Amazon Retail fined ₹18,000 by consumer court, directs it to refund woman ₹40,000 for hacked phone

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has ordered Amazon Retail India to refund a woman ₹40,325 for selling her a “hacked phone” that exposed her data and was used to make unauthorised purchases, as per a Times of India report.

The company has also been fined a total of ₹18,000 — ₹10,000 to the complainant as compensation for mental agony and harassment and ₹8,000 as cost of litigation, it added.

What Happened?

The woman, identified as Sumita Das, a resident of Sector 12 in Chandigarh, bought a smartphone from the Amazon website but faced fraud and financial loss due to the hacked device, the report said.

In September 2023, fraudsters gained access to her personal information and made unauthorised purchases from her Amazon account. She added that through her hacked phone, the fraudsters also hacked her ICICI Bank credit card and her email. Das claimed that she flagged the suspicious activity to Amazon, but the company failed to cancel the transactions or offer timely recourse.

Das added that despite Amazon initially stating it would refund the fraudulent transactions which were cancelled, she has not yet received the amount.

‘Proper, Efficient Assistance Provided’

Amazon India and Amazon Pay Later (the platform used to make the transaction payments), in their reply to the consumer court, claimed that they had cancelled the fraudulent orders and provided “proper and efficient assistance” to the complainant

“Considering the complainant’s grievance that her account was hacked, we immediately checked internally and assisted the complainant with sanitising/suppressing her account and ensuring all orders were cancelled to avoid any further issues,” the statement added.

The consumer court, however, noted that it is a general practice for collecting agents of online platforms to “thoroughly verify” a product before delivering it, and if there is any difference, not collect the item. It added that Amazon failed to “act promptly” despite being made aware of the suspicious activity and ruled in favour of the complainant.