Why I have not been shopping on FlipKart for almost the last two years!

It is because Flipkart does not allow me to do it so, and they are bit fishy about it. They have disabled my email ID in their database against making any purchases, and it is not quite apparent. I can fill the cart, but when I have to confirm the order, it will fail.

I wrote to them, they said to the effect that my email ID has been disabled. I am unable to get satisfactory answer from them, only evasive answers.

This is what actually happened. During Jan - Feb 2016, the MI 4 phones were on instant sale, and there was lot of demand, and I placed for two phones, paid by credit card. The credit card payment went through from the bank but failed at the Flipkart side, very unusual situation. So, I had to cancel the order as I did not get any satisfactory follow up on this issue from Flipkart as they simply said that I have to follow with the bank.

Since I badly needed those phones, as they were really good deal,  this time I placed an order again with cash on delivery, got the phones on cash on delivery.

In the mean time, I did follow up with the Flipkart to ensure proper refund on the failed payment. Since this was an unusual technical problem, nobody really owned it, giving only evasive answers, I did escalate it multiple levels as I was not getting ownership to own this problem and resolve it.

In the mean time, I called the bank people and asked them to withold the payment to protect my interests. I continued to escalate with Flipkart for resolution, but they had no grip on the issue, and I was not relenting on it.

I really do not know what actually happened, either the back office resolved the issue with the bank, or the bank people forced the refund, I will not know as the Flipkart never put me in the loop as to what really happened and how the fix was done. They only argued that everything is looking fine and there is no issue.  Basically, they were hiding the technical glitch, otherwise, probably that will cause some of them to answer to too many people.

I left the issue at that as my payment issue was resolved after a week or so, it was ok if I din't know how exactly.

After an year or so, when I attempted to make another purchase, I was getting an error message that order can not be placed. When I followed up with the service, I learned that my email ID is disabled in a database level, but that aspect is hidden.

What probably might have happened is that because I escalated the problem too many times and was relentless on resolution, some bigwig was getting negative exposure, and decided to screw me with a revenge, silently disabling my Id from further purchase.

When I asked as to what is the valid reason for this disablement, I was given the reason of cancelling an order, which in itself can not be the reason and that cancellation was due to their shortcoming and not mine,  and further follow up and escalation on this even to the CEO level resulted in no amicable resolution. Even I posted this issue publicly on Twitter, even then I did not get the resolution.

I tried to complain to the Consumer Care section of the government agency, the website refused to take my complaint sighting the reason that my complaint is too short in volume of words. I could then make out that there is a probable nexus between the government agency and these bigwigs towards minimizing formal complaints. I decide to let it go, and did not follow up further.

I accepted the fact that Flipkart does not want me as a customer, its business practices are hoax compared to global standards and its customer service is an eye wash.  I have been very happy with the Amazon relation, so I did not miss anything much.  The only regret I had was that I missed to support an Indian company against a foreign company, but I let that too go because Flipkart was adamant not to reform.  The culture of babugiri was very much in its bureaucracy, and that would not change in near future.

So, my aim now became to resist the arrogance of business people, the one prevalent was business people from the north forcing hindi on southern people, because they are considered meek. So, I started refusing to take any tele call from that point onwards, if it started in Hindi. I initially insisted to talk in English or Kannada, but some of them simply ignored the request and continued in Hindi. I started cutting the call on the very first Hindi word hence forth and blocking that number in the phone.

After blocking almost 50 numbers or so in my phone over the three months, the telecalls have gone down, now I need to block 1-3 numbers per month. I feel good about this. An ad agency attempts to call me over approx. twenty different numbers before giving up on it.

In the mean time, if there is any real deal on Flipkart, I can still use the ID of other folks at home, but that need is more of an exception than rule, so I am not missing much.

Now I am curious as to how the internal bureaucracy reforms will occur with the pending Walmart tie up. I will escalate the issue again post Walmart involvement and check whether the Walmart marriage brought any reform for the arrogant outlook of an Indian company, but I am not ready to bet on this reform yet!

Best Regards 

Our Aqua Guard water purifier is now more than 16 years old!

We had a new Aqua Guard water purifier installed 16 years back and it is still functioning!

We take annual contract for its maintenance, which has worked well. The contract includes replacing the filters inside (Carbon as well as the fiber thread based) and fixing it when occasionally its electronics inside fails or the plumbing outside to the filter tank fails.

Now a days, there is far more sophisticated water purifiers available, especially the ROH water purifiers which are not only bit expensive for purchase and maintenance, they waste a lot of water for filtering the metal content in the water. One should plan to reuse the water these filters waste, else it looks criminal for the Indian realities!

The Aqua Gurard water purifier is bit simple compared to today's offerings. It uses three times filter: One through a fiber filter, which needs to be cleaned once a while by changing the direction of flow of water into the separate tank it is kept in. This is a must if the water coming in is too muddy, else this filter can get clogged and water may not flow through it anymore. Second filtering is using carbon charcoal, which absorbs some toxic contents.  Both the filters need replacement once a year, the annual maintenance covers for it. The third filter is to send UV rays across the flowing water, that is why this apparatus needs some electronics and electric supply.

Since, due to grounding issues, the service person had to visit at least three times more than usual to fix the failing apparatus, I asked the service engineer how he rates this old model compared to recent offerings and should we upgrade. He gave an honest answer which I appreciated very much.

What he said is that the old filter is simple but effective. For our health reasons, we should not remove all the minerals from the water. Since ROH removes all the minerals, it is not favorable for long term health. Though this old filter does only 90% of the job compared to new offerings, it helps by retaining the minerals.

I felt that he was right, especially for those homes who are supplied with Kaveri water, which typically contains metal content anywhere between 170-220 ppm, when I tested last in this summer, it was 220 ppm, bit high due to summer (water sources drying).

But, if you are using ground water, you will need ROH filter as the ground water is likely to have 400-500 ppm or more metal content, and that is definitely harmful on longer term use.

When the Aqua Guard filter failed multiple times (fault was ours, the sensitive electronics failed due to grounding issues, which we eventually fixed), the service engineer was even thinking to get a replacement old model for us, and was telling that it is difficult to get such one. Since he could not isolate the reason for electronic failure multiple times, he was thinking this way, but his smarter supervisor caught on to the root cause.

Bottom line, if you have an old Aqua Guard purifier still working at your home and you are happy with it, there is no compulsion to replace it, at least until the company servicing refuses to service it through annual contract.

Our old Aqua Guard water filter now feels as sweet as the older spouse at home!

Viva Older Aqua Guard Old Water Purifiers!

Check the grounding at your home, especially if it is an old home

We live in a home that was constructed in 1987 by a local contractor who is unlikely an engineer. Though we moved in during 1998, we started observing the grounding problem only in 2002, when we started using a computer. The computer used to give a solid shock, further check confirmed that the entire lighting circuit at home had no ground wire. The electrical contractor who was an idiot had gone for convenience than safety. Since all the wires are already hidden in the wall or ceiling, we arranged a competent contractor to take grounding wire to all the lighting switch sockets at home from the outside, thus we made operations of iron box, mixie grinder etc. safer at home, of course the home looked more cluttered with these wires hanging here and there.

Our AEH (All Electric Home, basically a separate circuit for higher ameprage, used for electric stove, grinder, heater etc.) had proper grounding, it could be more fatal to have the AEH circuit operating without grounding. While fixing the grounding for lighting wire, we got two earthing stations dug up, one for the lighting and one for the AEH. Everything was fine.

In 2017, our 15 years old Aqua Guard Water filter electronic circuit failed multiple times. We had annual contract, and the company people were very co-operative to fix it duly. But, upon multiple times failure, the services supervisor called us to check the grounding for the apparatus. We had no computer now as it was replaced by a laptop, so we had no way of knowing grounding issue with first hand experience of solid shock at hand, we were usually used to in the past.

So, called a local electrical contractor, who in no time confirmed that the lighting circuit grounding has not been working. When we checked the grounding station, the thick GI wire was rusted and broken off.  The contractor used an expensive copper wire this time, along with salt and charcoal to recharge the earthing station.

I just wondered what risks the lack of grounding could impose, especially on an AEH circuit which will have capacity for higher amperage before the fuses can blow off or the safety switch can trip.  So, in order not to take any risk further, I asked the contractor to connect the two groundings across AEH and the lighting circuit. Once that was done, we are now having an insurance against one grounding station becoming nonfunctional.

I was surprised that it is not a common practice to connect the multiple grounding stations together to act as an insurance against the failure of the other.  I am writing this note to bring to your attention that the earthing stations in your home to deserve to get interconnected, to minimise the risk of fatal shock to the residents, in case one grounding comes off due to rusting or for some other reason.

It is easy to connect the multiple grounding, there will be a switchboard in the kitchen or toilet where both the lighting and AEH switches could be housed together, inside this switchboard, you connect the two grounding together, that is all.

If you have an electrical contractor visiting your home to do this, please make sure that he tests both the groundings first, only then connects them together. This way, you will ensure that non-functional grounding also gets fixed.

This note is very important to those who have old houses, or got the initial work done through an idiot, or living in a highly corrosive place like coastal area where the salt in the wind and rain water can corrode the old GI wires easily.

This note is the minimum I should do for graduating from electrical engineering! Ha Ha!

Best wishes!