Flipkart adds extra verification step in returns process to prevent fraud returns

Neither an online marketplace nor an online sellers like returns. But the Indian ecommerce ecosystem has been built up on the basis of easy (and most often free) returns policies to coax customers into buying without worry.

But off late fraud and dupe returns have troubled many sellers leading to significant losses. The recent case is of a 32-year old man duping ecommerce giant Flipkart of a whopping Rs 20 lakhs in 20 months!

Probably that has triggered the home-grown etailer to come up with an extra step in its returns process. In an email to sellers, Flipkart informs sellers about its new step to minimize instances of fraud with RTO or courier returns.

• For all products with selling price more than RS 5000, an ekart personnel in the Delivery Hub will open the secondary packaging of the returned product, to check that the primary packaging in intact.
• Once verified, ekart tape will be used to reseal the package.

This will (hopefully) help to avoid unpleasant returns instances like:

• Product with broken seal
• Wrong product
• Empty shipment