t let them get away with this and make your rights as a consumer be respected.
Read more complaints here:
http://www.consumercomplaints.in/complaints/easy-daybharti-retail-ltd-c322109.html
If somebody knows what are the Indian laws regarding these bad practices or what can be done about this, I’ll appreciate the information and comments.
Find Me on Twitter
Spanish Translation Services
Wow! I’m the kind of person who wouldn’t care about the small change, but if you think about it, they are making a lot of money because of this attitude in India…
Yeah, I also didn’t mind it at the beginning. Most of the times I don’t even keep my bills. I only minded it when I started to notice that all my bills from that specific shop always ended in .50 (6 of them). So I came to the conclusion that this cannot be just a coincidence. Even I tried going to another of their shops in a different neighborhood and the same thing happened. And yes, they must be making a lot of money, because what they do with all the changes they don’t give to the costumers at the end of each day? I’m not mad because of the 50 cents, what annoys me is how they manipulate their system on purpose to get this extra cash from thousands of costumers.