“Hello.. Is this Soumya Pratihari?” The person asked in a decent tone when I first received the call from one unknown land line number of Mumbai. “Yes, who is that?”, I inquired. “Sir, I am Rajat from BagItToday. Just wanted to congratulate you on winning our contest..” and I stopped him there to ask, “which contest you are talking about?”. He continued, “Sir, since you have already purchased some items on our website, and being an old valued customer, we had entered your name in our new year contest, and guess what, you have been selected as one of our lucky winners! I am feeling extremely happy to tell you that you will get a Sanyo 22″ LCD TV and a Airtel DTH connection absolutely free. Nothing to pay for this at all.”

Trust me, I was not getting excited to hear this. I was suspecting something, and that marketing guy reached there in the very next minute. He continued, “Sir, you need to buy some diamonds from us. The diamonds are certified by some international authority (I cant remember the certification authority name, sorry!), and it’s market price is Rs. 30,000, but we will give it to you for just Rs. 27,999 along with your free Sanyo 22″ LCD TV and a Airtel DTH connection.” And his very next line was “Sir, would you like to pay via CC or online? If via CC, I can transfer your call to IVR where you can complete the transaction right now, but if you want to do it online, I can also guide you…”.
It did not take me even one more second to understand that this is one of their marketing strategies to sell their products. However, I was on for this since I thought like this is their strategy to sell diamonds, but then I was also getting free stuffs worth Rs. 22,000 in the shape of LCD TV, and a DTH connection. But it’s rally very hard to convince me, especially when you are trying to sell me a product. I would always do a proper research if I am going to buy something worth Rs. 28K. I simply replied to that agent, “Hey, I am on. However, I would like to check this with few people, please do give me a call after 1 hour, and we will proceed to complete the transaction then. In between, please drop me a email stating this offer details.” He agreed on this and told me twice that he will be calling me after one hour, for sure.
I usually check the customer reviews before buying stuffs from any website. But since the person called me up all of sudden, started offering some really attractive deals that anyone will fall for, I had to make an excuse to get some time to check their customer reviews.
At first, i headed to a Facebook group, and asked for suggestions to some blogger friends. Please see what they had to say on this.
As it can be clearly seen on the above screenshot, each and every person asked me to stay away from this company, and most of them had reasons to support their stand. Then I did a bit Google to read the customer reviews on BagItToday, and guess what, this India Today group initiative is known as one of the worst e-commerce sites in India. A large chunk of customers are having bad experience and also warning others not to fall for their promotional tricks.
It will take me days to mention all negative reviews here. But I am quoting few ones for your reading.

I was called on my mobile on 16/10/2010, for an offer by Multinational Company Bagittoday (Living India Today) of India Today company, about benefit of Rs 140000/ which I will get from them if I purchase samsung mobile for Rs 14999/-, I have paid it through my credit card on IVR (Thinking it is authentic) but after first payment they again asked me to pay an amount of Rs 32,900 for LCD tv and if I fail to pay, then they will not process my first payment (ie. Of 14000) and I will not be given any benefit and I was forced to pay Second payment of Rs 32,900 again and it didn’t stopped here they started asking for a payment of 14999/- and with same threat. I have crossed the limit of my Credit card and unable to pay their demand because it seems that their demands are unending and they are charging it again and again.
I placed an order on 26-04-2011 and did not get the item till 17-05-2011. On 17th May, I cancelled and requested for refund. They said it will take 21 days for refund. So for another 3 weeks, customers’ money is sent for a toss.
Why does a company operating through portal require 21 days for processing a refund? Are we in pre-independence era? Such rules of the company should not be allowed to operate.
I had bought reebok sunglasses with watch free for Rs 1298/-. Soon after receiving it , i found that the watch used to run 20-30 mins slow everyday!!! After i contacted them, they asked me to give them for 7 days, and that was because it was 7 days to go for their warranty period. After waiting for 10 days, when i contacted them, they are saying your warranty is over on this date!!!!! Such scamsters and cheaters, i’ve never seen in my life!!!!!!!!
Moreover, i think they are selling cheap fake products in the name of brands!
we purchased somthing from India Today [Bag it Today] . But when we not received that goods then they told amount would be returned back. I Got a call from India Today [Bag it Today] and asked for credit card details so that they can refund. When i gave him all the details they again deducted 13990/- from my credit card. I got refrence number from my bank in which India Today [Bag it Today] has deducted amout from my card.
If you want to read more customer reviews, sadly all of them are negative reviews, you may go through these links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Doing some Google can give you thousands of such links. I also noticed that there is one BagItToday Scam page on Facebook.Well, now coming back to my issue. Few minutes after hanging up the call, I got an email from that sales agent, and I was completely taken aback to check that email. Here is the screenshot of that email:
Just check the link they have provided there: www.bagittoday.com/cpcv/sanyo. Once you click on this link, it takes you to http://www.bagittoday.com/itbc/C2056/landing.jsp?BCODE=C2056 which is just an another promotional landing page. When you click on their “Get Offer” link, it will take you to a sign up page where anyone can register for this offer, which clearly means that there is no exclusive contest, no real winners, and anyone can sign up for this deal.
On the other hand, the sales agent told me that the free gifts are of worth Rs. 22,000 but their website says that the free gifts are of worth Rs. 15,490. If I were not having access to internet, and could never track this page online, I would have believed that the free products I got are of worth 22K. Below is the screenshot of the landing page:
India Today Group, if you are reading this post (though chances are high that you will read this post of mine), then let me talk to you directly – Who the fuck are you to call, lie, and try to sell fake products to me? Go, get a life! Your founding members had spent a lots of time in building reputation, and gaining respect eventually, and I really used to respect your products like India Today, Aaj Tak, etc. But you are not worth my respect, very honestly.
You claim to give free gifts worth Rs 15,490 on purchase of Rs 27,999 diamonds. When you say this, even a common man can understand that you are either lying or selling fake products to recover the amount of free gifts. The money I was about to pay you is my hard earned money, and you wanted to make some easy money by playing scams with me?
Anyways, I don’t feel like spending more time in writing about you, would like to stop here, but would definitely want to say two magical words to you for all your efforts to scam people – Fuck Off!