designcafe.com

DesignCafe.com - a scam story

There is a scam going on in Home Interiors Industry.I bought a new house and was due for possession, so we started looking for interior options. Among others, we met DesignCafe. They showed interest in our requirements and offered to deliver within our budget. As we progressed, they offered us a coupon deal to upgrade raw materials at the same cost. To reserve this offer they asked us to pay Rs. 20,000, a non-refundable amount (our biggest mistake). However, after each discussion, their quotation value started changing. This got us worried and so I prepared an Excel file with all the requirements and asked them to fill in the cost. To our surprise, the cost was at least 30% higher than shown in the quotation. This is a big issue with all Interior companies they promise you within your budget, but you will end up paying almost 50% higher.During this time, I was also moving my home loan to another bank and it took more than expected time. We informed them of this delay and told them to keep things on hold till later in April 2023, as we could not start without getting possession of the property.This is when the scam started. On 31st March (year-end) they started forcing us to pay 10% of the quotation, or else will forfeit the deal for which we paid Rs. 20,000. They constantly harassed me till 11:30 pm with calls and messages. I decided to call back in the morning. After several calls and emails, we decided not to proceed with them. They were lying about the quotation, behaving unprofessionally and so we lost our trust working with them. Did not want to be stuck later. BTW they take 100% amount before installing anything at your house.Now they are denying to refund us our money saying this is non-refundable. In the hope of some amicable resolution, I wrote to their management Gita Ramanan (CEO) & Anoop Krishnan (COO) on LinkedIn. After almost a month, no response.Today I got a call again stating the same - No Refund. When I asked instead of a refund give me something of the same value. To that, they offered me an interesting deal, book a minimum order of Rs. 2,00,000 and they will adjust Rs. 20,000. Aryabhatta must be amazed to see how Zero can make a difference. To get my money back I need to pay 10 times more, must be a joke.Facts of the case:1) Amount was for reserving a coupon and not any commitment to start the work.2) Design Cafe's presented us with false quotations and we chose to cancel the deal.3) This was based on verbal discussion and no agreement/documentation was signed between us.I thought to let it go as it was not a big amount, but I was reminded that it is my hard-earned money. I am posting this to make sure no one else falls into these scams. The Internet is full of such complaints and scams and no action is taken against any of them. They are happily defrauding homeowners and making money.

Date of experience: Apr 25, 2023