Mumbai: A 63-year-old Chembur resident has approached a city consumer commission against Eureka Forbes and sought a Rs 2 lakhs compensation for charging during the warranty period for replacing the water filter of its purifier product Aquaguard.
The commission has sent a notice to the company to respond to the complaint. In his complaint filed through Advocate Prashant Nayak, the senior citizen Vinod Prabhu has alleged that the company has deliberately installed substandard filters in its product to sell their annual maintenance contracts and that consumers are compelled to buy it due to repetitive defects in the product even during the warranty period. This, he said, has resulted in additional exorbitant repair charges that are not covered under warranty. Such conduct of the company, he said, amounted to unfair trade practise under the Consumer Protection Act.
Being a senior citizen, he was made to run from pillar to post for getting after sales service which is its statutory obligation as per consumer laws of the land.
As per his complaint, the purifier was installed in July 2019 and he started encountering defects in Feb 2020 resulting in reduced water supply and then stopping of the supply. He said the company’s technician informed him that he would have to replace the filter at Rs. 2,450 and that the technician was also trying to sell the annual maintenance contract.
He said he was informed that the filter was not covered under its warranty. He contended that the company has deliberately installed substandard product that requires high maintenance even during warranty period and pointed out that the one-time cost of replacing the filter is one-fourth of the total cost of the product itself.
