Amazon Retail fined Rs 18,000 by consumer court, directed to refund Rs 40,000 to woman whose phone was hacked

The Regional Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has ordered Amazon India retail stores to refund a woman $She was fined 40,325 for selling her a “hacked phone” that exposed her data and was used to make unauthorized purchases, The Times of India reported.

The company was also fined a total of $18,000 — $Compensation of $10,000 to complainant for emotional distress and harassment $It added that the legal costs were $8,000.

what happened?

The woman, Sumita Das, a resident of Chandigarh’s Sector 12, purchased a smartphone from Amazon but faced fraud and financial consequences after her device was hacked, the report said. loss.

In September 2023, fraudsters obtained her personal information and made unauthorized purchases from her Amazon account. She added that through her hacked mobile phone, the fraudsters also hacked her ICICI Bank credit card and email. Das claims she reported the suspicious activity to Amazon, but the company failed to cancel the transaction or provide timely recourse.

Das added that although Amazon initially said it would refund fraudulent transactions that were canceled, she has yet to receive the money.

“Appropriate and effective assistance provided”

Amazon India and Amazon Pay Later, the platform used to make transaction payments, claimed in their replies to the consumer court that they had canceled the fraudulent orders and provided “appropriate and effective assistance” to the complainants

The statement added: “Given the complainant’s dissatisfaction that her account was hacked, we immediately conducted an internal review and assisted the complainant in cleaning/banning her account and ensuring all orders were canceled to avoid any further issues. question.”

However, the Consumer Court pointed out that the general practice for online platforms to collect goods is to “thoroughly verify” the products before shipping, and if there are any discrepancies, the goods will not be accepted. It added that although Amazon was aware of the suspicious activity and ruled in favor of the complainant, it failed to “act promptly.”