A gift offer and customer care

This is about a gift which did not arrive.

On November 2013 I placed a gift subscription with Reader’s Digest for my grand-daughter. In terms of the company’s offer I was entitled to a 2014 Diary as gift. When it did not arrive till December 30 I sent an e-mail to the RD Customer Care unit (rdcare@intoday.com). The next day I received a reply from Rajesh, Executive, Customer Care, saying the gifts had been dispatched to eligible persons and it seemed probable mine was lost or pilfered in postal transit. He said a Diary ’14 was being sent to me through courier and asked me to allow them seven working days time.

After seven working days passed with no sign of the couriered Diary, I wrote again on January 11. On January 13 I received a reply from another Customer Care Executive, Mamta Pandey, who offered a totally different explanation for the non-delivery of the Diary. “The consignment got delayed from our end and dispatches will start within 1-2 weeks,” she wrote. 

When two more weeks passed and there was still no sign of the Diary, I sent a third mail on January 28, and received a response on January 31 from a third Customer Care Executive, Bharti Bhatija, who again said they were arranging a replacement through courier and asked me to allow seven working days for delivery. A month later, there is still no sign of the Diary or the courier.

Since Reader’s Digest is part of the India Today Group I sent an e-mail to the Customer Care unit of that group (wecare@intoday.com), and followed it up with a snail mail to the company. Neither communication has fetched a response.

So much for offers and customer care.